Wikipedia happily reports that North Korea has a 100% adult proficient literacy rate. Cuba has a 99.9% rate. Brazil 98%, all leaps and bounds beyond any western

Wikipedia happily reports that North Korea has a 100% adult proficient literacy rate. Cuba has a 99.9% rate. Brazil 98%, all leaps and bounds beyond any western country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_... The US is certainly behind much of the world in education, but these metrics are really hard gauge accurately. Diving in to where these numbers come from and how they compare to the rest of the world, I'm finding that no one tracks this in any way that we can really draw a conclusion across countries. I also see other commentors jumping to trashing schools or the education system for this. Does a flat number really point to education? What about poverty levels, general cultural attitudes towards literacy, accounting and definition of proficiency, etc. I have no numbers to back this, but I felt growing up that the biggest problem with education was not the schools or education system, but the students and the general culture around education. Students and their parents just did not care at all about education, most (adult and kid) were actively hostile towards it. There is only so much an education system can do if 1/3 to 1/2 of the students will do absolutely everything they can to not learn, and their parents encourage them not to learn. Some completely anecdotal examples from my childhood: - In high school I had a friend who's dad flew into a rage when he suggested he wanted to try going to college, because college was the devil (it'll turn you into a liberal sissy, they just steel your money, James down the street fixes motorcycles and don't need no degree, you think you're soooo much better than us, etc.). This attitude was only slightly more extreme than most in the town. And it didn't just apply to college, it applied to anyone who wanted to do any kind of academic learning. - I have distinct memories of being ridiculed by multiple full-grown adults (!!) when my parents took me to math competitions, for being a loser nerd. Some were serious and meant it, others maybe weren't serious but thought it was funny to ridicule. - I remember bringing a book to read while my mom worked, when I was 8 years old, and having someone (again, a full grown adult) who told me to stop reading in public because it might get me beat up. - At school in general, many students never got punished by their parents for skipping school or failing. The school would bend over backward trying to help them in every way reasonable, but what do you do if half your students do everything they can to not learn? Threaten to punish with suspension? Many parents treated it as "who cares, school is dumb anyways". No amount of effort into the education system could solve what I grew up around, it's a lot more insidious. Maybe I'm from a uniquely shitty part of the country tho, maybe most of the US would benefit from more focus on the education system itself, I wouldn't know. But I feel like I hear similar stories from others who grew up around the decaying rust belt, the collapsing small towns that scattered around the midwest, and inner city schools in places like Kansas City and OKC.