READING IS FUNDAMENTAL...AND INCREASINGLY RARE. Dana Goldstein first pointed to these results in a depressing post on American illiteracy yesterday, but I want to go through them in a bit more detail. According to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, the share of 12th graders lacking basic reading skills -- meaning they can't do simple things like extract train fares from a brochure -- jumped from 20% in 1992 to 27% in 2005, and that's an understatement, as it doesn't count the many who've dropped out long before the 12th grade. What's so discouraging, though, is that this deterioration came amidst improvements on a variety of other metrics that could've been expected to cause or signal educational progress. In 2005, for instance, 12th graders averaged 360 more hours of classroom insturction time than they did in 1990. Grades, too had, increased, by about .33 of a grade, though this could be a function of increased competition at the top. Indeed, the share of students taking the standard curriculum or better increased by 28%, to almost 70%. Of course, by the time you're a high school senior without reading skills, the damage is already done, and you're just being channeled through the system in order to pad the graduation rates. Margaret Spelling is right to hype NCLB in this context, as it's at least focusing on the correct subgroup, but Dana's similary correct to acidly wonder if that means the Bush administration will "actually [be] providing states with the funding and programmatic supports to enact NCLB's requirements, such as putting a high-quality teacher with a subject specific degree in every classroom?" Without dipping too deep into educational policy disputes (though I'd like to hear what these folks think), this isn't just an educational disgrace, it's a civic and economic emergency. Basic literacy is a prerequisite for functioning in contemporary American society, for understanding your financial plans and your mortgage terms and your health bills and those fact sheets you get at the doctor explaining what a hysterectomy is. Without that foundation, the question isn't even how much advancement will be denied, but how many catastrophes will be caused. --Ezra Klein
