Why Can't Jane and Johnny Read?

Unfortunately, this helps to explain why the "good looking guy" becomes president.

CNN.com - Study: College students�lack literacy for complex tasks - Jan 20, 2006: "The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.

Without 'proficient' skills, or those needed to perform more complex tasks, students fall behind. They cannot interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.

'It is kind of disturbing that a lot of folks are graduating with a degree and they're not going to be able to do those things,' said Stephane Baldi, the study's director at the American Institutes for Research, a behavioral and social science research organization.

Most students at community colleges and four-year schools showed intermediate skills. That means they can do moderately challenging tasks, such as identifying a location on a map.

There was brighter news.

Overall, the average literacy of college students is significantly higher than that of adults across the nation. Study leaders said that was encouraging but not surprising, given that the spectrum of adults includes those with much less education."

No Child Left Behind doesn't seem to be working. Dude, like, RU4 real, doesn't seem to help with critical thinking either. Remember those great commercials that used to say "reading is fundamental"? Have too many videos, games, and parents scheduling every ascpect of their lives prevented these kids from developing the ability to put two and two together?