Serious problems exist with reading achievement in many United States schools.
However, much of the commonly accepted wisdom about the academic performance of United States students is false. The best evidence we have on the reading crisis indicates that no crisis exists on average in United States reading. The best evidence on reading achievement in the United States comes from a national system of examinations established back in the late 1960s by the federal government to determine how United States schoolchildren were performing in a variety of school subjects. They are given nationally to a representative sample of United States children. These scores indicate that, despite a few minor shifts, reading achievement has either stayed even or increased over the past thirty years.