An independent study conducted by the bipartisan policy group Alliance for Community Organizations seeking Reform Now determined that just over 59% of voters who supported Donald Trump suffer from moderate to severe illiteracy. Approximately 32 million adults in America are considered to be illiterate, and about 14% of the entire adult population can’t read. Pew Research Center did a survey back in 2009 that showed only 52% of Americans knew why stem cells differ from other kinds of cells, and just 46% knew that atoms are larger than electrons. A poll released by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania found that only 36% of Americans could name all three branches of the government and 35% couldn’t name any of them. Political scientists have documented that roughly half of all U.S. citizens don’t know that each state has two senators, and that only a quarter realize that senators serve six-year terms. When the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies study was done in 2013, they found that the average scores in math range from 246 in Spain to 288 in Japan. The U.S. average score was 253, below 18 other countries.
There’s no such thing as “left-leaning” or “liberal-minded” education in math, science, government structure, or economy. My three-semester economy professor didn’t give a flying fuck who the president was. My American Government professor didn’t either, as long as we knew the entire history of American government, could recite all the powers of the branches, and name all the Congressional Committees. Did you know that the first Senate committee was established April 7, 1789? Because no one does. Literally no one. And I didn’t know this either, until I went to receive my “liberal-minded” higher education.
With all respect to the one High School teacher I loved, who was the best I’ve ever had, the High School education in United States is fucking atrocious. Back home, I made it to seventh grade before I immigrated to U.S. I took Biology, Chemistry, and Physics in fifth grade. German and Latin in sixth, because you can’t enter any of my country’s socialist free colleges without at least two years of Latin and an additional language of your choice under your belt. Basic Psychology and Sociology in sixth. Our core curriculum grades 1-5 consisted of what would here be English, Math (Algebra and Geometry), History, Geography, Art, Music, and Physical Education. To that was added all the above. In seventh grade you were doing Trigonometry side by side with Economics and Statistics.
According to U.S. Census Bureau, only 33% of people in U.S. hold a higher degree. 88% hold High School educations that barely covered government structure, any science other than basic chemistry (which you don’t have to take btw), any math other than basic algebra, any literature studies, no geography whatsoever, no psychology or sociology, minimal history, no economics, and no current events, unless you choose to take those classes, which many don’t.
I didn’t. I came out of High School knowing a minimal amount about everything aside from Creative Writing, because I could be completely ignorant about everything they tried to teach me, and everything they never bothered to teach me, and still receive a diploma at the end.
So when someone tells me that a country full of people who can barely read at fifth grade level, and are uneducated in math, science, economics, even their own damn government, went ahead and chose Donald Trump for president, and that these things are in no way connected, I call fucking bullshit.
Because you’re not going to understand why the tax plan is bad for you if you can’t read or do fucking math. You’re not gonna understand why it’s bad for the whole country if you don’t know the first thing about economics. You’re not gonna understand that tax cuts only stimulate the economy under certain conditions, and if you’ve never gone past High School level in history, you’re completely ignorant of the fact that tax cuts for corporations has never resulted in middle class earning more. 46% of Americans don’t know that people born in Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States, are U.S. citizens. Those same people have the power to decide whether we should have Universal Health Care or a profit-driven atrocity we have now. One in four fucking adult, working Americans, can’t do basic math (according to American Institutes for Research), but they’ll tell you how the health care system in Canada is worse than one in U.S.
Really? You can’t find fucking Puerto Rico on a map, but you know what the health care system in Canada is all about?
And I could tell you why. I could write a damn dissertation on why American education system is shit, and how it resulted in 62 million people in this country voting against their better interest. Starting with capitalism and for-profit education and ending with American exceptionalism which should’ve died a painful death decades ago.
But why even bother when 32 million won’t know how to read it, and 58 million won’t be able to do basic math needed to understand it. And then someone who thinks they’re smart because they can read and do math will inevitably roll up, not bother to actually read any of it, and tell me that an uneducated nation picked Trump out of defiance rather than ignorance.
Well, bravo sir. You definitely got one thing right. The only ignorance that can’t be fixed by improving the education system, is the willful kind.
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