The bell-curved distribution of reading scores provides evidence, in and of itself, that a mediocre score is superior to all other possibilities in the struggle for existence. Literacy surveys provide evidence that one-half of the population scores slightly below eleven-year-old children. No wonder then, that majority opinion is consistently at odds with logic and reason.
The business world has little choice but to meet the preferences of the average consumer. Politics is even more tied to the average person. Prime time speaks for itself. So the majority does business with mediocrity, votes for mediocrity and prefers averages on his TV set. Meanwhile, the talk is all about excellence and intelligence, of course, using a mediocre knowledge of language.
If the ideal job applicant cannot match an eleven-year-old, it does not matter how much effort, time and money are devoted to education. Mediocrity, over all, remains constant. Worse, by driving the more literate half of the population to mental illnesses, homosexuality, drug addiction, alcoholism and suicide, we have an ongoing extermination that takes the lives of millions of people annually. Refusal to acknowledge and/or accept the most literate half of the population by any sensible measure is resulting in the replacement of the population by immigrants at ever increasing rates.
We owe our children a better world. And pretending that those who learn to read well are born mentally gifted, isn't going to get us there.

HOME