I agree that it wasn't the most scholarly article. As an alternate, I just finished a week ago this book by the former Secretary of Education that talked about

I agree that it wasn't the most scholarly article. As an alternate, I just finished a week ago this book by the former Secretary of Education that talked about how poorly a lot of the schools in America prepare students for success in the world, and how often they have lowered their standards rather than working to teach kids better. He told a story at the beginning about how when he was in college he was going to tutor a star basketball player for a rough school in Chicago. He said the kid came from one of the rare for the area homes where both parents were present and working. He had a stable family life in an area where most kids didn't. His parents were doing their best to set their kids up for success. Anyway, the first thing the author did as part of tutoring was to give the kid some placement exams to see what he needed work on for getting into college. This was a kid who made the honor roll and was a junior in high school. The guy had a 4th grade reading level. The school system had been promoting these kids every year to the next grade even though they weren't learning anywhere near what they should be. So it may not be 20%, and it probably isn't in any of the better schools that people hanging around HackerNews are likely to have come from, but there are some really rough schools in America where kids are getting terrible educations. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37827417-how-schools-work https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37827417-how-schools-wor...