CIVILISATION IS UNDER THREAT IN AMERICA

You might have seen the various data points suggesting that Americans are losing their ability to reason.

- David Brooks

The trend starts with the young. The percentage of fourth graders who score below basic in reading skills on the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests is the highest it has been in 20 years. The percentage of eighth graders below basic was the highest in the exams three-decade history. A fourth grader who is below basic cannot grasp the sequence of events in a story. An eighth grader can’t grasp the main idea of an essay or identify the different sides of a debate.

Andreas Schleicher, the head of education and skills atthe OECD, told The Financial Times that 30% of Americans read at a level that you would expect from a 10-year-old child.

This kind of literacy is the backbone of reasoning ability, the source of the background knowledge you need to make good decisions in a complicated world. As retired general Jim Mattis and Bing West once wrote, “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.”