The US’ literacy rates are worse than those of the USSR just a few years into its existence, having inherited a semi-feudal agrarian state.
And US literacy rates are highly racialized, as poverty (including child poverty) is racialized and so is school funding, both directly by racist policies and segregation and indirectly by geographical funding models. In addition, the US has been slowly privatizing more and more of its education system, starving public schools of even more funding at the same time that it makes an increasing percentage of parents go through poverty and an increasing number of children take jobs.
The US’ literacy rates are worse than those of the USSR just a few years into its existence, having inherited a semi-feudal agrarian state.
And US literacy rates are highly racialized, as poverty (including child poverty) is racialized and so is school funding, both directly by racist policies and segregation and indirectly by geographical funding models. In addition, the US has been slowly privatizing more and more of its education system, starving public schools of even more funding at the same time that it makes an increasing percentage of parents go through poverty and an increasing number of children take jobs.