The Literacy Crisis

America Learns of the Problem.

The debate over literacy and basic skills began in the early 1970s and heated to the boiling point by the middle of the decade. In late 1975 Newsweek ran a cover story on the back-to-basics movement occasioned by the fact that "nationwide, the statistics on literacy grow more appalling each year.… Willy-nilly, the U.S. educational system is spawning a generation of semi-literates." Newsweek writers attempted to define "Why Johnny Can't Write." Their opening paragraph, outlining the problem, was alarmist:

If your children are attending college, the chances are that when they graduate they will be unable to write ordinary, expository English with any degree of structure and lucidity. If they are in high school and planning to attend college, the chances are less than even that they will be able to write English at the minimal college level when they get there. If they...

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