Mississippi making massive gains. lol
Also in Europe. It’s obviously related to unrestricted internet use and smart phone proliferation.
For the first time in a long time, we’re having generations that are dumber than their parents.
The US is working its way toward illiteracy. Republicans need this to install a permanent set of oligarchs in the government.
I would like to know what’s the influence of first generation immigration in these charts, because the states are kind of shit at reporting that.
My kids speak Spanish. They can read in both Spanish and English, but they learned Spanish first, so it took them a while to catch up in English. Many of their classmates come from Spanish speaking families, English is their second language, and they have a bit more of trouble. The issue here is that state level standardized testing doesn’t seem to care about Spanish at all, so you may find a bunch of very smart kids who score below average just because they speak more than one language, which is frankly insane.
It would be interesting to see how multiple language statistics have changed. With any luck, maybe the numbers have increased.
NJ again lowkey goated
Damn, New Mexico is really eating shit huh? Wonder why it’s so bad there specifically.
NM is one of the poorest states in the country. With no real major cities, there’s a lack of opportunity. Also, the eastern counties are as red as rural Texas.
Look at those deltas, though… Vermont, Nebraska, Maine, Delaware. The declines are massive
Damnit NYT, states have an abbreviation standard!
Yes but people are now too stupid to know them.
Journalists have always used the old postal abbreviations. It’s part of the Associated Press style.
The NYT has its own style guide that doesn’t always match the AP.
The problem is for a lot of those I’m just guessing what they’re supposed to be.
Which ones have you guessing? It feels a little insane to read compared to the standard 2 letter abbreviation, but they’re all pretty clear to me.
What’s Ga. Va. and Gt.
Georgia, Virginia, and Vt. is Vermont.
Yes but the average NYT reader doesn’t know them.
Something to do with DC being the third lowest on this graph
New Mexico didn’t even need to defend their position, but they did anyway. True goat right there
They saw W. Virginia making a break for it.
A big part of the issue is a lot of states abandoning “phonic” based teaching for “whole language”. In phonics the focus is on teaching how letters come together to form the sound of a word, while whole language is based on just memorizing the pronunciation of words. kids being taught how to sound out words will take longer to get to a point of being able to read out short simple text, but whole language can get them reading simple stuff with all the words they’ve already been taught very quickly.
The problem is that when you move past simple stuff only using words they’ve memorized, a kid taught to sound out words will be able to figure out words they haven’t seen before, meaning that they can start to learn new words passively just by reading more complex books. The whole language taught kids need to learn every new word by instruction or by just guessing based on context, making it much harder and slower. It gets frustrating quickly and kids taught this way rarely develop a real interest in reading due to that difficulty.
A big part of the issue is a lot of states abandoning “phonic” based teaching for “whole language”.
I don’t think this is accurate for explaining 2015 versus 2025. Phonics was discouraged from maybe 2000 to 2020, and education has moved back towards phonics in the last few years. Most major school systems in the US put more emphasis on phonics now than they did 10 years ago.
An impact on early education stunting people’s reading capabilities wouldn’t show up for about 10~20 years… so… between 2015 and now is where the impact would be most obvious.
There are of course other factors, such as the cost cutting and underpaying of teachers leading to shortages and larger class sizes, but the introduction of whole language absolutely lines up with the dramatic spike seen recently in functionally illiterate young adults/teens, if you account for the fact that the effects wouldn’t be fully manifested until people taught it in kindergarten reached a point where they’re expected to be functionally literate teens and young adults.
Yes, but the changes will take a few years to truly show. Because young kids won’t really start to struggle until they start getting into the more advanced stuff years later. A change back to phonics a few years ago likely wouldn’t have made a noticeable difference yet, because the kids who learned phonics won’t be old enough to be reading the more advanced stuff yet.
They’re not even taught how to use context or subtext to understand a word they don’t know. It would actually be more helpful if they did instead of just letting them go ahead and invent an entire new meaning for words they don’t know.
That is actually incorrect. You’re describing the entire point of Whole Language learning.
They are to learn a number of words, and then use their collection of words to deduce other words.
The problem is they don’t necessarily deduce correctly. Who is to say you deduced them correctly?
Also people are lazy. They would rather just leave the blanks than fill it in.
Cool that explains why I’m arguing over the literal definition of words and the context they are used in with 20 somethings constantly.
Wtf this sounds crazy, what asshole implemented this change?
Marie Clay and Lucy Calkins
And then when Bush Jr implemented “No Child Left Behind,” schools had to use certain research-backed curricula if they wanted to keep their funding. So they trusted that the “research” about whole-language reading curricula was true. It took decades to see that it wasn’t the teachers’ implementation that was flawed, it was bad research. The approved curriculum reinforced bad reading practices.
In other words, grifters. As is tradition in America, apparently.
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All this happened during the departments of education participation trophy era.
I don’t understand why it would be “lit” if kids can’t read well. TIL is “This is lit!”. I did my own research.
Something I’ve also noticed lately. Basic fucking math. I more often than not pay in cash, and recently I’ve had more than one person at more than one place give me incorrect change. And just not like a few cents, but dollars amount wrong. And when I try correcting them they’re so adamant they’re right even when I’m like… dude, you owe me 50 cents, not 3 dollars.
I have, on multiple occasions paid an an amount that would have someone give me $5 back in change or exact cents, then had them be utterly confused and have to pull out a calculator.
But like, if the total is 17.75, and I hand them $22.75. I’m expecting the person to be able to figure out I’m making it simpler for them.
Well… simpler for you. Unless the store is low on ones, I never understood why this feels like a favor. It’s nicer for you to walk away with just a five rather than two ones back when you already have an extra 2 ones in your wallet you don’t want. A cashier doesn’t care what denominations they have.
Either way, embarrassing when people can’t do basic addition (though I remember the first time this happened to me as a teenager, and it wasn’t the addition that tripped me up, it was the concept. The customer was so impatient because it was so “obvious” they wanted fewer bills back, but I was just afraid I was missing something they were trying to buy. I’m guessing as cash becomes rarer, more people just are unfamiliar with this tactic.)
If they are giving you an extra $2.50
Why are you complaining?
It’s gonna fuck them at the end of their shift when their register cash is wrong.
Aye I worked retail.
I learned real quick how to do math when I had to make up the difference.
It’s literally the definition of their job.
Everyone can have a bad day or a brain fart. I’d rather take a few seconds to correct someone than screw them at the end of their shift. I’ve only ever walked off if they literally wouldn’t talk to me or shooed me away.
Doesn’t the register show the cashier how much change he has to give out? Or are the math skills so bad that even just counting is already a challenge?
No idea where dude is shopping but I haven’t seen a register that didn’t show the change in the last 20 years. When I worked retail cashiers were told to never do math just put the numbers in the machine and give the customer what ever the machine says.
That’s not from math. That’s from lack of practice. Nobody has used cash in 10 years.
Yeah, no coins feature numbers prominently (one says “dime” instead, a word nobody ever uses otherwise), some are near-worthless, the dollar is not nearly as widespread as it should be, the diameter is often not increaing by value (even within the same metal series) and the notes are way too similar, plus their value is on the low side… No wonder Americans switched to checks and insecure cards so soon
Dime is a pretty common word among basketball commentators and fans. It means assist!
A point guard who’s dropping dimes all over the place is playing really well and helping facilitate the team’s scoring.
Yes but I feel like nobody would miss that word if coinage now said “10 ¢” instead (or 𝐓𝐄𝐍 𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒 because numerals are hard). Saying “it’s a dime” is shorter, sure, but that can’t be said about almost anything nowadays.
I left the US five years ago and now I live in a country where the coins still have that problem (some are different sizes even when they have the same value!), but at least the bills are sized by denomination.
US bills must be a nightmare for people who have impaired vision.
What?
No, it’s because we have something called “Civil Asset Forfeiture” which basically means that American cops can just stop you for no reason, file a lawsuit against your cash and just take it out of your wallet. If you want it back, you have to declare yourself to be a criminal defendant, and then be found not guilty of the criminal charges against you. If you don’t, they get to keep your money to put in their pension fund.
jesus fucking christ dude haha
Trump’s racist policies are the cause of that
In Oregon some of ours are so bad its inspired Pencil to run for governor
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/11/nx-s1-5781255/oregon-reading-education-governor-pencil
Fun fact on why Missisipi, of all the places, improved: they introduced a law that a child cannot be promoted to next year if they do not pass reading proficiency test.
Who knew the shame of repeating a year can be motivator enough for kids and parents.
To point the problem more clearly.
If student Numbskull repeats the grade. That means the their low scores affect you in Year 1 and Year 2. That’s funding directly affecting you, your compensation, your ability to remain employed for you, the teacher, and all of the admin staff.
It’s much better (for you) to push them along and make them someone else’s problem.
It’s like the Peter Principal in action.
They don’t take the test until grade 4, so repeating grade 3 does not impact funding being student population.
It also looks like the bar started very, very low.
it’s more than that: they’ve been hiring literacy coaches to sit in on and improve literacy classes across the state and rating schools while double-counting the performance of the bottom 25%. plus lots of testing
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/10/podcasts/the-daily/mississippi-schools-test-scores.html
They’re soon going to learn Goodhart’s Law if they don’t already.
Decades of studies have shown that retention, repeating grades, is not beneficial for any stakeholder.
Except the one right here in front of your eyes
Well schools have been forcing teachers to pass failing students for at least a decade now, and look at how that’s going.
I never said there’s not a problem, just saying that’s not the answer. Like, factually.
Does stakeholder here mean shareholder? As in, it’s not good for the capitalists to ensure that students are forced to actually learn things?
Flippant anti-capitalism aside, I’m skeptical of your claim, but I would love to see a source if you have one to share.
“Stakeholder” is simply anyone who will be effected by “x”. whether “x” is a policy change, or something as simple as choosing a new brand of peanut butter for your family.
“Who are the people who will be effected by this?”
In Project Management you’re taught that one of the first things you do when implementing a change or starting a new project, etc… Is to Identify the stakeholders.
I’m sure there’s a more concise definition, but I just woke up.
My state repealed a law a few years ago that required holding kids back who failed the 3rd grade test.
2015-2025. I mean the timeline checks out
