https://www.barbarabush.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BBFoundation_GainsFromEradicatingIlliteracy_9_8.pdf
Why are the teachers not completely embarrassed by this? How much of this is due to people not knowing English. Not caring about using it. Americans not caring
It doesn’t help our literacy level when some schools willfully don’t correct poor spelling or reading comprehension because they have been told “that’s racist!”.
The illiteracy problem is the result of the Child Cenetered, Whole Language drivel that is followed like a religion by the teaching profession. I spent a long time trying to tell these people that it is actually fairly easy to teach a child to read and spell, if one uses the correct methods. They didn’t want to hear a word of it.
I suspected it was intentional 30 years ago, but in light of today’s world, I have no doubt it was intentional. Dumb down society and control. It’s very clear.
If you want to drive a millennial to mental/emotional self-destruct tell him he’ll have to live on canned food for a month. Then give him instructions on how to use a can opener - written in cursive.
Why do we keep pouring more and more money in to the system that produces dumber and dumber students?
despite being one of the great solvable problems of our time.LOL.
Raise the minimum wage and spend more to support poverty. So-called "war on poverty" is actually a support system for poverty.
I know, the OP is on literacy, not wages. But literacy is not a pre-requisite to "make it" in the USA. The education level in general has been trending downward for many years. Throwing more money at it has made things WORSE. People have to yearn to learn. Defund public education and save that 2.2 trillion. The results would not be any worse than they are now.
Aside from people engaged in knowledge work, a large fraction of the population will not need to know how to read and write. Instead they will depend on video, audio, and icon knowledge, with text to speech and speech recognition as required.
Up until recently I didn't believe it was that large an issue, mistakenly thinking that it was a matter of "catching up" but now I know it's worse than anyone has addressed and suspect it's not solvable.
The internet, while it has made learning more accessible, has also lead to an expansion of language and usage that many folks are unwilling to embrace.
I don't know why I'm surprised anymore when someone reads a simple email and misses the message completely.
Well flooding the country with people who are illiterate in their native language isn’t going to raise those scores.
I think there is a flaw in the logic of this study. I do not dispute that those who are more literate make more money. But it is the behaviors associated with acquiring literacy that make the difference. Having intact parents who read to their children, making sure they succeed in school, and having the self discipline to use their schooling to improve themselves.
Having worked in education for over 30 years it would appear to me that what you are seeing is that it is the behaviors associated with people who are education resistant that lead to low literacy and low incomes and not the other way around. The schools are full of educationally resistant kids, and in the inner cities the numbers of JERKS (Just Educationally Resistant Kids) increases all the time.
The pattern to me seems to be fatherless children, with extremely young uneducated mothers who prefer taking their government checks to get their nails done, and iphones rather than making sure their kids learn and read. No discipline is instilled in their children and they cannot function in a setting that expects personal responsibility and self control. Gang membership, theft, constant fighting and disruptive behavior in classes is the norm. These are the reasons they are not literate, and they don’t care that they can’t read and don’t know anything. Literacy and learning are not culturally supported and not supported in their families.
Teaching them to be more literate, which they will resist, is not going to take away the other causes of lower income. For most that I have seen, they are “poor” because they continually make very poor choices and do not take responsibility for themselves. They have had 12 years of education on the taxpayer’s dime and they chose to continually not use that time to improve themselves.
This is what the left wanted. Dumb down the masses so they rely on government.
Who needs to read well to twerk like a stripper on a pole, write Retarded African Poetry, or have a welfare technician fill out the paperwork?
Deep State likes the citizenry ignorant and impaired.
The citizenry is much easier to rule.
Because the schools have abandoned reading, writing and rithmatic for CRT training in “intersectionality” and study of the 53 genders.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink
You can force an urban kid to school, but you can’t make him think
I wish the public understood how many “students” are not only disinterested in education - but hostile to the education process itself.
Many students told me they “just don’t like to read.” I taught 11th and 12th grade for over 30 years. The vast majority entered the 11th grade reading at a 3rd grade level - one with a 6th grade level of reading comprehension was considered a “genius.”
The majority of teachers I worked with were hard-working, dedicated and exasperated at all of this. They want kids to succeed, when they don’t, we teachers know we are blamed.
Kids and their dysfunctional families are never, ever held responsible for their poor academic progress - not doing homework, ever, not doing assignments, spotty attendance, not paying attention in class or disrupting others who ARE trying to learn.
How do teachers make up this incredible deficit in reading skills and comprehension? Especially with students who didn’t care, whose families didn’t care? They did the minimum to get by. Passing or failing didn’t matter to them.
There is no curiosity factor, no thirst for knowledge or education beyond the immediate - that and making sure the welfare money continues to roll in.
In 2017, the state of New York passed a law requiring prospective school teachers to take a literacy test to get their license, but repealed it the following year because 36 percent of whites, 54 percent of Hispanics and 59 percent of blacks failed on the first try.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/nyregion/ny-regents-teacher-exams-alst.html
That’s one way to put it. Stupidity costs money. Money that is earned by the non-stupid people. Enough said.
The Frankfurt School wins again.
How about “pandering to unwarranted self-esteem” costing trillions of dollars.