America the Dumb

For a long time, it was common knowledge that U.S. students did poorly in tests aimed at measuring basic skills, compared with the rest of the developed world. Now, according to a just-released international study, so do American adults. This, quite frankly, should come as no surprise. Anyone familiar with life in the U.S. is aware of the general public's ignorance of basic facts and figures, even those having to do with their own country. Decades of educational neglect have come to this. Also, a celebration of a sort of anti-intellectualism and low-brow culture have devalued learning and the life of the mind.

Time was when Americans felt that it was enough to have money. Now they have begun to realize that their economic decline is, in a very big way, a result of their intellectual decline.

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