How to Create Functional Illiteracy in 7 Easy Lessons

Public schools are expert at creating illiteracy. Our K-12 system can usually guarantee that students don't become fluent readers. The system is nearly foolproof. Parents and teachers can make children illiterate or semi-literate simply by following this well-tested seven-step formula: 1) FORGET ABOUT THE ALPHABET. Do not teach the alphabet, the sounds, or the blends.
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Why is there So Much Economic Illiteracy? Paul Krugman Is One Reason

Stanford University economist Thomas Sowell was asked the other day whether the understanding of basic economics has been elevated in political discussions over time. His answer? Economic literacy hasn’t gotten better. It’s gotten worse.
“At one time you had a lot of people who hadn’t had any economics saying foolish things. Now you have well-known economists saying foolish things,” he said.


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Why We Have More Than 40 Million Functional Illiterates

Hundreds of websites still casually assert what is probably the most destructive sophistry in the history of education:

The Dolch Sight Words [created in the 1940s] are a list of the 220 most frequently used words in the English language. These sight words make up 50 to 70 percent of any general text….Dolch found that children who can identify a certain core group of words by sight could learn to read and comprehend better. Dolch's sight word lists are still widely used today and highly respected by both teachers and parents. These sight words were designed to be learned and mastered by the third grade.

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