Apparently reading skills are what we should be working on. FOR THE FOURTH TIME, I agree a basic understanding of the process is necessary but spending time, resources and effort on honing computational skills with paper and pencil in a world where no one does that professionally and calling it meaningful education is fraud.
The problem with state owned and delivered schooling is that there are endless curriculum and policy wars as citizens fight for their worldview. It's a serious cold war, since it is impossible for education to be religiously, culturally, and politically neutral. The winners get to control school content and the consequences are not neutral either for the individual or the nation.