[crispyambulance]

It is ironic that the essay comes from UPenn in Philadelphia.

Many of you may find it shocking or unbelievable, but literacy is slipping in many parts of the US (like Philadelphia). The number of functionally illiterate people is increasing, schools are failing to educate students for a constellation of reasons.

The reality is that we instead suffer from a "tyranny" of illiteracy. I think those folks in their ivory towers, like upenn, should help to address that before starting the pearl-clutching about what has been lost because of widespread literacy.

[watwut]

Basically, people in Philadelphia are not allowed to write about topics that interest them, in this case literacy, oral tradition and history unless they all peraonally become elementary school teachers?

No talking about Homer or territorial expansion of 1880 for them anymore.

Make it make sense.

[IAmBroom]

What are you on about?

[yonaguska]

And cue reading is not literacy.

[rayiner]

Do you have data for philly? i can’t find anything that shows a decline before covid.