Fred's Column on Education

If you haven't checked out Fred Reed' s column, please do so today. Described as a "curmudgeon," Fred has pretty cynical views about lots of things, but his writing is addictive!

His latest column describes an "irresistible current" in America. I think we'd better get busy and resist it.

Little while back, I found a story about how Toyota decided to put a factory in Toronto because Americans were too hard to train when they weren’t actually illiterate. Isn’t that why companies don’t have factories in Zimbabwe? “Look, Ma, we’re almost a third-world country. Can I have a spear?” After decades of trying to make every kid as dumb as the dumbest kid, I guess we did it.

Ever ten minutes a study appears saying that kids can barely read. Yes! In America, the richest most hooptee-whatever, leader of nations, etc. How is this possible? How hard is it to teach kids to read? Not very. It’s hard to keep most of them from doing it.