Cuffy_Meigs Posted January 27, 2017 Posted January 27, 2017 "UK literacy rates have barely improved since 1870". "Government education programs in the US have had almost no effect on literacy rates" I have heard several libertarians, including Stef make such claims but I can find very little evidence to support them. What are these sorts of claims based on - census data? From what I have discovered so far, it may be claimed that government intervention in education had very little effect on the TREND for improved literacy; the data contains no sudden pick-up. It is also possible to compare modern functional literacy (ability to engage in complex written communication) with the most basic ability to write your own name on a marriage certificate 150 years ago, but this is hardly a fair comparison. As sombody who advocates the separation of state and education, I want to be able to shout these claims from the rooftops - but only if they are true. Can anybody shed some light on where the supporting data comes from?
Mister Mister Posted January 28, 2017 Posted January 28, 2017 there was a fellow who wrote a book called the decline of literacy or something. He doesn't actually credit it to public schooling, as he is a leftist intellectual, I think he blames technology and Republicans or something. But he shows how the US led the world in newspaper sales per capita, very high level reading like Dickens and Melville and Whitman and Thomas Paine were best-sellers, and the Presidential debates between Lincoln and Douglass used language at a college reading level. Fast forward to today, when many high school graduates can't fill out an application to McDonald's, best-sellers are trash like Da Vinci Code or 50 Shades of Gray, and Presidential debates are at a 7th grade reading level. 1
Cuffy_Meigs Posted January 29, 2017 Author Posted January 29, 2017 Thanks RoseCodex, your reply was a good one, as usual. I haven't found the Decline of Literacy book yet but I'll keep looking. I suspect the truth may be that the most basic literacy skills have indeed improved but functional literacy and the ability for deep, rational thought have not. As you intimated, no politician nowadays could attempt to put across complex ideas without being derided from all sides. Very rarely one or two have tried it and become laughing stocks. Today there are few more heinous crimes than being "elitist" (i.e. intelligent).
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