I actually wanted to post this to clarify how points about it ought to be made, it’s pretty old and people know about it. Education resources in the USA are really unfairly distributed. It’s not that Americans are so evil because they’re stupid, it’s part of their de facto apartheid state’s continuation. Americans support bloodthirsty imperialism in order to hoard the education funding via property taxes in little enclaves. You’re not going to educate them out of killing you. They don’t care if you watch One Piece, and many don’t recognize this deal won’t be doled out to new generations on the same level, and will always get worse.
Of course, the educated and wealthy Americans are unusually stupid, globally, but I don’t think anyone is doubting that right now.
It’s amazing that so many people read so much online and text so much now, but the reading levels have dumped so much. Like, everyone reads more crap now than when I was growing up, but I read at a 5th grade level by the time I was in 1st grade. I know our education sucks more, but I still figured people got enough practice in at simply reading.
That’s the difference between quantity and quality. What are people actually reading? Comments on various social media? High quantity of low quality. That’s probably making their reading comprehension degrade if anything