What’s the biggest problem facing American families that they can actually do something to solve?
It isn’t who uses what bathroom.
It isn’t whether Heather has two mommies.
It isn’t even the ever-growing difference between the extremely wealthy and average working people, except possibly peripherally.
Nope. It isn’t anything that will draw an “I told you so” from folks on the right or the left.
It comes down to education, at least in part, but it isn’t about critical race theory or AP African-American Studies. It’s much more basic than that.
According to a 2022 study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, too many kids simply can’t read.
And if you think about such a basic thing, such a critical skill, being able to read and comprehend what you read is pretty much necessary to have a successful adult life.
The NAEP study showed that among American fourth graders, only 33 percent read at or above the level of proficiency expected for their age. That’s four percent lower than the 2019 survey.
Who’s to blame for those numbers?
The schools are no more than a secondary villain.
Whether their problems are always avoidable or not. the families — particularly the parents — play the biggest role in their children being illiterate. There are certainly parents — especially single ones — who have to work such long hours that they have little or no time to spend with their children.
Sadly, those kids might just be screwed.
But there are certainly parents who are just negligent, parents who get home from work and just drink beer or watch television. Parents who say Daddy/Mommy is tired and needs to be left alone to relax.
Those kids are screwed too.
You want real irony?
The level of literacy in the United States was at its highest in the 18th century, before there was ever mandatory public education. In New England and the Middle Atlantic states, literacy was universal. In the South, it was common if not universal.
It’s tough to use him as a typical example, but George Washington had one year of formal education when he was 11 years old. He was already as proficient at reading, writing and basic arithmetic as the average 21st century college student. His single year of school was hardly elementary. He studied geometry, surveying and trigonometry well enough that he got a job as a surveyor in his late teens.
Parents simply made sure their children learned the things they needed to know to succeed as adults. If you want to know how important literacy was considered, it was a capital crime in the south to teach slaves to read and write.
When did it all change? Three words — the Industrial Revolution. That was when employers started needing people who could follow orders passively and do jobs that required little or no intelligence.
In fact, that was when employers decided that if people were educated enough, they wouldn’t want to do the menial jobs they needed them to do.
In fact, President Woodrow Wilson — one of history’s great villains when it comes to education — explained it in a speech to business leaders before World War I.
“We want one class to have a liberal education,” he said. “We want another class, a very much larger class by necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual acts.”
Wilson was quoted at another time that only about 2 percent of people were intelligent enough to be educated to the point of making important decisions.
Once was the time that there were plenty of well-paying jobs of that sort, but once we made the decision to outsource our manufacturing base to other countries in the name of profits, those jobs disappeared.
Now between two-third and three-fourths of American jobs are in so-called service injuries.
“Would you like fries with that?”
“Welcome to Walmart.”
So when it comes down to it, jobs like this are all that a lot of people are ever going to be able to get. If people want to step above jobs like that. literacy and education are the only way.
If parents spend time with their children, and specifically spend time reading to them, that will improve their chances.
So turn off the damn television, pull out a book and show your kids they matter.
You will never regret it.