The Americans who can't read

[silverweb]

2. It really is pathetic.

I have tenants who are functionally illiterate and often wonder how they made it to adulthood, let alone retirement age. I write an occasional newsletter for tenants, keeping it simple and avoiding "big" words. Still, only about 80% read it, but the others will ask later, "What did it say?"

One tenant gave me a 30-day notice of intent to move, written in very large pencil print, ignoring the lines on the notebook paper. It looked like a 4-year-old had written it, had egregious misspellings and was barely comprehensible, but this person claims to have completed high school (and could be lying about it, but still...).

Something is terribly, terribly wrong with an educational system that graduates functionally illiterate 8th graders, let alone high school seniors.