What Passes for Exceptional

I want to give this guy props for trying, but more importantly, I want more people to be aware, that he is EXCEPTIONAL, not average. He’s TRYING.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults 16-74 years old – about 130 million people – lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level.

Per another study, “One out of every five bachelor’s degree holders among employed college graduates ages 21 to 65 lacks minimum skills in literacy. For numeracy, the number is one in three.”

Employed. College. Graduates.

Literacy has declined, according to John Taylor Gatto, from 96% in 1942, to 81% in 1955, to 73% in 1973. Today it’s 46%. The Department of Education was formed in 1979 in part to combat the trend. The 1983 report “A Nation at Risk” declared:

“Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world. This report is concerned with only one of the many causes and dimensions of the problem, but it is the one that undergirds American prosperity, security, and civility. We report to the American people that while we can take justifiable pride in what our schools and colleges have historically accomplished and contributed to the United States and the well-being of its people, the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur–others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments.

“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”

It was an act of war. But a foreign power wasn’t responsible.

It’s easier to control a population that cannot think.

11 thoughts on “What Passes for Exceptional

  1. “Am I just stupid?”

    No dude, I’m sorry to say you are not stupid. You are ignorant. It’s sad (and symptomatic) that you probably can’t define the difference between the two.

    You are the deliberate outcome of public education. You are precisely the kind of graduate they want, with the exception that you have an inkling of what you lack. In fairness to you, you had very little chance to become anything else.

    But congratulations on becoming aware of the problem. It will be a rough road, that may go through some very bad neighborhoods, but it’s possible that you may correct the problem over time.

    1. I assume that if the person in question were to read my reply, he’d have to look up “symptomatic” and “inkling.”

  2. I have been teaching computer related courses at the college level for 20+years after a career in IT. When I was writing my dissertation I realized that my written skills were not up to par but I learned. My reading skills were quite another story. So I graduated in 1968 from a NYC HS. I was not top of the class material, more like the upper middle. The students from 20 years ago while not that great writing wise were not bad. The current crop is, in general, horrible. And compound this with many of them are starting to use ChatGPT to write there assignments for them. Technically it is not wrong if they use it to just get the correct English. But I doubt they are learning from its use.

  3. The fascist “progressives” started early in this country, led by Dewey who saw the “public schools” (i.e., government indoctrination/brainwashing centers) as having the lead role in providing appropriately trained drones for their factories. Their complete takeover of the pedagogical systems was complete by the 1940’s, and so we have had multiple generations of children inculcated into Fabian socialist (collectivist/statist/authoritarian) modes of receiving information.

    Their entire scheme depends on teaching people to NOT be able to think, to destroy the cognitive and judgmental skills once considered necessary for human beings. It was a deliberate act of sabotage/war on their part, and we are reaping the crop of the seeds sown back at the turn of the 20th century.

    At this point any parent who leaves their children in the government school system is, de facto, guilty of child abuse. Department of Education? Take off and nuke the site from orbit; it’s the only way to be sure.

    1. “Here’s a bumper sticker I’d like to see…
      We are the proud parents of a child who has resisted his teachers’ attempts to break his spirit and bend him to the will of his corporate masters.”

      – George Carlin

  4. In Tennessee, a new state law required 3rd graders who aren’t reading on grade level be held back, go to summer school, or (if close enough) move on with tutoring in 4th grade. over 60% failed the reading portion of the standardized tests. And parents are blaming the state, not the schools who can’t teach reading anymore apparently.

  5. **BUT**, if you make sure your kids and grandkids bun are literate, educated, and capable, they’ll beat the pants off the dummies. Need I say more?

  6. **BUT**, if you make sure your kids and grandkids are literate, educated, and capable, they’ll beat the pants off the dummies. Need I say more?

  7. Anecdotal evidence is not evidence… that said, my college roommate matriculated from The University of Texas in 1984, and was hired by a head hunter group in Dallas hiring $100K plus positions. By 1990 he was requiring basic skills testing for all recruits. I spoke with him in 2018 as he was retiring, and learned he had been hiring $1 million CEO positions for a decade, and had been administering the SAME basic skills (reading, writing, arithmetic) for those candidates. In other words, in 1990 many (most?) college grads with high expectations where unable to pass basic skills testing. Now, the same is true for college grads with multiple degrees, many years of experience, and the highest expectations in the job market. Take off and n*ke the ED system from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

  8. Literacy has declined, according to John Taylor Gatto, from 96% in 1942, to 81% in 1955, to 73% in 1973. Today it’s 54%.

    Nope. It’s 46%.

    The 54% represents the population who is illiterate.

    It’s easier to control a population that cannot think.

    True. It’s also easier to control a population who is never taught their rights. They stopped teaching cursive several years ago, and stopped teaching and using long-S scripts several decades ago.

    How are the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights written, again?

    If nobody can read the originals, the transcripts can be altered to say whatever the controllers want and nobody can check them for accuracy.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *