I find, nowadays, that many of the teenagers who best understand the uses of literacy are sitting in jail. According to the report, only one in four students, in both public and private schools, can write at a level of proficiency necessary for future job success. I know graduates of some of our finest universities who are functionally illiterate, while also highly successful college professors and bankers and C.E.O.'s. It's become so common, the exception would be noteworthy. We assume that our politicians employ speech writers, often teams of them.
Many politicians hire pollsters to find out what the voters are thinking.
And then they tell us, when they run for office. Nowadays, in our Age of Bill Gates, we like to think that we are inventing a new technology. Electronic technology has exchanged reflection for spontaneity. Individual thought has been replaced by communal exchange. The other day, I was at a fancy prep school, one of those rare schools in America where one meets young people who read.