Why do we imagine that an overall decline in literacy, the fact that almost half of our high school graduates leave high school reading below or seriously below 12th grade, does not affect every single job performed day in day out everywhere in America? It affects how police, firemen, bank tellers, bus drivers, elementary and high school teachers, community college students, retail clerks, supermarket cashiers, train conductors and train engineers perform their tasks, see or foresee problems and how they interact in meeting those problems. Every place you go, a decline in literacy means a decline in civilization, fundamentally. Yet, we remain nearly too semi-literate to understand this.
Literacy Means Civilized
The Falling Leaf Review 