The average American college graduate's literacy in English declined significantly over the past decade, according to results of a nationwide test released yesterday.

The National Assessment of Adult Literacy, given in 2003 by the Department of Education, is the nation's most important test of how well adult Americans can read.

The test also found steep declines in the English literacy of Hispanics in the United States, and significant increases among blacks and Asians.

When the test was last administered, in 1992, 40 percent of the nation's college graduates scored at the proficient level, meaning that they were able to read lengthy, complex English texts and draw complicated inferences. But on the 2003 test, only 31 percent of the graduates demonstrated those high-level skills. There were 26.4 million college graduates.

Counterpunch: Welcome to a Has-Been Country

The US Labor Force: One Foot in the Third World

In May the Bush economy eked out a paltry 73,000 private sector jobs: 20,000 jobs in construction (primarily for Mexican immigrants), 21,000 jobs in wholesale and retail trade, and 32,500 jobs in health care and social assistance. Local government added 5,000 for a grand total of 78,000.

Not a single one of these jobs produces an exportable good or service. With Americans increasingly divorced from the production of the goods and services that they consume, Americans have no way to pay for their consumption except by handing over to foreigners more of their accumulated stock of wealth. The country continues to eat its seed corn.

"Liberal" in the US now means something much different than what it used to mean, now "liberal" means "go to Europe you commie!" in the American vernacular.

Clearly Herr Judt doesn't have a good contemporary snapshot of the US. Half the country is begging to maintain our thread-bare democracy, the other half is pushing the wheels of totalitarianism faster and faster, like lemmings to the sea . . .

"Intellectuals and elites" in the States are roundly hated and critized and have been for many years now, by the Right, who dominate the discourse in media and politics. We are in the midst of a culture war in the US, and the intellectuals and elites are loosing to the Right Wing Phillistines driven by their petty greed, corrpution and power accumulation.

Share. Share resources, share delight, share burdens, share the healing. If we only could realize that sharing will bring us back from mass suicide.

thanks for referring to the Atlantic Review and encouraging this discussion!

The Sueddeutsche has another very critical article today. This time about Harvard ;-), Yale and Princeton. The author says that they don't choose the best students, but those who are best for their image and for future endowments. What a shame. They are rich enough to let the best students from the ghettos and the poor parts of rural America study and pay them good stipends.

Harvard, Yale und Princeton als Luxusmarken: Die amerikanischen Ivy-League-Universitäten suchen nicht die besten Studenten aus, sondern die, die am besten sind für ihr Image.

(...)

Die Konstante an den drei großen Unis sind damals wie heute die reichen Kinder weißer Eltern. Mehr als 35.000 Dollar kostet ein Studienjahr in Harvard, Yale und Princeton. "Aber in allen drei Institutionen", so Karabel, "sind die meisten Studenten in der Lage, ihre Gebühren selbst zu bezahlen - schlagender Beweis dafür, dass die großen Drei auch heute die meisten Studenten aus der reichsten Gesellschaftsschicht rekrutieren."

"Wen würden Sie denn zulassen", fragte noch in den Achtzigern entnervt ein Angestellter in Princeton, "den hochmütigen Millionärssohn, der zwar heute keine guten Noten schreibt, aber eines Tages ein Erbe antritt, mit dem er Gutes für die Gesellschaft leisten wird, oder den Einserschüler?"

All three universities are considered as liberal. Why is that? Why don't they follow liberal values?

 


Atlantic Review - A press digest on transatlantic affairs edited by three German Fulbright Alumni

Here's their OpenCourseWare project:
http://web.mit.edu/ocw/

And the $100 laptops project, which might make a huge difference in the third world one day:
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

Are Harvard, Princeton and Yale doing anything like that? This is not a rhetorical question. I honestly don't know. I could imagine that they are, but I just have not heard about it. I am not interested in bashing anyone from these schools.


Atlantic Review - A press digest on transatlantic affairs edited by three German Fulbright Alumni

The official statistics released in his report to the U.N. show that over 12 percent of the United States population--or about 37 million people--lived in poverty in 2004, with nearly 16 percent--or about 46 million--having no health insurance.

The report indicates that more than 38 million people, including 14 million children, are threatened by lack of food.

Dr. Sengupta's report also shows that ethnic minorities are suffering more from extreme poverty than white Americans. Compared to one in ten Whites, nearly one in four Blacks and more than one out of every five Latinos are extremely poor in the United States.

Science and engineering are not rewarding fields. MBAs, especially marketing, are paid very well. We have outsourced most of our jobs requiring high level skills,except for marketing because of the inherent cultural knowledge required to be successful.

Unfortunately, I don't see any meaningful change either. Our political system produces only those who can be sold to the consumer populace ( a very much dumbed down one at that, witness the literacy scores. Anyone with the courage to run counter to the marketplace,is doomed. And, our only way out of this mess is to run counter to the marketplace.

A frustrated american