We have a national reading problem in the U.S.
The widespread lament over the further decline in children’s reading scores underscores the failure of our country’s public schools, but the predicament is not limited to primary education. It extends all the way up into America’s elite colleges and universities as well.
A firestorm recently erupted in academic circles when The Atlantic published “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books”—an impassioned critique about how the world has conspired to sap Ivy Leaguers and students at other top schools of their curiosity and attention spans.
These are bright students, mind you: kids who achieved the near-perfect SAT scores and top-of-the-class grade point averages required for admission at the legacy schools. They know how to read; they just lack the will or focus to power through anything longer than a poem…
