The high point of literacy in America was reached at the BEGINNING of the age of the Government School. The Government School was introduced to America for the purpose of REDUCING the level of literacy in America. The Government Schools are a resounding success. They are accomplishing what they were designed to do: create an illiterate, ignorant, fornicating Mass American, who would be amenable to being herded into factories and to the battlefield.
My eyes glaze over anytime I hear any politician, no matter how “conservative,” promising to “fix” the Government Schools. They ARE NOT BROKEN. They are functioning PERFECTLY. They are accomplishing PRECISELY what they have been DESIGNED to accomplish.
Do they still devote so much of the school day to showing social engineering films? They used to use 16mm projectors from the AV department.
From the the post war era up through the 1980s (as video came into the classrooms), they were commonplace. And studies have been done on the messages they tried to impart on students (sometimes effectively, sometimes giving the wrong message).
School vouchers. Mike Huckabee opposes school vouchers, btw.
Did you know that the President of the NAACP Julian Bond, who opposes school vouchers, attended private schools his entire academic life?