Reply #60: You're making an assumption that is not really warranted by facts

[Spider Jerusalem]

the assumption that better education would do something about rates of functional illiteracy (which, fun fact, is estimated to be about one in five in the UK, Canada, Australia...not JUST the US) is probably a false one. Why is it false? Simple: the bell curve. Some percentage of the population are not capable of functional literacy regardless of education. Sure, there are many instances of shocking failures of the educational system depriving children who through no fault of their own were born into poverty and condemned to a school system that does nothing for them, but that isn't all of it and doesn't explain the similar prevalence of functional illiteracy in other countries.