RE: “They are barely literate...”
For a related generational perspective, my father who was a college professor told me about this in the 1980. Some of the students were sadly deficient in skills such as writing.
My late sister was a middle school counselor, and she always said when the present generation starts taking over the country is toast. The kids she was talking about are now in their early 40’s. Not Z’s but I doubt things have improved.
Writing. Yes. I went up thru a school district that in the 1960’s was rated one of the top districts in the country. However, they never taught me how to write. Even today, my grand niece in the 7th grade was taught to write, beginning in the 4th grade.
In the work force, I learned how to write, and write well. I wrote a few documents on government compliance that were still in use twenty years later.
However, it took me a long time, and many revisions, before anything made sense.