> I mean, even if half of the above claim were true, and some ~37 percent of 4th graders couldn't read properly, that would already be outrageous. But surely, t

> I mean, even if half of the above claim were true, and some ~37 percent of 4th graders couldn't read properly, that would already be outrageous. But surely, that didn't happen over-night -- where were the corrective measures along the way? You are in deep denial. People have been shouting from the rooftops about this for generations. For example from another story posted here today: Frustrated by high failure rates in eighth-grade algebra, San Francisco Unified decided in 2015 to delay algebra till ninth grade and place low, average and high achievers in the same classes. The goal was to improve achievement for black and Hispanic students, preparing more for advanced math. Of course the opposite happened. Now these high schoolers test at a 5th grade level. Who on earth made this call? What qualified them to just decide this? What was their thought process and motivation? Now that it backfired in spectacular fashion will there be any repercussions for them at all? Corrective measures are apparently not possible when issues get politicized. I think the US simply has too much money which causes inverse incentives around problems of this nature. There is like, zero chance, this could happen in Korea for example (I am not Korean btw least you accuse me of jingoism) -- such people would be shunned from society for fucking up like this once.