First of all, Thanks a lot for explaining and posting links ! Obviously i was focused into france and stupidly made a general thing. And some of it does apply to france and alike. I need to nuance my point.

But i am like WTF america ? I knew the poverty is on the rise and the education is not as good as other countries. (you absolutely have very very very good school but for the 0.1% only. For the majority of the population, they get by with what they can get and some schools are better then other. Feel free to shit on me on that, it is nothing more than an accumulation of little thing and i hope for nothing more to be wrong)

For example, in belgium, whatever school you graduate from, they are equivalent. You can acces university. A year of university cost less than a 1000€. If you are from a poor family, you can ask to pay lower and/or have funds to help your children learn. Plus every diploma you got should be valid in the whole EU (is not 100% true yet) (well right wing politicians are like "this cost too much" and "our kids are stupider and stupider, lets privatize schools" ... maybe it will not be so good anymore)

Sorry, i disgress. Ok poverty is on the rise you read less, housing crisis make people anxious, anxious peoples do not stop to read a long book, Covid confinement basicly put everyone in prison for some years, yeah it has traumatic effect including trouble to focus and reading. Peoples have more and more stuff to do, they do not have time to read anymore, they overburdened themself (free fuck the grindset) They are anxious, burdened, poor and stressed, tiktok offer an easy, no stress, passive way to distract yourself from the world. Fucking hell.

A lot of it is true too for france and europe and while wtf i didn't knew it was so bad for americans.We are aimed in sorta the same direction. But thinks are not that bad yet. Right wing politicians use reading stats as "public school do not make young kids reads a lot of book, it is a failure of a system make it private" and is based on a lot of flimsy stupids claims that we have to debunk. like :

• once you achieved a basic level of literacy (you can read on your own a big book) and know how to resume and select relevant information (those are tested skill) well reading more does not significantly improve anything.
• The education crisis in lots of skils like math, chemistry, french, history and skills like critical thinking, empathy, understanding, etc is more linked to the size of class, the lack of funding for school, the desperate state of our scholing infrastructure, the teachers that very badly paid, etc It is more of an issue of the system and the mean than just reading. But again, put such system in question like "why learning basic and absolutely necessary skills to people should be subject to capitalist competition" ? Why would that make any sense ?

Thanks for sharing.