REPOSTING FROM VOX
I’ve been promising to do this for a long time; this is the first post and a bit unnerving. I’m thinking lots of things at once. That I read today that 2/3rds of DC residents on welfare read only at the 5th grade level at best. Earlier I’d read that six in 10 adults in DC can’t read beyond a 4th grade level. What are we DOING???
At the same time, reports tell us sexy music might make kids have more sex (surprised, anyone?),and that fact gets geometrically more attention that this reading and education crisis. I don’t understand why no one cares — we are losing our international leadership position because those emerging from our schools don’t measure up to our economic competitors. Never mind the politicization of science and the exodus of scientific researchers to more enlightened countries.
OK so I sound cranky. And I didn’t really begin this blog to talk about the state of American education – even though it does obsess me. But it’s just so sad! I grew up in a milltown and went to a “culturally deprived” high school. We had all kinds of enrichment, we had plenty of AP classes and amazing teachers. As far as I can tell lots of that has stopped. This country can provide excellent education, it just isn’t doing so. I went to Russia in 1991 to produce a tv show and the advanced kids there were reading Jane Austen in THE TENTH GRADE!! IN ENGLISH!!! Holy cow.