If you can't write, how can you be a good consumer or voter?!

The U.S. Department of Education has found in its "Nation's Report Card" (National Assessment of Educational Progress) that only in the City of Cleveland have students scored worse in writing skills than Los Angeles.

Nationally, "private school students scored higher than public school students, and Catholic school students scored the highest of all." Perhaps most interestingly, eighth grade girls are twice as likely to "score at proficient levels than boys."

Because Los Angeles has many immigrant children learning to write in English, its average grade has remained low each year. It is important to add that "California students fluent in English score near the national average. But let's look closely at the national average? "The report makes clear that many American students have barely a basic grasp on written expression of English, with just over a third of eighth-graders and fewer than one-quarter of 12th-graders scoring at or above the "proficient" level in writing.

Doesn't bode well for Democracy, not to mention literate consumers in the largest consumer economy in the world.