Just post something π
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More (not so) fun facts:
54% of American adults read below a 6th grade level.
21% read below a 5th grade level, which is considered functionally illiterate.
High immigration numbers don't fully explain it either, as first gen immigrants only make up about 1/3 of those with low literacy.
Is this why you can't say almost anything (besides regurgitating clichΓ© pre-approved tropes) without being misconstrued, taken out of context, turned into a strawman, and attacked as a position completely different from the one you were taking?
I swear, I knew this was coming the moment I noticed that people were calling basic literacy and writing ability "elitism."
I was in a college English Composition class, of all places, and people were shaming me for insisting on using proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. It was an Honors course too, if I remember correctly. Like, why the fuck are you here if you really feel that way?
And why are colleges even admitting people who can't formulate basic sentences; at least without serious remedial courses before the 101 level. These people are graduating with degrees without learning anything, because professors are too afraid to fail them.
And I got all but chased out of campus for getting A's. It's not "favoritism" or "privilege," I just knew how to write.
It's not elitist to have basic standards.
No, all this is is a perfect example of an article that shows how people like yourself and so many others in this thread are so frustrated with online discourse and other issues that they will take any excuse to feel justified about it, despite not reading or understanding the original study. Also, the fact that so many here are not realising the study has been misquoted and taken out of context to form a viral narrative is equally concerning.
So really what this has shown to me is most of the people in this thread lack the exact type of comprehension skills and scepticism that they themselves would proudly complain other people seem to lack.
All I hear is "mental gymnastics to justify low literacy rates and add virtue signaling on top of it."
Seriously, don't you have anything more prescient to manufacture outrage over? Like for instance the fact that the education system is systemically failing in its duty, and also being systematically defunded, degraded, and dismantled? Or the resurgence of right-wing extremism that that degradation enables, as well as the return to power of fascist insider-trading nepo babies? At the very least, how about climate denialism and the anti-vax movement, both of which are predicated on low literacy rates?
But no, I'm the one being offensive by suggesting society should do better? As if the students being failed by the education system aren't being disadvantaged by that systemic failure? As if my pointing out that as a society we should expect better is what's really disadvantaging those students?
Sure, buddy...
If you understood the article, you'd understand that countries with the highest literacy rates in the world scored 35-45% values in similar metrics. But you didn't want to understand the article, you wanted to be angry. "Buddy".
Are you suggesting that it's okay just because other countries have high rates of illiteracy? Or are you saying that the metric is flawed, and that that obviously means the US doesn't have an illiteracy problem since the research methodology was flawed?
Either way, I hard disagree.
The metric isn't flawed, you just don't understand what the metric is saying, and the "article" is severely misleading about what the study actually found. There is not even a single source that links the results of the study to a "6th grade reading level" - that was entirely made up.
My point was other countries with high rates of LITERACY also scored similar amounts or amounts that were only marginally better, because the test taken was quite high level, and the methodology was flawed, it's a bit of a double whammy.
This is genuinely taken out of context because it's perfect outrage clickbait.
Okay, once you get your own argument straight without contradicting yourself then maybe I'll take you seriously?
So is the whole world as illiterate as the US, or is the US as literate as the rest of the world? Because you seem to be saying one or the other and I still can't figure out which...
I think it's a combination of a) schools passing everyone they can out of misguided empathy and funding tied to graduation rates, and b) universities with a financial incentive to accept as many warm (paying) bodies as possible.
Yeah, it ultimately boils down to the commodification of education, but it think there are also aspects of being allergic to anything perceived as elitism, and being terrified of accusations of discrimination.
I mean, holding everyone to the same basic standard isn't discrimination. Even if some people from marginalized backgrounds don't meet that standard. In fact, it's kinda racist to assume those people need the handicap, as if none of them can meet the basic standards unless they're lowered...
Amazing how you parlayed an undifferentiated critique of adult reading levels (one that specifically mentioned that immigration, i.e. "brown people", wasn't the cause of the low percentage) into an attack on affirmative action. If you knew what you were talking about/weren't being disingenuous, you'd know that "holding everyone to the same basic standard" is the goal of affirmative action. Because people of color often require higher credentials to receive attention at equal levels to less skilled yet less visually-ethnic applicants.
This and the previous, hyperbolic remark that you were "all but run off campus" because you were being a grammar nazi makes me believe it wasn't just the "grammar" that was the issue.
Potentially this user takes issue with affirmative action; it's hard to say. I read the comment you responded to as referring to the lowering of academic requirements for inner city public schools.
Thank you! It's literally a disservice to marginalized communities to assume "oh, they can't handle the same standard so we need to lower it for them." Aside from being racist.
It's funny how that commenter assumed I was talking about affirmative action, though. Almost as if they assumed affirmative action means lowering educational standards.
Expanding opportunities for disadvantaged youth to enter educational programs they qualify for? Good π
Allowing anybody into an educational program that they don't even meet the basic prerequisites for, because you're afraid to deny someone who could blame prejudice? Bleh π
It's not that hard to comprehend.
Amazing how you assume "doesn't meet the basic prerequisites for the educational program" means "brown people." You racist or something?
I on the other hand understand that "brown people," as you say, are perfectly capable of meeting the same requirements as everyone else, so it's patronizing to act like they need those standards lowered.
Affirmative Action is about securing positions to qualified candidates who would otherwise be looked over due to their demographic/background. It's not about lowering standards to let anybody in because (as you seem to be assuming) "brown people are too stupid to meet the same standards." If that's what you believe Affirmative Action is about, then you've fallen for right-wing propaganda about it. Good job.
Also, it doesn't make me a grammar nazi to believe everyone in a college writing class should be able to formulate complete sentences in the language the class is instructed in. It's on the education system to prepare future college students for that, and if they can't do it in 12 years of primary and secondary schooling, then that's a failure of the system. And you're not doing anybody any favors by saying we should let that slide just because you don't believe brown people can actually do better.
brown people... attack... disingenuous... nazi
the spiral hypnotizes
The whistle calls
affirmative action is fucked up, and often undermines itself. it should be done away with, and often it's used by well-off minorities to secure educational resources that they already have in abundance from their wealth and deny less affluent whites.
it should be replaced by economic affirmative action. which is far more equitable and would benefit poor minorities more.,
it's effectively dead right now anyway. how that changes enrollments is yet to be seen clearly.
I agree strongly. Putting a thumb on the scale and unevenly lowering the bar in order to achieve equal success rates for everyone causes more problems than it helps.
yeah but it looks good on paper when you are judging people and districts by metrics like graduate rate.
the problem with education, broadly, it has become reduced to a system of gaming performance metrics by which it's measured.
it isn't judged by the individual students, or even individual schools.
Yeah, I wish more people could see that instead of crying racism any time someone raises the concern. Because it does not help disadvantaged communities, it only excuses the failures of the education system to adequately serve those communities.
is it elitist to expect the majority of your population to be able to run a 6 minute mile?
Running a 6 minute mile is not the same thing as reading a basic news article, and framing it as such is disingenuous.
No, it's EASY for you. Just like it might be easy for someone who is genetically gifted to run 6 miles without any training.
for most human beings, it takes lots of training to attain these abilities, and life-long training to retain them. if you stop training, your body degrades in weeks, and in months all your training is lost. your mind is similar. use it, or lose it.
your assumption that read is so easy, is what's elitist. it's like if you were an Olympic running and wondering why some average 30 year old can't keep up with you, IT'S SO EASY BRO.
If you weren't elitist you'd be able to put yourself in other people's shoes, and realize how HARD reading is for them, to them it's like running. it's painful, difficult, and not desirable in any way to do it unless they absolutely have to.
the only it becomes enjoyable, is when you've turned it into a self-reinforcing habit, which the vast majority of folks won't ever do and takes a lot of time and effort. running takes months of work before it becomes 'rewarding' and for some people, it never does.
your 'basic standard' is like expecting the average person who can't run a mile without feeling like they are dying, to run a half marathon. that's what you don't understand. could they run a half marathon? yes, but it would take a year or more of training, and for them to run it well, as in like in 2 hours? it would take years.
you've been running you're entire life on a daily basis and you expect other people who never jog to keep up with you or you look down on them as lazy and pathetic. That's extremely elitist
That's exactly what you and pretty much everyone in Northern Amerika and Europe did in school. Training your reading and writing skills, increasing your vocabulary, practicing reading comprehension...
Sure there are some that have it easier than others, but a 6th grade reading level is the equivalent of getting winded after a 100m stroll on even ground. At that point its detrimental to your own wellbeeing and day to day life. (The few percent that have an actual disability are excluded here)
American schools, especially poor ones, don't do this. Rich ones, do.
I wrote at about a 7/8th grade level, and that was considered genius for my high school. When I went to college I had to re-learn how to read and write, because it never was taught to me beyond an 8th grade level. My A+ in high school translated to about a C- in college.
I took AP English classes... it didn't matter. the standards at my high school were extremely low, because it was poor. And mine wasn't even THAT bad. The parents are often even stupider than the kids, but the 'floor' of education in the USA is extremely low due to poverty and anti-education culture that is the default outside of a handful of elite and wealthy zip codes.
Further, my family and the culture of my community... punished me for my academic 'success'. The teachers, students, and my own family members, HATED me for not being as stupid and dumb as they were and not actively embracing it. It was look down on, shamed, and resented.
Anyway, the rich and the poor in the USA are living in totally different moral, educational, and financial universes. For rich people, reading at 8th grade is 'a failure' for poor people, it makes you an 'egghead' that they hate.
That's obviously a disservice to students in disadvantaged backgrounds, so why are you trying to argue against me when I'm saying we shouldn't lower the floor further just to permit the education system to continue failing young people while fixing their metrics to look more successful?
because you can't force people to be something they can't or dont' want to be.
The education system cannot rescue people from themselves. You can't rise them up from the top down.
They have to want to improve themselves.
That's something I'd expect to hear in defense of someone who doesn't want to choose a STEM/medicine/business career path, not in defense of not being able to read and understand a NEWSPAPER.
the newspaper doesn't benefit most people. it doesn't report the drama between their friends and family and neighbors.
Okay, well if they can't or don't want to be literate then college isn't the place for them. I don't know what's so hard about that for you to grasp.
You're basically saying that the track team should let anybody join, even if they can't walk a mile let alone run one in 6 minutes.
Having standards is not discrimination.
If the foundations of freedom in our society were built on everyone being able to run a 6 minute mile, then by-god everyone needs to be out there everyday, rain or shine, hoofin' it.
are you serious? that's not how any of this has worked, or ever worked. our society was, is, and will always be run by a small group of elite people.
the question really is, what do those elite people believe in? do they believe in the general welfare of everyone, or do they only give a fuck about themselves?
history shows us that this goes back and forth, and usually when the elites stop giving a fuck the society collapses or has a revolution and wars. then in the post revolution/war period things get broadly better, but eventually after a generation or three it erodes back to the elites only caring about themselves.
Allowing those political elite to permit schools to fail to bring students up to a basic level of literacy does not help the working class. That only helps the elite, which is why they're so intent on defunding, degrading, and dismantling the education system.
History shows us time and time again, that every successful revolution has been led by educated people.
The political elite doesn't care about the working class. They are disgusted by their existence.
The only people they want to help is themselves, and their children.
I never said otherwise. That's a red herring.
You make elites care by having leverage over them. You get leverage and power through various ways, but one of them is a majority of the population being able to understand when the wool is being pulled over their eyes. My point is not that people need to bootstrap, it is that they are powerless without reading skills (in agreement with most of this thread). If they want to be able to protect themselves/ have rights, then they need to arm themselves with the tools to defend those rights: basic logic, reasoning, and reading.
You will never be able to guilt someone with power into giving it up. Maybe a few of them innately have no desire to hold onto it, but the vast majority of people that have clawed their way to the top were... Well, willing to claw others.
It may be hard, and the odds may be stacked against them, but we need to fucking get the underprivileged there if we want to survive. Or you cater to their current state of ignorance and reap the rewards.
Are you implying that the reason I'm literate is because I'm "generically gifted"? I'm sorry, but that's a wild take. I'm literate because I went to school where they taught me how to read. I didn't enjoy it all the time. I didn't learn to appreciate reading until later in life. But it's not too much to expect schools to teach people to read at a basic literacy level.
Yeah, that's called a K-12 education. If you didn't complete that or a qualified substitute, or you got to the end of your schooling and still couldn't read or write basic sentences yet somehow graduated, then you don't belong in college. Hence why I said they should be required to take remedial courses before the 101 level.
Allowing primary and secondary schools to fail in that basic expectation is doing a disservice to everybody. I don't care how many mental hoops you want to jump through and excuses you want to make, if a person is illiterate then they need to fix that before they should be admitted into a college-level education program.
If they can't or won't do that, then I'm sure there are plenty of blue collar jobs that they'll thrive at. But pretending literacy shouldn't be a basic requirement for college is wildly absurd.
No, you're just privileged af and you don't understand that other people aren't as privileged as you, and you think other pepole not living up to your standards is a fault of theirs, or societies.
which is typical of most privileged people. rich people also don't understand why everyone else is so poor. fit and healthy people don't get why other people are fat and unhealthy. so on and so on.
You are totally blind to the circumstances of your life that allowed you to become you who are, because most of what you are is entirely circumstantial. You don't understand how little opportunity most people have and how the vast majority of the population has. Or how little colleges care about anything other than making money.
You're adding a lot of layers and assumptions to this that aren't there.
If someone isn't literate, then they're not qualified for higher education. You can focus on the actual problem, which is the education system failing to adequately support students in disenfranchised areas. Fixing that would help them qualify for higher education and get a leg up, so that they could enjoy some of that "privilege" of literacy that you accuse me of having.
But no, instead you want to say anyone who's literate is an elitist, and we shouldn't give a shit about the educational outcomes of marginalized areas because expecting those poor marginalized kids to learn how to read is just too much. Do you have any idea how patronizing that is?
I'm not the one denying that students in impoverished areas are capable of learning how to read and write. All I'm saying is that if they want to pursue higher education, they need to be able to read and write. It's not that controversial. And their K-12 education should prepare them for that. If it doesn't, that's a problem.
You calling me "elitist" is a distraction from the problem, and that doesn't serve students in marginalized areas who are being failed by the education system. If you want to just coddle them and say "It's fine, you don't need to be literate. Literacy is for the privileged elite," then you are the one actively harming their future and obstructing them from gaining this "privilege" that you seem to despise so much.
Statistics says yes: https://runninglevel.com/running-times/1-mile-times
Long numbers short: You have to be in the top 20% to be able to run a 6-minute mile, if you somewhat regularly run.