America’s Literacy Crisis
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For the school literacy numbers, one factor in the low reading numbers is all the English Language Learners that get forced into public schools (which are the schools that make up the bulk of these tests). But yeah, income inequality has such a huge factor in kids' school outcomes. So much so that you can't blame the actual people who work in the schools themselves.
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The Literacy Crisis No One Wants To Talk About – Second Thought
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I work in medical and its bad, I'm not sure why (scientists, doctors, foreigners & domestics) but I have to keep emails and instructions 5 bullet points or less, no more than 1 line per bullet point...
It looks like maybe its overload, everyone crammed so hard they're skimming constantly, but also not good at skimming?
Idk, grim.
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I'd like to assume any educated person assumed that these people literally couldn't read. I personally thought it was more along the lines of, "they can read the words, but comprehension becomes the issue quickly". Which, is worse? Now they can go read articles, and not understand it, and start more misinformation.
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The powerful WANT us to think less, and they want the thoughts that are left to get spoken into their LLMs. Its a method of control unlike anything that could ever be imagined by the best dystopian novelists.
Citations and Further Reading:
Headline stats
He set up a perfect “deez nuts” joke and then didn’t hit the punchline. This man has inhuman self control. This has to be AI. No human can resist a “deez nuts” joke like that…
https://www.dailymail.com/health/article-14342559/staggering-students-read-education-america.html
https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-literacy-statistics#:~:text=21%25%20of%20adults%20in%20the%20US%20are%20illiterate%20in%202022
Who would've thought that the citizens in 'Idiocracy' would actually be lead by a conehead?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/learning/what-students-are-saying-about-the-decline-in-high-school-reading-skills.html#:~:text=a%20third%20of%20the%2012th%20graders%20who%20were%20tested%20did%20not%20have%20basic%20reading%20skills
NAEP results & explanations
Hard to disagree with anything, something I don't think you mentioned though was the massive impact parents have in a child's educational outcomes. If a parent says they cant find 30 minutes out of 24 hours to sit and read with their child I'll say their priorities are all wrong
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reports/reading/2024/g4_8
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reports/reading/2024/g12/
Well yeah. Thinking "America's literacy crisis" means that people literally cannot read at all is PART of the literacy crisis lol
https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/achieve.aspx#:~:text=When%20reading%20literary%20texts%20such%20as%20fiction,support%20from%20one%20section%20of%20the%20text
https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/achieve.aspx#:~:text=Basic%0A(243)-,When%20reading%20literary%20texts%20such%20as%20fiction%2C%20poetry%2C%20and%20literary%20nonfiction,incomplete%20understanding%20using%20general%20information%20from%20or%20reference%20to%20the%20text,-When%20reading%20informational
Love the evolution of the hair!
https://www.readingrockets.org/sites/default/files/2023-09/What-Does-Below-Basic-Mean-on-NAEP-Reading.pdf
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reports/reading/2024/g4_8/?grade=8#:~:text=FIGURE,selected%20percentile%20scores
"No child left behind" basically meant "teach to the lowest common denominator" (and anyone above that was sacrificed to boredom.)
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ndecore/xplore/NDE
https://www.idra.org/resource-center/what-2024-naep-scores-tell-us-about-student-progress/#:~:text=Students%20who%20are%20classified,top%2025%25%20of%20scores
welcome back, caste system.
PIAAC results & explanations
https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/2023/national_results.asp
Yea I discovered this. The newest generation in school is getting screwed. Theyve changed how we teach reading and its doing horrible.
https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/measure.asp
Low literacy consequences
I feel peace knowing it will never be my child because I'm not having any. I hope the children brought here will be ok
https://hsrc.himmelfarb.gwu.edu/sphhs_policy_facpubs/172
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/us/reading-math-scores-declines-impact.html
It’s not a crisis if everyone willingly ignore it. 😂 Stupidity is the new normalcy in Amerikkka
https://allinliteracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ALL-IN-Employer-Survey-Report-12.5.23.pdf
Andreessen
Is Andreesen self-medicating?
He seems a bit... frenetic
https://x.com/rohanpaul_ai/status/2038690448483799250?s=20
https://www.businessinsider.com/marc-andreessen-zero-introspection-debate-2026-3
Wow, in what schools do classrooms only have SIX students (at 11:30 ), I have friends who are teachers, who say they have nearly 40 in some classes! It's insane!
https://twitter.com/i/status/2033297822691516853
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lennyrachitsky_marc-andreessen-on-how-to-give-your-kids-activity-7423397220068081664-hf6d
Mark Andreesan looks like he's from the coneheads movie.
Cognitive offloading
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260417-ai-chatbots-could-be-making-you-stupider
Your best video yet. Was actually lol
AI slop school video
https://youtu.be/Q-PrQ9JBjYc
The same person who wrote the headline of 40% of children being illiterate is illiterate.
Mississippi Miracle
https://youtu.be/ZvCT31BOLDM
As the daughter of Mississippi-born Richard Wright I REALLY APPRECIATED your uplifting today's Mississippi Literacy Miracle in contrast to the literacy desert my African American father had to go through as a child, seeking out books as forbidden fruit. He became literate against the grain to such an extent that in Chicago after writing "Native Son" he was greeted by an amazed Pr Robert E. Parks, the father of the Chigao School of Urban Sociology , with the following quip " Mr Wright, I salute you but how the hell did you happen ?"
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=NP&chort=1&sub=RED&sj=&st=MN&year=2024R3
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2024/09/harvard-reading-wars-literacy-education#:~:text=%2C%20Mississippi%20is%20one%20of%20three%20states%20where%20students%20are%20ahead%20in%20reading%20compared%20to%20where%20they%20were%20before%20the%20pandemic%2C%20according%20to%20the%20Harvard%20and%20Stanford%20analysis
We actually don't even see this in Europe with English AS A SECOND LANGUAGE! o.0
What's wrong with America??!!
https://www.theamericansaga.com/p/the-mississippi-miracle-how-americas
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2024.102598
Will the politicians try to use these claims as a real need to push for charter programs and misuse of money?
https://theconversation.com/mississippis-education-miracle-a-model-for-global-literacy-reform-251895
Trump/Reagan
❤
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg80x2rw58o
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Can't praise the good policy of Mississippi without throwing shade.
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A crazy thing I have noticed is that as I get older I'm getting worse at reading. I feel like I'm a slower reader than I was 15 years ago. If I read aloud, I noticed I make errors. It's almost like I've developed dyslexia when I used to be a great reader.
More User Perspectives
All of this is by design, the top 1% just want dumb cattle to be their underlings perpetually and to have it permanently built in that not only can they not learn they’ll be dis incentivized against doing so We already see the pervasiveness of the anti-intellectualism that will shepherd everybody into turning off the brains and handing over the responsibility for thinking to the computers
@CnutStolenugh, JP. as a long time viewer and supporter I’m extremely disappointed in you. of all of the people on YouTube to reveal themselves to be a robophobic bigot, I never dreamed it would be you. youve revealed who you really are by jumping on the “anti-ai bandwagon” for views and clicks. congrats on becoming a flesh-model and confidently regurgitating your training data and becoming part of the human generated slop farm. it seems like it never once occurred to you that within 30 years or less, humans will not need to “learn” or “think” at all. infants will be implanted at birth with chips, and humans will have the ability to “know” things on demand. education and schooling will be obsolete, freeing up countless resources to be used elsewhere. reducing cognitive load is a good thing, we live in a fast paced and overwhelming world. offloading is a natural human response. thats why we no longer memorize times tables, or carry encyclopedias around with us, or navigate with paper maps. every major technological leap has reduced the amount of information humans have to actively carry in their heads.
you mock people for using ai as if its some kind of moral failure, but all youre really doing is romanticizing unnecessary effort. if a tool gets you to the same destination faster, more accurately, and with less wasted energy, thats called progress. you dont get bonus points for doing things the hard way.
the irony is that youre using the exact same arguments people made against calculators, the internet, and smartphones. history hasnt been kind to those predictions. humans didnt become less capable because of those tools. they became capable of doing different things.
what disappoints me most is that instead of encouraging people to learn how to use one of the most transformative technologies ever created, youre encouraging fear, shame, and performative morality. ai isnt making people stupid. refusing to adapt to reality is.
Thank you so much for this perspective and video. I'm a former teacher and was watching a video by another creator about the same topic and it ended up just me yelling at the screen about systemic problems and access to education and to stop blaming the literal children. It was infuriating.
@Notforyoutoknow12This explains why the Americans elected the greatest conman to rule the USA.
@FlyingYankeeA few years ago, I expressed that many people could not read anymore. And I was accused of being detached from reality and simply “I was not living in the US”. I guess I foresaw such anti intellectualism here.
@paolo-t2e4:00 didn't need data for that, just go to any social media comments section
@Deep-SarcasmThis is cliche to say by now but Idiocracy was a prophecy.
@badbabybear1I'm 35 and can't not start my day by reading for at least half an hour. I love to read. I was homeschooled and was reading by age 4. it's always been my escape, my sanctuary. I love learning new words and phrases. I love expanding my vocabulary. I appreciate and value being articulate and am frequently disappointed by others considering me to be pretentious because I am so well-spoken. I can't imagine not being able to read well. I was brought up believing that the way I am is the expected norm but am consistently shocked at how poorly people communicate and cogitate.
@the.walkiestAnti intellectualism isn't new in America. Nerds and geeks are scorned while jocks who kick, throw, or bat a ball is favored. America spend more on Stadiums than libraries.
@nulnoh219Ideocracy is close
@Buhach96"Children from poor families not getting good education"? Man, isn't that what Sesame Street was supposed to be for!?
@joeyw.7489You can’t even talk to people. Any idea that takes more than two sentences to communicate and people want to leave the conversation.
@abdifatahaden4761Stop making all the dumbass jokes. Acting stupid harms your message.
@icarusaloft3389Thanks!
@CrimsonVoidWhat's "middle class"? Those that both own the means of production and still have to work to survive? Or is it the part of the working class that have a higher income than what-level? Specifics! 😂
@danielv69067:10 Funny thing about Mark Andrsean's comment about using "AI" to learn. "AI" is not magic. The training process is called "back-propagation" as in make a prediction then compare that prediction from your target value based on some numeric loss, then use that numeric loss to subtract your priors. Meaning "AI" literally learns by introspection.
@jhonshephard921MY BRAIN HURTS!
@maxshea1829I sensed a shadow incentive in public school as far back as elementary. I knew something was off but could not put into words. I grew up during Reagan and I would tell my parents that it did not feel "Free" in America and that school felt militant. Some teachers were interested in the things I said and others saw me as a problem. Forcing us to waste time on worthless crap while not teaching us useful stuff like how do a get a good mortgage for my first house, how to pick the best car insurance, or proper nutrition. We did not learn that Reagan was behind letting crack spread and actually getting it into the USA {Barry Seal}, or that climate change was on the rise. I felt something was wrong and decades later I can see that I was correct. 📚
@veganbadassDemocrat run education system - working as expected.
@JohnSmith-ux3ttI am glad your Chanel cam up in my feed. Interesting topic with humor. Just subbed.
@FclwilsonCould some of this issue be attributed to the anti-intellectual thread that runs through American culture? I’ve meant people who were willfully ignorant. “Why do I have to lean that?” Is the refrain.
@FclwilsonDo we get the raw 4K video if we support you through Patreon?
@Matias-i1r