I think that too much is made of a literacy "crisis."  I did not know the following:

> Let's not forget the role of industrialization in the decline of literacy rates in England and probably America as well. The Industrial Revolution pulled people from farms to factories/cities; once they were there and dependent on a wage for their living, ruthless, unrestrained capitalism exploited the labor of women, children, and men, depriving
them of time and energy to become literate and use that literacy in the advancement of their own workers' rights.

The assumption in the passage above is that somehow it is was in the rural countryside of the early part of the 19th Century that people became literate.  There is an  assumption that rural life provided a lot of time for people to sit comfortably beside a fireplace at the end of the day and read.  I guess I have a completely different idea of what it means to work on a farm before the advent of modern machinery, especially gas-powered engines.  I know that when I am physically tired it is much more difficult to sit and read challenging material.  Perhaps, people were different 150 years ago, but I doubt it.

Here is what I do know.  The definition of literacy has changed over the past 150 years.  Many people who were considered "literate" 150 years ago would not be considered so today.  The kinds of information which people must now retrieve from the texts they read is much greater today than in previous times, and there is reason to believe these demands are growing.

The following is clearly true about American education today:

> _One_ of the many factors militating against success in our
schools is the pressure young people feel to work during their high school and college years.

I have just spent 3 1/2 weeks with college students from the USA, Mexico, and Poland.  None of the Poles (most of them in their early 20s) has had a real job of any kinds. Of course, part of this is due to the economic situation in Poland, but some of has to be due to expectations.  Clearly, many Americans work to have a certain lifestyle and others work because they have to.  Given the strong message in the States on self-reliance and the felt need to be independent, I am not quite sure how this will change.

And, of course, the problems with public education will not be solved with a return to some wonderful golden age in the past.  The past is never as good as we like to think it was. We, as a society, must place a greater value on education than we do now.  One of the ways to do that is to pay public school teachers more money.  After all, in our society, we measure almost everything by money.

Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University

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