Question above is pretty blunt but was doing a study for a college course and came across that stat. How is that possible? My high school sucked but I was well equipped even with that sub standard level of education for college. Obviously income is a thing but to think 1 out of 5 American adults is categorized as illiterate is…astounding. Now poor media literacy I get, but not this. Edit: this was from a department of education report from 2022. Just incase people are curious where that comes from. It does also specify as literate in English so maybe not as grim as I thought.
The Every Student Succeeds Act, which is the successor to the No Child Left Behind Act, puts the accountability for education in the hands of individual states rather than the federal government.
The overall effect is that education standards are lowered so that low-performing students can “succeed” (receive a passing grade) without being forced to actually learn.
And later the accountability requirements for states were removed:
So the real answer to your question is because Republicans are stupid and shortsighted and they want to keep the general population uneducated so they can be more easily manipulated.