Well, that depends on how you define worse. AFAIK, in the US, most public schools do effectively teach their students to read and write at a basic level (which on average may be much better than in your country).

Grandparent is making a point about the purpose of mandatory school not necessarily being education (in the sense that it makes you a creative problem solver with a rich understanding of the world). This reasoning has a dash of...
http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html
... and a hint of...
http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

When it comes to solving problems, I've anecdotally found that many consciously select an understood, known bad approach over an unlearned, known good approach when "in the long run" the cost of learning the new approach is insignificant compared to the benefits gleaned from it.

Often, the problem lies in a short-term outlook that makes the "long run" look unbearably long: "So what if it takes me twice the time, I don't need to type something very often." Other times, they misunderstand how the new low cost of solving the problem will open up new possibilities: "Actually, I can make those changes. No problem; it won't take long."

This anti-pattern only makes sense to me when instances*badtime learntime + instances*goodtime. A short term outlook will result in you underestimating the number of instances of the problem you'll encounter. A "bird in the hand" outlook will also make you grossly overestimate learncost.