i love how the reaction to this instantly generates a political mud-slinging match as everyone scrambles to appoint blame. There have been thousands of research papers published probing why some kids do better than others and those variables, by definition, do not include anything common between them. Same school, same class, same temperature outside, same person as president. So if the rate of literacy rate falls, you simply look for a corresponding trend in the variables to explain it, such as ratio of kids from stable families to kids with problems at home, or, put another way, ratio of motivated to unmotivated children. There are many variables, but the trend is evident: there are fewer motivated children today, just as there are fewer role models (usually parents) for them to admire.