"We're No. 1!" That refrain is relentlessly sounding out now through much of the United States, as bowl-bound college football teams (all 50 of them, no less) ready for holiday-season tussles. Things are a bit awry, however, in Bowlsville. The once vaunted BCS, designed to determine a decisive No. 1, has seen the "C" rudely ripped from its pretty little acronym. This year it's the WCS - Worst-Case Scenario - with common sense slaughtered at the altar of the statistical crunch.
Also I haven't found the New York Times article from Decemeber 12th 2004 quoted by Ventura. There is an NYT article from that date with the 28/40 statistic from the OECD. But no other articles on that date with "literacy" in them. Nor have I found any statistics showing us as 49th in literacy, we seem to be around 15-20 in most studies.
Plagerism and BS alert (see post 51)