Literacy (is Re: Harry Potter)

[jbor]

>From: Terrance <Lycidas at worldnet.att.net> 

> In Kozol's Illiterate America, citing Ford
> Foundation figures, he estimates that sixty million
> Americans are at least functionally illiterate, he quotes
> the U.N. statistics to the effect that the United States
> ranks forty-ninth in literacy levels among, at the time, 158
> U.N. countries. The situation has not improved in the last
> twenty years. The National Assessment of Education Progress
> shows a marked decline in inferential comprehension among
> secondary-level readers-- and a marked lessening in the
> degree to which kids value and enjoy reading by the time
> they reach high school. At the same time, the level of
> literacy required to function in American society is
> steadily increasing. This is yet another crisis in America.
> What's to be done?
snip

This sounds too much like a '60 Minutes' beat-up or politician's screed,
specifically designed to induce hysteria and general condemnation (and boost
ratings), but totally unfounded: 'Kids Today Can't Read or Write',
'Education in Crisis', 'The Sky is Falling'. Where's your evidence, what are
your constants? "Inferential comprehension" and basic literacy are not the
same thing at all.