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MIAMI — Nearly one-fourth of the students who try to join the military fail its entrance exam, painting a grim picture of an education system that produces graduates who can't answer basic math, science and reading questions. The report by The Education Trust found that 23 percent of recent high school graduates don't get the minimum score needed on the enlistment test to join any branch of the military. The study, released exclusively to The Associated Press on Tuesday, comes on top of Pentagon data that shows 75 percent of those aged 17 to 24 don't qualify for the military...

Via Katzblog and Kate Lucadamo, Mayor Bloomberg made two interesting comments while doing an interview with the Wall Street Journal from Hong Kong, where he's traveling in his new role as head of C40 Cities, one of which waded heavily into trade policy with China, a contentious topic. The other may not thrill the new members of congress elected on Tuesday (or their longer-serving colleagues). Regarding trade with China, the mayor said, "“I think in America, we’ve got to stop blaming the Chinese and blaming everybody else and take a look at ourselves,” he said. “Let me get this straight:...

"There has to be a compelling reason these days for someone to decide to pick up a smelly book," says satirist Gary Shteyngart, the 38-year-old author whose novel "Super Sad True Love Story," a dystopian romance, has earned critical raves. By "smelly," Shteyngart is referring to the running gag of the plot — that books stink of dirty feet. Set in the near future — "oh, next Tuesday," Shteyngart jokes in a recent interview — the story details the development and collapse of a society that ridicules "printed bound media artifacts" and, in fact, anything that requires deep thinking. Instead,...

The Scripps National Spelling Bee highlights what a mess the English spelling is – a hodgepodge of orthographies borrowed from German, French, Greek, and Latin. Is it time for a makeover? The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw is said to have joked that the word "fish" could legitimately be spelled "ghoti," by using the "gh" sound from "enough," the "o" sound from "women," and the "ti" sound from "action." Shaw was probably not the originator of this joke, but he was one of a long line of people who thought that the English language's anarchic spelling, a hodgepodge of Germanic,...

Warning: Raw Speculation Alert. You have been warned! You are reading. This form form of reading will not disappear. eBooks—whether they be standalone devices, or merely apps on multipurpose toys like cell phones—will cause the reading of short bursts of words on a screen to become increasingly common. The key is “short”: columns such as this already push the limit of most people’s patience (yes, the content, too). The reading of book-length material—which is to say books in electronic or paper forms—will decline rapidly. eBook sales will increase, accelerating over the next five years. With the closing of mall stores,...

On May 13, Attorney General Eric Holder, who had been critical of the new Arizona immigration law, testified that he had based his comments on newspaper and television accounts but had not read the by then more than two-week-old statute.

Caught in the ACT Malcolm A. Kline, April 28, 2010 Although public schools like to trumpet their relevance, the education they deliver usually shows how out of touch they are. “Of the 1.5 million high school graduates who took the ACT during academic year 2008-2009, 33 percent were not ready for college-level English, 47 percent were not ready for college social science, 58 percent were not ready for College Algebra, and 72 percent were not ready for college Biology,” Cynthia B. Schmeiser, the president of the education division of ACT, Inc., told a Senate committee today. “Overall, only 23 percent...

A reading coach in California sent me this question: “I would like to know how you respond to teachers who are married to sight-word drills and describe their rationale as, ‘Well, there are just so many words that don't follow any rules.’” My answer is a longish rumination and probably not for the casual reader. But if you’ve wondered what Sight Words, Dolch Words, and the rest are really all about, this is a good place to start. Remember, our Education Establishment has spent 80 years promoting what I believe is a hoax and a crime, and in the process...

Boys can learn to beat girls at reading if they are given old-fashioned teaching methods, claim psychologists. The use of more traditional phonetics-based lessons helps boys catch up with girls - even doing better on some tests - and prevents some children from needing 'special' schooling, according to new research findings. A study of synthetic phonics also found children from disadvantaged backgrounds do as well as those from better off homes. The research, presented at the British Psychological Society's annual conference in York, has underpinned changes being made in the nation's classrooms. They have been introduced after damning revelations that...

To save the country, we first have to save the public schools. Doing this requires that we save reading, the one essential skill. March, 2010, is the 55th anniversary of “Why Johnny Can’t Read.” This book is just as hot now as it was a half-century ago, because our obtuse Education Establishment insists on using sight-words (or Dolch words) to teach reading. This is the phony method that Flesch exposed and explained in his book. “Rudolf Flesch Rules the World of Reading” gives a quick update on why this book is so hugely important. Maybe you already know all this....

College fails to teach civic knowledge - including American history and national institutions - and has an influence on liberal leanings among students, a new study says. The study, conducted by the conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute, specifically cited typically liberal positions on gay marriage and school prayer. Richard Brake, the director of ISI's Culture of Enterprise Initiative, said high schools could be partly to blame for a lack of civic knowledge but college courses should provide more concentrated study. "You should reinforce it and go beyond it," he said. "Learning is about reinforcement." The study tested 2,508 Americans with various...

Think Globally Read Locally Malcolm A. Kline, January 22, 2010 The UN warns that illiteracy is a global problem but Americans may not have to look that far to find it. “Far too many young people emerge from primary school unable to read or write,” UNESCO warns. “In some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, young adults with five years of primary schooling have a 40% chance of being illiterate.” The U. S. could catch up in this race to the bottom. “The skills and knowledge that college instructors expect entering students to have are more focused and specific than what high...

They're kicking up their heels at the Barbara Bush Literacy Foundation for Family Literacy offices with announcement that former vice presidential candidate, Fox News commentator and author Sarah Palin will be among the published writers of note to make presentations at the Celebration of Reading. Politics notwithstanding, those who've seen Palin in person report that she is a charismatic figure not to be missed. And if you loved Palin going rogue on the campaign trail, we bet you'll love her even more as she comments on her life and reads from her book, Going Rogue. Mark your calendars for the...

Teenagers have been warned they are becoming unemployable because they use a vocabulary of just 800 words. The limited linguistic range also consists of many made up words and 'teenspeak' which has developed through modern communication methods such as text messaging and social networking sites. Today Jean Gross, who advises the Government on children's speech, said urgent action was required to prevent children failing to find jobs because they are unable to communicate. Mrs Goss, who last week issued a stark warning over the effect of television on children's development said yesterday: 'Teenagers are spending more time communicating through electronic...

Teacher's pet inspires students at Ft. Pierce school Students having a ruff time reading have a new helper, and rather than eat their homework she's here to help with it. Abigail the golden retriever has been hitting the books hard to provide a good example for the kids at Dan McCarty Middle School in Fort Pierce. Abigail already knows how to read eight distinct terms, and her word power is proving to special needs students that anything is possible. "That’s my hope - that the kids will become more motivated, more interested in reading because having this dog that can...

FLYING squads of specialist teachers will swoop into 300 Queensland schools next year under a plan to boost literacy and numeracy results. The so-called Turnaround Teams will be deployed to low-performing schools to identify why their results are below average and develop strategies to improve literacy and numeracy levels. ``Some schools may have problems with truancy or behaviour management, others may need extra help with early childhood learning or teaching science for instance,'' Premier Anna Bligh said today. The teams are part of the State Government's three-year bid to turn around poor results in Queensland schools and will cost $9...

Lost In Cyberspace by: Deborah Lambert, May 21, 2009 Surprise, surprise. Spending thousands of hours on the Internet apparently leaves children poorly prepared to face the challenges of adult life, according to The London Telegraph. In fact, British child psychiatrists recently claimed that “teenagers were spending up to 16 hours a day playing games online with ‘potentially severe consequences’ for their education and social opportunities.” Speaking at an educational conference in Manchester recently, John Gibson, head of the Independent Schools Association, said that compared with today’s activities, the ways that children spent their time in the 50s and 60s like...

"No matter how much money is spent, literacy rates plunge and SAT scores fall. General knowledge throughout the society becomes more scant. Our better students can’t compete against better foreign students. The depressing statistics are all around us. Everyone admits the public schools are doing a lousy job. The question is, why can't we do more to improve them?"

The recent announcement by the New York Times that it might close down the venerable Boston Globe, unless the paper can cut costs and begin to make money, came as a shock to many Bostonians. The Times bought the Globe in 1993 for $1.1 billion because it assumed that in an area with Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Boston University, Boston College and other schools of higher learning, they would have lots of readers and make lots of money. But this much-touted Athens of America, which prides itself on its intellectual history, has become, like the rest of America, a victim of...

Professor Joe Elliott, from Durham University, believes many parents with children who have difficulty in literacy lessons push for them to be diagnosed with dyslexia so they can get the extra support they need. Prof Elliott says this leads to children being falsely labelled and ignores the fact there are simply many children who struggle to read and should be given help at an early age. The academic, a director of research at the university's School of Education, said: "Many of the messages that I have received from parents have pointed out that the system has forced them to use...