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Posted on 07/05/2026 5:38:11 AM PDT by DFG
Gone are the days of university freshmen reading classical philosophers like Plato or contemporary pedagogues like Ta-Nehisi Coates. These days, incoming college students are lucky if they can get through Judy Blume’s “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.”
According to a new “Survey of Adult Skills” conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development — a forum for 38 high-income, predominantly Western countries — a not insignificant number of adult students enrolled in higher education are now reading and doing math at a level which, in a more functional society, would be alarming for a middle schooler.
The survey, first spotted by the Economist, tested around 160,000 people of all ages, across all 38 member states. It found that across all OECD member countries, a full 8 percent of college students are reading at the level of a ten-year-old, if not worse. While countries like Germany and France rang in at under 5 percent, countries like Poland, Israel, and the United States blew the curve at 21, 20, and 14 percent, respectively.
The numbers aren’t much better when it comes to math. Across OECD countries, 9 percent of college students do math at or below a ten-year-old level. In Italy, the US, and Slovakia, that figure jumps to over 15 percent — only outdone by Israel, where roughly 21 percent of college students were underachieving at the same low benchmark.
It seems there are numerous compounding explanations for these test results: pandemic-era learning gaps leading to lower levels of preparation, declining college enrollment forcing schools to lower admissions standards, and lower levels of public funding for education, to name a few.
The results also coincide with the explosion of large language models like ChatGPT, which by many accounts have carved out a new floor for academic failure in both K-12 and college-level education.
While there’s no denying how complicated the issue is, there is evidence that removing technology from classrooms altogether could offer an immediate boost.
In one classroom in Minneapolis, for example, a literature and English teacher banned phones and laptops, requiring all coursework to be done on pencil and paper. As the school-year started in September, just 46 percent of the students involved said they felt confident about their reading skills. A few months later in February, that number stood at 95 percent.
Though it’s just one classroom, something is clearly off the rails in the education systems of the richest countries of the world — and the longer it goes unaddressed, the more students will be pushed into the world with the reading skills of 4th graders.
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I saw a poll today that said 47% of Americans don’t know the reason for a 4th of July celebration.
This is all going exactly as the political class would have it, especially the left.
Future Democrats/Communists/Socialists all.
We’ve lowered the standards for 60 years to be more “inclusive” so everyone can get an education, so now the dummies are the norm. Better to maintain high standards so college has value and meaning.
another globalist extra-governmental agency with an agenda
“College Students Are Testing at the Level of 10-Year-Olds”
Looks to me that the public schools are doing even better at achieving their goals than I even thought.
Thank goodness they’re ‘free’ or I could never live with myself for sending my kids to them.
Can’t be used as a “ useful idiot” until you’ve been de educated down to idiot mentality.
There will always be the smart innovators out there. They’ll come up with whatever the market demands. That may be why so many degreed folks are left wing. Their jobs will be easier as those with lower intelligence will be easier to control.
Jay Leno demonstrated the ignorance of graduating college students numerous times on his “JayWalking” interviews shown on the Tonight Show when he was host. Some of them are on YouTube videos.
Also, back in the day (before calculators), if I needed to solve a math problem, I had to open a book to find the formula and do it myself. Today I use the caculator on my iPhone.
Technology has made our lives easier. Also lazier.
........why are taxpayers paying teachers huge salaries?......
The dumber a person is the more apt they are to become communists and radicals. A shining example is AOC.
And, as Rush used to say: “Stupid and proud of it”.
Jay Leno demonstrated how to sell comedy by cutting out any videos of students who could answer the questions, and by interviewing tourists in particular.
Those videos are from a very tainted sample group.
Raising sheep for the Communist slaughter.
“........why are taxpayers paying teachers huge salaries?”
Because there are enough IDIOT parents who think paying them even more will get better results...when, in fact, all they see is dumbing down the country and getting more pay...so why stop doing that?
What do you expect? Half of college instructors are idiots that have no business being near our children.
::We’ve lowered the standards for 60 years to be more “inclusive” so everyone can get an education....::
~~~~
It was sold as being more inclusive, but it was just another weapon for destroying Western Civilization.
Right...also, alienated and social misfits. Communist recruits most easily with that element
You got that all wrong! Higher education - colleges\universities are sports entertainment organizations with a sideline in education.
“The dumber a person is the more apt they are to become communists and radicals. A shining example is AOC.”
I think she’s VERY SMART - she’s worked her way into a position with a clear shot at the White House without even needing a guy to hook on to in some way. Even Skunk Cabbage would have been relegated to being a bitchy lawyer all her life had she not hooked on to Bill.
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