Why are so many Americans functionally illiterate?
bbc.com
Why are so many Americans functionally illiterate?
bbc.com
because burgerland really buys into the homeschooling meme and their public school system is shit
The thing to consider is the US is massive compared to other parts of the world. New England is about the size of a European country, very unreligious, and loaded with some of the best public schools in the nation and best universities in the world. It’s a world leader in biotech and medical science.
Conversely many other parts of the US are more or less 3rd world. The country is very heterogenous, and it’s in part due to a negative feedback loop, where a lack of money begets a lack of educations, which further erodes education as a lack of priority,less funding for education, repeat ad nauseum
The two people from the video weren't homeschooled I think.
I don't understand why americans use the "you cannot judge US as a whole because it's massive and varied" defence all of the time while same can be said by Russia, which is 95% third world but has several bigger cities with unbelievable amount of culture, riches, modern tech and smart people. Not a russian (I'm eurofag) but seen a documentary series about some guys visiting random locations in Russia in depth and it's unbelievable how some places are beautiful and look pretty much 1st world, while some other places live in medieval times.
Not saying that it's incorrect what you say about US, just saying that using that defence only goes to show that US has massive problems if you say that most of the country is backwater white trash.
The difference is that Russians living in backwater areas are literate and have at least a passing familiarity with fine literature. Definitely more so than in the U.S which are cultural wastelands.
too much mcdonalds restricts blood flow to the brain, honestly americans are barely human
The literacy issue has nothing to do with "backwater areas". Examining the literacy rate by race will immediately show that it appears to be a racial issue, but it's not related to IQ or inferior/superior phenotypes (there is no such thing). No, it's a teaching problem. Public schools in urban areas are essentially shitty daycare centers. The teachers don't give a fuck and have no interest in teaching these kids, and there have been numerous scandals where schools were caught teaching kids explicitly how to pass the tests and only the tests, to bring up their averages and net them more funding. Then you have the parents of these kids who were brought up in those same shit-tier schools and don't know any better.
The US is in dire need of a complete overhaul of our education system, but specific attention needs to be paid to urban schools rather than at best, continuing to sweep it all under the rug, and at worst, blaming the students themselves for being "unteachable" which is bullshit of the highest order.
there is no scientific definition of "functionally illiterate" and it's a bullshit term made up to make smug twats on the internet feel smart.
t. functionally illiterate
And the electoral college means their votes are weighted more too.
Because we're so smart we based school funding on grades. So the better the grades your school gets, the more federal funding it gets. So the schools with all the poor illiterate kids stay poor and illiterate.
I worked for a time for an adults' literacy program and I was really shocked at the extent of it. The county I was living in at the time was even relatively prosperous, and its real literacy rate was something like only 60% of adults in the county being literate. The rest were either completely or functionally illiterate. This was in spite of the large immigrant population to this specific county. It was even worse outside it, and especially the further west you went.
It's scandalous, frankly. It's shameful and nothing really is being done about it.
so much for the free market right
what the fuck, is that county an amish village or indian reservate or something?
The free market is busy channeling money from public schools to private, for-profit charter schools.
The funding, yeah, but this literacy problem goes back decades even before NCLB
NCLB was to shut down public schools that did poorly on standardized testing and then replace them with privatized schools.
It's in the South. There are even worse places. Also usually in the South.
I can't imagine how some of these places are getting by. You drive through some suburban or country towns and it looks like it's been shelled. City centers are ghost towns and all around them will be chain stores like Dollar General or Hardees or some shit like that. Lots of the commute-towns the working class bought homes in after WW2 grow deserted as the old people in them die off.
Things are emphatically fucked. Not everywhere, but damn near.
schools being underfunded, lack of good teachers and abusing the special ed label. I have been to 3 special ed schools and they are a microcosm of America. Most "special ed " kids are just kids with minor learning disabilities,attention disorders and poor kids that refuse to learn because they given up on the system.
This allows the state to have lower quality teachers in the schools.
Many teachers are straight out of college and they did not know what to do,i thank God I made it out before they fired all the older teachers who were experienced at special ed teaching do to underfunding. As well when kids get fussy they basically call in specialized school police called crisis that brutalize the kid and takes them to a room were if they talk they get brutalize some more.
Basically dehumanizes many in the special ed schools where it becomes a revolving door where they can never escape from a type of school that's entire purpose is to make sure they're able to enter regular school or regular Society. By the time they get out they are woefully inefficient at dealing with regular school and society and end up crashing and burning. It's sad thank god i got out.
Can the nukes start dropping already?
Russian cities and Siberia have the same amounts of culture. Stop buying into the “museums are culture” meme. Culture is based on Food, dress and customs. Not some 400 year old painting.
Well the third world parts of the US are poorer so this is probably good for the left.
Bad meme. Please never use this logic again. The material and quality of teachers is lacking.
Ugghhh, no. The poorest parts vote conservative.
...
,>>2202743
As well kids that were actually special ed kids ended up passing even though they were very illiterate and their writing was very bad. I remember two dumb kids that went to the same middle school as me, one got found out as being dumb and had to do summer school and got put in a different school and the other with had very bad grades yet got to the same high school I went to before also being found out but i don't know if they put him back in to a middle school.
WTF I hate public school funding now
so do the richest parts
I was homeschooled by an educated person and also sought information on my own. High school was absolutely horrible and boring for me, so I asked my mom if I could do homeschooling. She said sure, so I did it.
I think Americans are just retarded in general and pride themselves on ignorance.
Google school spending vs performance
Additionally read this article:
washingtonpost.com
Why are you strawmanning me? Everyone supports public school funding but it's clear that the inefficient management of resources under capitalism does nothing to raise scores. These scores have also become inflated over time.
Black people.
I'm not even joking. The illiteracy rate and black population line up pretty closely.
Illiteracy and poverty line up closely, regardless of race.
That happened in the school i went to
IF IT WERE NOT FOR THE METAPHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF NIGGERS EXISTING PEOPLE WOULD BE MORE LITERATE, CLEETUS WOULD HAVE A PH.D. IN ASTROPHYSICS IF THAT SCIENCE NIGGER DR. TYSON DID NOT TAKE IT.
Not really
Not really
t. Pol Pot
In a situation like this, I do begin to understand why homeschooling could be a better option.
How do illiterate burgers even function day to day? Like what do they do when driving to new places or stores, they just judge the signs by their colors? How do they use the internet, or read blueprint instructions at work?
kek
Funny thing is, statistically speaking, the majority of those illiterates are blacks. Nice try though…
Quite embarrassing for the USofA
But they have the material conditions for leftism.
Stores have Spanish signs too. You don't need to learn English at all in the US. It's actually Mexico, don't you know? :^)
Getting so drunk that you pass out in humorous positions isn't culture, my guy.
Why are Americans such repulsive people?
Do you require a safe space? Perhaps a hug box?
Not really. There are no means of production for them to seize since all the jobs are in the cities.
That was a 90s trend.
t. someone who got sentenced to 200 hours of community service at an adult literacy program
It's because of computer science. Debord talks about it in Comments
As a russian I think youu dont know what the fuck you are talking about, after the fall of USSR people started getting more ignorant and stupid
They barely do. It's horrible to watch.
Oh shit this article covers my state. If this shit doesn't change down the road I will be too disgraced to want to live in this country. In fact, I already am to some extent… Being a self-aware burger hurts.
Anyone got tips for reading Kant and Hegel? I feel lost reading young Karl Marx without them.
the third world is coming, buckos
Reported for reeseism
At least the bricks can't help it