Only a yahoo would attack it, it seems. Nevertheless, it is a very bad idea for the future of literacy, and, when combined with the simplification madness, it assures a never-failing supply of docile voters and mindless consumers. It assures also, like the Black English mania, that the technological skills of the future will be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people. For those people, that s good. Here s how the process goes.
Politicians begin to notice that the citizens have been worked up about declining literacy.
After asking around, they discover that there s hardly anyone who will come out against literacy, so they decide to do the virtuous thing however difficult and politically dangerous. Our high schools must prepare every citizen and voter to cope with the world. And the people applaud. Tests, of course. We will give tests to those students, and those who can t pass can t graduate.