According to a recent report, college graduates today aren’t as proficiency as they should be when it comes to literacy skills. According to Michael Gorman with the American Library Association, "Only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it." This isn’t surprising in fact it shouldn’t come as a surprise if most could not even define the word “extrapolate.” As we at the Phalanx have been warning for some time, this generation is entering an era of diminished returns when it comes to intellect and appreciation for knowledge. The long and short of it is there is no appreciation for knowledge.

We live in an era of distraction, of bread and circuses. The consequences of this report can and will be far reaching. Not only for today’s adults but future generations as well. The test conducted, were by no means far reaching, they were simply designed to measure the average adult’s ability to read and understand simple instructions and tasks through reading. This included reading the labels of food products and understanding a newspaper editorial. The results show a significant decline in just the last decade. It’s no surprise that this decline coincides with the rise of the Internet.

Experts are at odds over what the cause may be for this alarming trend, but we aren’t. Some argue it’s a shift in culture and demographics, which is a tired and dishwatery excuse at best. Others contend that there is a problem in the educational system, which is partially true, but the fundamental cause is clear. It is the same cause for America’s consistently poor showing in head to head academic measurements with other industrialized and developing countries.

American culture, with few exceptions, places little value on knowledge or education. When children come home from school, do they see mom and dad reading or engaged in intellectually stimulating conversations? No, they see mom and dad watching an inane situation comedy or the umpteenth football came of the season. The trend continues at school where kids are bombarded with distractions to their education, distractions such as obsession with school sports, even at the expense of academics, obsession with appearance, obsession with sex, obsession with music and other counterculture icons. As a society we immortalize the achievements of athletes and musicians, while ignoring the accomplishments of scientists or businessmen and women.

These misplaced values aren’t lost on children who place no more value on reading than they do working in a mill town. The results of this study should come as a warning, a warning which is likely to go unheeded. And sadly there may come a day when our convenience and sloth obsessed culture discovers that we are no longer number one, and not even number 20 as we already are in terms of education.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/1205/26natliteracy.html