FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
New Education Status Report Shows the Destruction of American Youth
May 3, 2018 (EIRNS)—In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee April 25, Defense Secretary James Mattis offered an alarming report on the degree to which American youth have been degraded and their intellectual abilities destroyed by today’s cultural and economic decline.
He stated that in order to ensure the “most lethal and effective fighting force in the world,” the Department of Defense maintains “high mental, physical and behavioral standards.” But, he said, those “necessarily high standards mean that 71% of young Americans (ages 17-24) are ineligible to join the military without a waiver.” He didn’t say how many waivers are granted to young people who might want to join the armed forces.
A further reflection of this reality are the test results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, issued by the Department of Education. According to CNSNews.com, for 2017, the report shows that 65% of U.S. public school eighth graders were not proficient in reading, and 67% were not proficient in math. In urban centers, the results are worse. Detroit public schools, for example, had the lowest percentage of students, 5%, who scored proficient or better in math, and the lowest percentage who scored proficient or better in reading, 7%. In Baltimore, only 11% were proficient or better in math, and 13% were proficient or better in reading.
To attain a proficient level in reading, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) requires students to be able to provide information and summarize main ideas and themes, make inferences about a text and analyze text features.
