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Not to rain on the anti-US sentiment here, but this isn't far off from most other western/developed/colonial/whatever (aka members of OECD) countries. I don't know what study they're talking about in the article, since they never cite their source, but here's the results from a similar survey from 2013 (PIAAC study).
In terms of literacy, only 6/24 countries are reading at Level 3 (roughly equivalent to what other studies describe as "above a 6th grade level", it does not track 1:1 since again I don't know which study they're using initially) and the remainder are reading at Level 2 (I feel comfortable describing it as "at or below a 6th grade reading level" based off the criteria used in other studies).
The US for sure has an education problem, but it's not as dire as this article makes it sound. In the above PIAAC study, the difference in literacy is only ~20% between the top score of 296.2 (Japan) and the bottom of 250.5 (Italy), and at 269.8 (USA) is only ~10% behind Japan in terms of mean score. We should absolutely be doing better, we're among the worst for non-starters and < Level 1 (illiterate and partially illiterate respectively), but when looking at the values in context we're not really doing all that egregiously compared to other OECD countries.
(edit: spelling)
A nerdy side note:
I question the relevancy of the < Level 1 statistics, as the controls for partial literacy do not appear to have been robust for non-native speakers of the survey languages. This may have been by design, but given the high rate of invalidation due to language incompatibilities seen in other studies, I am hesitant to draw conclusions from that value without a clearer understanding of the methodology. Partial literacy due to language incompatibility is extremely easy to mask for basic questions, but imho should differentiated better from partial literacy among native speakers.
I just can't imagine how hard life would be to be illiterate. And me knowing me, id take it upon myself to learn to read if the educational system and my parents had failed me -- I truly believe that. Is illiterate/partially illiterate a result of low IQ in every instance, or whats going on there?
No, it's absolutely not just due to low IQ - PIAAC did not control for cognative or linguistic difficulties with completing the survey beyond the strict inability to complete the background information ("Name" "Date" style of questions), which even true illiterate people are generally able to recognize through exposure. The study does not make conclusions about it, but it seems reasonable to confirm that the population of non-starters and <Level 1 participants (who made up approx 1/50 of the total US population at the time) would consist of people with very low IQs and all other potential difficulties with completing the survey, such as learning disabilities, dyslexia, language barriers, etc. both of a severity that they could not engage at all and less severe, meaning they could engage very minimally but enough to still be included as a participant.
(The rates at which that was the case are outside the scope of the study though they do propose several reasons for people being unable to participate, but could be looked into country-by-country if you're curious)
Human meat brains are lazy. They want to do the minimum amount of work to meet their biological needs. Getting them to want to do more involves rewiring their reward structure to associate fulfillment, either internal or external, with doing more. We can talk about the myriad ways that someone can miss the developmental milestones to encourage that, but that's what's going on.
when you don't know things, the things you don't know don't exist.
it's cognitively easier to be dumb than it is to be smart.
just like it's easier to sit on a couch all day watching TV eating processed foods, than it is to run a marathon and cook healthy food.
It's not a matter of IQ, it's a matter of money. Marathon runners are 80% college educated, and make 130K per year, and come from families that are college-educated and wealthy.
Marathon runners don't come from working-class poor rural families.