Like this is a suprise … The New York Times reports that a U.S. government study shows that roughly two-thirds of eighth-graders and three-fourths of high school seniors are not proficient writers.
Of course, anybody who’s read an interoffice memo lately can tell you how poorly most people write, even if they’re college graduates.
The study (http://nationsreportcard.gov/writing_2007/w0016.asp, http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2008468) does show, at least, that students’ writing skills have not declined in the five years since their 2002 study.
(As an Alabama resident and Mississippi native, I’m going to refrain from the usual Alabama taunt of “Thank God for Mississippi,” the state which ended up last in the rankings. Alabama probably didn’t fare much better, anyway. But at least Alabama improved somewhat, at the eighth grade level.)
