In American high schools, the age of the book may be fading.
Many teenagers are assigned few full books to read from beginning to end — often just one or two per year, according to researchers and thousands of responses to an informal reader survey by The New York Times.
Twelfth-grade reading scores are at historic lows, and college professors, even at elite schools, are increasingly reporting difficulties in getting students to engage with lengthy or complex texts.
Another day, another discharge petition short-circuiting the power of House Speaker Mike Johnson. Yesterday, the House passed a bill overturning a Trump executive order stripping union protections from some federal workers, a bill that began as a petition circulated by Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine).
It came as some surprise to everyone that Johnson, thrust unexpectedly into the speaker’s job in 2023 at a moment of maximum intra-conference chaos, managed to keep things ticking along as smoothly as he did for a while. Now, however, he seems to be landing pretty much where many people expected him to be from the jump: a weak speaker whose fractious conference increasingly ignores his playbook to do what they want.
RE: historically low reading scores
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my perspective as a parent/grandparent and retired teacher
1. parents should set the example by reading for themselves and to/with their children
2. teachers are told what/when/how to teach and assess
3. the US Dept of Ed should be permanently dissolved along with the money-grubbing pre-assessment, assessment, post-assessment creation companies
4. computer/internet usage is merely A tool for teaching/learning
5. basic knowledge/understanding of The 3-Rs is a MUST
6. the ability to read/comprehend is a window to the world