Another argument for libraries... adult literacy campaigns do not do very much

Yikes... nobody will ever accuse FAVL of being an expensive failure.  Cheap failure, possibly.

"Freed from Illiteracy? A Closer Look at Venezuela's Misión Robinson Literacy Campaign"

Economic Development and Cultural Change, 57:1-30, October 2008

Daniel Ortega
Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración, Caracas
Francisco Rodríguez
Wesleyan University

Abstract

We evaluate the success of the Venezuelan government's latest nationwide literacy program, Misión Robinson, using official Venezuelan government survey data. Controlling for existing trends in literacy rates by age groups over the period 1975-2005, we find at most a small positive effect of Misión Robinson on literacy rates, and in many specifications the program's impact is statistically indistinguishable from zero. This main result is robust to time series analysis by birth cohort and to state-level difference-in-differences estimation. The results appear to be inconsistent with recent official claims of the complete eradication of illiteracy in Venezuela, but they resonate with existing research on other adult literacy programs, which have usually been expensive failures.