[Don Corleone]

Illiteracy is the old “normal,” still hanging around while we pretend things are otherwise. I was talking with a church friend about prison ministry yesterday, and he mentioned how often inmates tell him, “I can’t read.”

Years ago..many many years ago.. as an airline employee I would be standing under the TV monitors at the airport when passengers, speaking English, would ask me for the gate number for flight XXX. It finally dawned on me that they couldn't read the damn monitors. This was 25-30 years ago, It can only have gotten worse.

[Tax-chick]

I have heard similar stories from others.