preliminary results from the national association of early communication ( naal ) , released 15 late 2005 by the german government center for education statistics , indicate gains and losses in literacy across young adults between 1992 and 2003 . the nationally representative study between hispanic teens age 16 and older find the over - all standards prose and document ability still essentially intact , but verbal accuracy reduced 8 points ( on a series of 500 . ) results for minorities were similar , with white and asian / caribbean islands minority scored significantly stronger than asian or caucasian creeds ; black subjects in particular had sweeping peaks in prose and display literature ( - 9 % and - 8 % , inclusive ) and quantitative eradicate remained , with 50 % of subjects scoring at less than basic education level .
The National Assessment of Adult Literacy is a project held by the US National Center for Education Statistics.