Many American kids can NOT read

[Bill Ryan]

I'm opening this thread as a (sort of) companion thread to Deschooling Society, which I started a little earlier today.

'Deschooling' in itself won't solve the illiteracy problem, of course. There were very few schools anywhere 2,000 years ago, in a very largely illiterate world. (The Wiki page List of oldest schools is interesting, but there was also semi-formal schooling for some in Ancient Greece and Rome, as well as in Ancient Sumeria.)

The real issue here is that today's schools are not working, at least in America. (And, I suspect, in the UK and EU as well.) To prompt some discussion, here's one of many videos about this, all easily found. (The channel Etacude English Teachers, which this is from, posts videos like this every week.)

High Schoolers Can’t Read Basic Level: US Schools in Crisis

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ghN0cBOjRAs

[Victoria]

Yikes! For a short time, I worked as a postmaster and was appalled by how many millennials (and those younger) who entered the office, could not read or follow directions and had zero understanding of how to mail something. They seemed incapable of filling out simple forms and were basically devoid of any experience in performing small tasks without assistance of a calculator/ computer. You know, some look like they are older than they are and tower at 6+ feet, so I was shocked to find they didn't have a clue about anything: from counting change, to filling out their parents' addresses or even signing their names and reading regulations. Most asked sheepishly for me to do it all for them. They also absolutely 100% could not read or write in cursive. I'm sincerely hoping this decline is only apparent in portions of the US and not the rest of the world, too.

[Bill Ryan]

Bumping this thread with another short video, mainly TikTok reports from despairing (and unbelieving!) teachers. There's nothing here that's not been posted above, but it's another revealing indication of the state of US education (and in many cases, US parenting).



Why American Kids Can’t Read Anymore — The Shocking Truth Teachers Won’t Say Out Loud

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=w4kxcvG623M

The text:

Why are so many American kids struggling with reading today? In this video, I break down the real reasons behind America’s reading crisis—and it’s not just phones or “lazy kids.” Schools across the U.S. are seeing historic drops in reading ability, and teachers are sounding the alarm. From broken curriculum choices, lack of phonics instruction, failing reading programs, and distracted classrooms, to the impact of social media and parents being pulled away from reading at home… we need to talk about what’s really happening.

In this video you’ll learn:

✔️ Why kids aren’t mastering basic reading skills anymore
✔️ What schools and teachers say is going wrong
✔️ Why phonics and structured literacy matter
✔️ The truth about reading scores, screen time and comprehension
✔️ What parents and educators can do right now.

If you’re a teacher, parent, or student, this is a conversation America urgently needs.

[shaberon]

I tried to think of a corollary, and, I can't.

That is, I have not witnessed what amounts to illiteracy. I see inability, such as comparing ounces to other units.

This is what we were told in 1976:


Americans won't use the metric system because they are unable to learn.


That's right. I can go to any recipe in the world, which will tell me something like 450g of flour, but then you have to re-estimate it as volume so an American can fill a cup to a given line.

I certainly don't deal with the total number of youth, but, I do get a high proportion of kids out of high school. Why?


For one thing, adults are not looking for work.

However, a lot of these kids are actually very intelligent and well-informed in something they are interested in.

But if you learn stuff and go into society, here's what you find:


Literate adults are far stupider.


I can't mitigate that statement.

They are fostering a cycle of retardation, that is, actual developmental disability.

That means whenever one of these unfortunate victims bumps into me, they get paved. Sometimes I adjust my responses from "not true" to "actually backwards". And then of course, a young person will have to pass the stick, because "so and so told me". That's right. Your literate authority figure is actually backwards in a de-humanizing way that would be absolutely humiliating if anyone had a clue.

That's why I keep almost getting killed by garbage. You cannot operate a trash can in a normal manner.

So, no, I haven't had to deal with anything as bad as not recognizing words and numbers, but, I am afraid this "achievement" only enters you into a realm of nonsense.

The whole thing is very backwards.

[Flash]

Posted by Victoria (here)
Yikes! For a short time, I worked as a postmaster and was appalled by how many millennials (and those younger) who entered the office, could not read or follow directions and had zero understanding of how to mail something. They seemed incapable of filling out simple forms and were basically devoid of any experience in performing small tasks without assistance of a calculator/ computer. You know, some look like they are older than they are and tower at 6+ feet, so I was shocked to find they didn't have a clue about anything: from counting change, to filling out their parents' addresses or even signing their names and reading regulations. Most asked sheepishly for me to do it all for them. They also absolutely 100% could not read or write in cursive. I'm sincerely hoping this decline is only apparent in portions of the US and not the rest of the world, too.

It is better in Canada, we classify into literate, functional literate (read enough for work or to follow instructions) and illeterate. 52% of the population is functional literate, but won’t read a book. Tiny amount are illeterate

Europeans literates are much more.

However it does not prove having critical thinking and/or being aware enough about manipulations and mind programming.

I am often surprise by the lack of basic understanding of basic stuff in Montreal, but I am often really appalled atthe ignorance of Americans, real ignorance, much more than in Canada (I visit often enough the US). It is truly sad what has been done to US schools in the last 40 years (to ours as well but at a lesser degree)

[AutumnW]

That pretty much approximates what I've seen, from living in the States for several years and Canada. American national narcissism plays a role in their understanding of subjects like history and geography as well. And the more ignorant (not stupid) they are, the more the Dunning Kruger phenomenon is triggered. There are few Canadians, my age, I am happy to engage and even fewer Americans. Boomers tend to be mind numbingly mundane, for the most part.

[Brigantia]

I've often seen small children - about 3 to 5 years old - when I'm out and about in town with their heads bent over a smartphone. Before I started school, my mum would sit with me at the table and teach me some basics, like how to tell the time, how to count, add and subtract, and how to read and write. That gave me quite a head start when I went to pre-school at the age of 4.

Are parents not doing this anymore, and giving them a phone instead?

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Brigantia (here)
...like how to tell the time...

And many high school graduates, and even college students, can't tell the time from an analog clock.

[rgray222]

I think Trump is on the right track; he is advancing his plans to close the Department of Education, which was started under Democrats in 1979. From that day forward, there has been a steady decline in learning and test scores by virtually every metric known to man. At this point, the experiment can be considered an abject failure.

Trump is attempting to push all the money, authority and resources out to the state level, which will begin the healing process. The problem is that the Trump haters and the Democrats are willing to break their own toys to prevent Trump from having a win in any arena. They are sadly more than willing to sacrifice their own children. Hate really is a mental illness.

Homeschooling in the United States has transitioned from the fringe to the fastest growing form of education

Homeschooling in the United States has transitioned from a fringe movement to a mainstream educational choice, with significant growth observed over the past decade. Recent data indicate that approximately 5.2% of U.S. children ages 5–17 received academic instruction at home during the 2022–23 school year, up from 3.7% in 2018–19, reflecting a sustained increase beyond pandemic-era spikes. The National Home Education Research Institute estimates that more than 3 million students are currently learning at home, and recent analyses suggest the homeschooling population may now represent about 6% of all students, compared to around 3% before the pandemic. This shift is not merely a temporary trend but is described as a fundamental change in how American families view education, with many families seeking greater control, flexibility, and alignment with their values.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...a-by-district/

[AutumnW]

Most schools in poor states will close. There will be a lot more kids in Alabama and Mississippi ambling about, parent(s) at work, getting into major trouble. And how will Republicans deal with that? They'll lower the legal working age to 10 years old or thereabouts. Wait for it. It'll happen.

[shaberon]

Posted by Flash (here)
I am often surprise by the lack of basic understanding of basic stuff in Montreal, but I am often really appalled atthe ignorance of Americans, real ignorance, much more than in Canada (I visit often enough the US).

That's where I need everyone to throw me a bone, because, although I have not witnessed complete illiteracy, when you put it as American ignorance, that is what I have been clashing for decades.

The adult version is something like American Zionism cannot be understood by Europeans who came through actual histories of Pogroms and so forth, Americans believe in tv evangelists from the 1960s. John Birch is another term I extend beyond its technical historical context to summarize a similar shut-in type of ignorance. And if you are from Canada or Europe, you just can't understand how dumb they are.

During this time, the political undermining of the educational system was done at a state level by private interests. Someone posted a thread on Avalon that explains this, but, I can't remember where, because it is one of the few things I simply agree with. And so what you have is a corrupt ring of book salesmen determining what goes into the human mind. That's at least from the 1970s so it has long been submerged behind "further concerns", like you have to pass through a metal detector, you can't bring a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and so on.

Compared to what I am used to, when I go around these days, the human race looks extinct.

At best, it may be a convalescent center.

Condition of near atrophy.

But, I mean, we've been using frankenfood, artificial lights, and mandatory drugs to such a major extent, why would you expect anyone to be able to read?

How could anyone claim that the "things that have been done" are somehow good?

[Isserley]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by Brigantia (here)
...like how to tell the time...

And many high school graduates, and even college students, can't tell the time from an analog clock.

I don't know why, but I don't find it particularly strange or reprehensible. Especially since analog clocks are a thing of the past and people keep them at home only for decorative purposes.
We could equally speak for many other practices and technologies such as cursive writing, memorizing phone numbers, reading paper maps, typewriters, floppy discs & cd's..
Technologies and knowledge change rapidly and young people only use the current tools they have very well and leave the "old ways" in the past.

Every generation does it, to a greater or lesser extent, and then the old people say the same thing over and over again about the decline of the youth.

[shaberon]

Posted by Isserley (here)
I don't know why, but I don't find it particularly strange or reprehensible. Especially since analog clocks are a thing of the past and people keep them at home only for decorative purposes.

We could equally speak for many other practices and technologies such as cursive writing, memorizing phone numbers, reading paper maps, typewriters, floppy discs & cd's..
Technologies and knowledge change rapidly and young people only use the current tools they have very well and leave the "old ways" in the past.

Every generation does it, to a greater or lesser extent, and then the old people say the same thing over and over again about the decline of the youth.

I use an analog clock every few minutes.

Often, a typewriter or a pencil would serve me far greater than a computer.

There is nothing digital that will ever be the sound of a vacuum tube or a record. Some of our progress is certainly downgrades.

Families still pass down a Bible, meaning things aren't discarded just because they are obsolete.

It's an interesting dynamic about change over time. I easily remember our assistant principal getting on a lunch table with this [I]John Birch[/I tirade that told us how useless and corrupt we were, and so the country would be taken over by communists without firing a shot, and that was certain to happen twenty or more years ago.

So I mean, I think my parental generation was simply wrong on a few counts.

In most ways, those around me are still repeating the same circles with very little changed, except the perennial phone like an IV drip bag. It takes the cake. I've seen parties that consist of hovering over your phone. They don't know how to talk. They don't know how to do anything. But they have to know how to read in order to use it. That's why the premise of this thread puzzles me a bit.


I don't understand what it's like to spend your 20s at one job that your parents drive you to. They have to do that, because, if you could afford a car at all, you couldn't afford the insurance, you'd have to get another job.

It used to be common to quit school at 16, because you could go to work, there were a ton of cheap cars, there was no insurance, it was almost free, or at least minimum wage meant that it was an actual livable wage. You could enter the adult world and make your way. These days, chances are I'm going to politely ignore you and try to get rid of you.

As far as I can tell, since the time of that screaming communist speech, society has, in fact, totally changed, just not in the way he said it. The abundance of rules seems to be only to the detriment of the human being.

[Bill Ryan]

Vanessa Wingårdh usually posts videos about technical developments in AI. But here, she's connecting AI with the scary and dramatic drop in the number of American students who can barely read.



40% of [American] Kids Can’t Read, and Teachers Are Quitting

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=XTugyu2F0pc

[petra]

This is really shocking and confirms my suspicions of society being "dumbed down"

[Bill Ryan]

Another update:

Gen Alpha Still Can’t Read (And Teachers Are Quitting)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=NYKLer3T7-M

[Sue (Ayt)]

Posted by AutumnW (here)
Most schools in poor states will close. There will be a lot more kids in Alabama and Mississippi ambling about, parent(s) at work, getting into major trouble. And how will Republicans deal with that? They'll lower the legal working age to 10 years old or thereabouts. Wait for it. It'll happen.

Speaking of Mississippi, apparently they have turned their education system around, to the chagrin of the more progressive states. Seems they have re-embraced more "old-fashioned" teaching methods and policies.

How Mississippi moved from the bottom to the top in education
All eyes are on the Magnolia State

Mississippi’s upward progress has made it the center of conversation in the education world over the past few years, as people consider how one of the poorest states could manage such significant jumps in statistics. While some are in awe of what the state has accomplished, others question whether the “Mississippi miracle” was achieved with the right kinds of strategies.

Climbing the ranks
Mississippi has risen from 49th in the country on national tests in 2013 to a top 10 state for fourth-grade reading levels, “even as test scores have fallen almost everywhere else,” said The New York Times. Adjusted for poverty and other demographic factors, Mississippi ranks first in fourth-grade reading and math and is at or near the top in eighth-grade reading and math, according to the Urban Institute.

In terms of the states that are “helping kids coming from difficult circumstances learn as much as they can,” Mississippi is doing “much better than many other states, said Michael Petrilli, the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, to the Times. This is “including wealthier states in affluent progressive areas.”

The state’s fourth graders “exceeded the national reading average” for the first time in 2024, said the International Business Times. The state’s overall education ranking rose to 16th nationally by 2025, its “highest ever.” Mississippi’s low-income fourth graders “now perform better than those in every other state, surpassing Michigan by 17 points.​”

How it happened
The turnaround in educational achievement has many wondering how Mississippi, with its “low education spending and high child poverty,” managed such a change, said the Times. It did not rely on common proposals such as “reducing class sizes or dramatically boosting per-student funding.” Instead, the state made sweeping policy changes, including “changing the way reading is taught,” relying on an approach known as the science of reading. It is also “embracing contentious school accountability policies other states have backed away from.”

The science of reading was a “key piece of what we did,” said Rachel Canter, the longtime leader of education reform group Mississippi First who now works at the Progressive Policy Institute, said to the Times. But people are “missing the forest for the trees if they are only looking at that.”

In addition to adjusting reading instruction, Mississippi “raised academic standards and started giving each school a letter grade, A to F,” said the Times. The state takes an “unusually strong role in telling schools what to do.” The Department of Education also deploys literacy and mathematics coaches in low-performing elementary schools to assist educators. State officials vet and approve the curriculum used by the majority of districts, which is “unusual in a country that prizes local control of schools.”

Perhaps the most controversial policy is holding back third graders who cannot read proficiently. The state was able to enact changes, in part, because it has “weak teachers’ unions,” which have “traditionally resisted accountability linked to standardized testing.”

Mississippi is intensifying its efforts, with the education department planning to request $9 million from state lawmakers this year to “expand literacy coaching beyond the early elementary grades,” the Times said. Other states have “gone in the opposite direction” by “backing off accountability and lowering proficiency standards, sometimes in the name of equity.” Still, a handful of states, including Louisiana and Alabama, are “seeing promising results using a similar set of strategies as Mississippi.”

To fail to improve education is to “lastingly abandon a significant fraction of our children to a lifelong struggle,” said The Argument Substack. “And blue states have been failing.” They have been spending heavily on schools but have been unwilling to “muster the political will and effort necessary to hold those schools accountable for results and adopt teaching practices that actually work.”

https://theweek.com/education/missis...s-reading-math

Mississippi Schools Are Better Than Yours

Wikipedia has an entry dedicated to the phrase “Thank God for Mississippi,” because its horrible performance on so many metrics saves other states the embarrassment of finishing last. The term has been used since at least 1945.

This has made it awkward in recent years, as Mississippi has become the fastest-improving school system in the country.

You read that right. Mississippi is taking names.

In 2003, only the District of Columbia had more fourth graders in the lowest achievement level on our national reading test (NAEP) than Mississippi. By 2024, only four states had fewer.

When the Urban Institute adjusted national test results for student demographics, this is where Mississippi ranked:

Fourth grade math: 1st
Fourth grade reading: 1st
Eighth grade math: 1st
Eighth grade reading: 4th


There’s a much broader trend afoot. This spring, Paul Peterson and Michael Hartney showed that red states (as defined by 2024 presidential election votes) are overtaking their blue counterparts academically. In 2019, blue states had higher average NAEP scores on all four major tests (fourth and eighth grade reading and math). By 2024, red states had taken the lead in three of the four.

more of this article at link
https://www.thefp.com/p/mississippi-...ibly-have-good

[shaberon]

Looking at the schools, we do not have bus drivers, cafeteria, or custodial workers because the pay isn't good enough.

That's not really the case with teachers. They're not teaching because they can't:


"Dawn of a New Educational Era: Confronting the Epic Crisis in 2024 Without Teachers"

Student behavior plays a pivotal role, impacting teacher retention and job satisfaction. In classrooms where disruptive behavior is prevalent, educators may face stress and burnout, leading to a higher likelihood of leaving the profession.

The National Learning Institute (NLI) conducted a survey among classroom teachers to identify the reasons behind their decisions to exit the profession. Repeatedly, responses pointed to key areas, with classroom management ranking as the primary concern, while administrator support and pay were identified as the least influential factors.

Moreover, teachers expressed significant apprehension about the absence of parental support or engagement. They also highlighted the challenge of having to instruct students in various subjects, including content delivery, social-emotional learning, and motivating disinterested students. The data indicated a noteworthy trend of students being extensively engaged in social media, reaching alarming levels.

64% of our country’s fourth graders do not read proficiently.

It's situational.

That's how I work, I go into a place that's not set up for it, which in theory has piles of rules, and in practice is a run-around. I wouldn't do it if I could find something else. Obviously teaching wouldn't be it. I can't imagine the sheer weight of protocols that must be applied constantly.

It didn't go that way before. I had a "disruptive" friend who would get up and walk around while everyone was studying, and one day the teacher got a piece of rope and tied him to his desk. Try that now and you've probably got jail time and a lawsuit.



I took that from a page with literacy statistics. Highly developed countries = 96%, US = 79%, undeveloped countries = 65%, among adults. Even though they can read, what it means in terms of American adults:

54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level).

Half of my country cannot pass the sixth grade.

Is that just reading, of course not, it is the whole personality. They can read and function about like a normal twelve-year-old. They're neither prepared nor ready to deal with any kind of complex adult challenges.

Nor is it equally distributed:

New Mexico was the state with the lowest child literacy rate.

New Hampshire was the state with the highest percentage of adults considered literate.

The state with the lowest adult literacy rate was California.

Yes, the state of Mississippi had a terrible reputation. It's not much besides cotton fields, what do you expect? I don't think I've ever known anyone from there, which puts it on par with Wyoming. Each of the other states, if not having been born there, I have met someone who at least lived there for a few years or enough to get the feel of it.

It's simpler to fix because it is so plain and small. The southwest you could almost chalk up to "illiterate Mexican border jumpers" which accounts for about 34% of the illiterate population. Harder for them (or anyone) to reach New Hampshire.

I will never understand, because books became my favorite thing when I was three.

Now, if you can manage to learn to read, your textbooks will be hobbled opinionated thought control dispersed by vested interests, who, I understand, crippled the quality of textbooks after I was finished.

[grapevine]

This Is Really Bad

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sC_VWI0AHes

I imagine it's also the same with UK children today.

[shaberon]

This is, again, for me at least -- I am not sure constitutes total illiteracy -- but all it makes is broken people:

A recent study shows that US students use their phones an average of 64 times per school day ruining concentration and cognitive abilities.

By this time, we are all familiar with the image of some harried schoolteacher attempting to maintain control over a classroom where the majority of students are transfixed by their smartphones instead of the dusty chalkboard. The dangers of social media for the minds of young and old alike has already been well-documented, and the amount of time that students spend on their handheld devices is increasing with each new study conducted.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill tracked the real-time phone habits of middle and high schoolers and found something that should disturb every teacher and parent. Phone usage appeared during every single hour of the school day, and not a single student in the study went the entire school day without using their mobile phone. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the students who used their phones most often also showed noticeably less self-control.

Published in JAMA Network Open, this new study monitored the phone habits of 79 students aged 11 to 18 over two consecutive weeks and found the average teen racks up more than two full hours of screen time during school time alone. That’s approximately one-third of their total daily phone use – and over a quarter of the entire school day! But the more disturbing discovery wasn’t how long students were on their phones. The alarming factor was how often the students were reaching for their devices, and how that nervous, knee-jerk habit appears to be linked to concentration levels.

Like infants reaching out for their favorite security blanket, students reached for their phones an average of 64 times during the school day, and those who grabbed their devices most often scored worse on a standard test that measured concentration and self-control. The study shows a link not just between phones and distraction, but between compulsive phone use and the kind of mental discipline adolescents need to learn and develop.

“That’s pretty alarming … It’s too much, not only because of the missed learning opportunity in the classroom,” researcher Lauren Hale, sleep expert and professor at Stony Brook’s Renaissance School of Medicine told The 74.

“They’re missing out on real life social interaction with peers, which is just as valuable for growth during a critical period of one’s life.”

To say that smartphones have become a pervasive feature of adolescents’ daily lives would be a gross understatement. More than 95% of American teens reported access to a handheld device and nearly half described themselves as “almost constantly” online as of 2024. The authors of the study aim to determine how this omnipresent force, which acts just like a drug for its millions of users, shapes adolescent development, “particularly in contexts such as school that are designed to foster sustained attention, academic engagement, and social growth.”

The authors of the study wrote: “Developmental theories of self-regulation suggest that adolescence is a period of heightened vulnerability to distraction, given ongoing maturation of prefrontal cognitive control systems alongside sensitivity to rewarding social information. The constant availability of smartphones therefore will increase social media distraction during school hours, creating unique challenges for adolescents’ ability to regulate attention and maintain focus on academic tasks.”

In other words, teachers face greater obstacles than ever before when it comes to controlling their classrooms. Needless to say, teachers should not be required to compete against smartphones in the classroom. Across the study, phone use was monitored during every hour of the school day, from 8 AM until the final bell at 3 PM. On average, screen time increased progressively from about 16 minutes at 8 AM. to more than 22 minutes by 2 PM. One particularly distracted student racked up more than five hours of phone use during school across the study period.

High school students accessed their smartphones significantly more than middle schoolers, averaging roughly 23 minutes of screen time per hour compared to about 12 minutes for younger students. Researchers also monitored which apps were getting the attention. It’s no surprise that social media behemoths, including Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, combined with entertainment apps like YouTube, accounted for almost 70 percent of total school-hours screen time. Incredibly, students averaged about 75 minutes on social media during the school day and nearly 50 minutes on entertainment apps, the report showed.

Did all of this screen time negatively influence the ability of students to concentrate? To find out, researchers tested the high school student’s concentration using a go/no-go task, a standard exercise in which participants are instructed to activate a button in response to one image but hold back when they see another. This test measures a person’s ability to override an automatic impulse, a key attribute of self-control. Among those examined, students who picked up their phones more often during school performed worse.

The results of the study will assist school administrators and parents in the ongoing debate as to whether or not smartphones should be banned from school. Some nations, meanwhile, have gone further. Australia has banned children under 16 from registering on social media and Malaysia introduced a similar ban in January. The European Parliament is openly discussing following the example of these two countries.

Perhaps we should end here with a quote by Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, who allegedly said his children were not allowed to use smartphones and computers, “because it takes two weeks to become an advanced user, but a childhood spent staring at screens costs something far more valuable: time for real development.”

I don't get it. Anything we had in school that caused a distraction would simply be confiscated. This is more like an unhealthy trans-human paradigm.