There was a time in America when the word indoctrination would have sent shockwaves through every community in the country. If parents believed, even for a moment, that their children were being ideologically conditioned rather than educated, there would have been outrage. School board meetings would have been packed. Teachers would have been questioned. Administrators would have been forced to explain themselves. Education was understood to be sacred, because it was the foundation upon which a child’s entire future would be built. Parents trusted schools with their children’s minds, believing they would be taught how to read, how to write, how to reason, and how to become capable, independent adults. Today, that trust has been quietly betrayed.
There was a time when parents were not passive observers of the education system, but active participants in it. Organizations like the Parent Teacher Association, commonly known as the PTA, existed as a direct line of accountability between families and schools. Parents attended meetings, asked questions, and paid close attention to what their children were being taught, because they understood that education was not something to be outsourced blindly.
The PTA still exists today, but its presence has been reduced in many communities to little more than a ceremonial function, often focused on fundraising events and school activities rather than serving as a serious layer of oversight. The deeper purpose, which was to ensure that schools remained focused on education rather than ideology, has largely faded from public consciousness. As parental involvement declined, institutional autonomy increased, and with it came the opportunity for profound changes to occur inside classrooms without meaningful resistance. When the watchful eyes of parents disappeared, the system was no longer forced to justify its actions. It was free to evolve unchecked, and the results of that unchecked evolution are now visible in the intellectual condition of the students it produces. That is betrayal.
But the betrayal did not happen overnight. It happened gradually, one lowered standard at a time, one shifted priority at a time, one replaced objective at a time. Education has slowly been replaced with something else entirely. Instead of producing thinkers, schools are increasingly producing emotional responders. Instead of producing scholars, they are producing advocates. Instead of teaching children how to think, they are teaching them what to think. The result is now visible everywhere, and nowhere is it more obvious than in the most basic measurement of education itself: literacy.
According to national education data, roughly 40 percent of fourth grade students in the United States do not meet basic reading proficiency standards. That number alone should stop every parent, every teacher, and every citizen in their tracks. Forty percent is not a small number. It is not an isolated group of struggling students. It means that four out of every ten children today cannot read at the level they should. In a classroom of thirty students, that means roughly twelve of them are already falling behind in the single most important skill they will ever learn.
Like a lot of statistics, we again we toss around numbers that many people might not fully grasp, so let’s put that forty percent into context. If the average high school has roughly five hundred graduates, that would mean that two hundred of the graduating class would not be able to read or write at an appropriate level. That alone is disturbing, but the true scale of the problem becomes almost unimaginable when you apply that same percentage nationally.
There are approximately 15.5 million students currently enrolled in grades nine through twelve across the United States. If forty percent of those students cannot read proficiently, that would represent roughly 6.2 million young people who are entering adulthood without the most basic intellectual tool required to function independently. Six point two million. That is not a statistic. That is a national emergency hiding in plain sight. That is the equivalent of every resident of an entire major city, not just struggling, but fundamentally unprepared for the adult world.
These are not isolated failures. These are systemic casualties. Each one of those students spent over a decade inside a system that was supposed to prepare them for life, yet failed to teach them the single most important skill they needed to succeed.
Their futures were not merely compromised. Their futures were stolen. When a system produces millions of graduates who cannot read, it cannot honestly be called an education system. It is producing something else entirely. It is producing compliant participants rather than capable thinkers, advocates rather than scholars, and emotional responders rather than intellectually independent citizens.
Reading is not optional. Reading is not secondary. Reading is the foundation of all learning. A child who cannot read cannot fully understand history. They cannot fully understand science. They cannot fully understand mathematics. They cannot fully understand the laws they are expected to follow, the rights they are expected to exercise, or the world they are expected to navigate. Reading is the gateway to independence. Without it, every opportunity becomes harder to reach.
If four out of every ten children cannot read proficiently, then four out of every ten children are having their future stolen.
Stolen by a system that was entrusted with their development but failed to deliver on its most basic responsibility. Stolen by educators who continue to move students forward regardless of whether they have mastered foundational skills. Stolen by institutions that appear more concerned with shaping social behavior than developing intellectual ability.
The results speak for themselves, and results are the only honest measurement of any system. If children are spending twelve years inside a school system and emerging unable to read, then whatever that system is doing, it is not educating. And the consequences of that failure are now visible in plain sight.
Street interviews with young adults have become a disturbing window into the intellectual state of an entire generation. These are not interviews conducted with carefully selected individuals chosen to embarrass themselves. These are random encounters with ordinary young people who have successfully passed through the public education system. What these interviews reveal is not just a lack of memorized facts, but a lack of reasoning itself.
When asked simple questions such as, “In what country is the Panama Canal located,” many are unable to answer. This is not an advanced geography question. It does not require specialized knowledge. It requires only the most basic application of logic. The answer is embedded in the name itself. The Panama Canal is located in Panama. Yet some respondents cannot arrive at that conclusion. In one particularly disturbing example, the person did not even attempt to answer the question, but instead asked, “What is a country again?”
That response is not merely wrong. It is catastrophic. It reveals a mind that was never properly developed. A mind that was never taught to reason. A mind that passed through over a decade of formal education without acquiring the basic intellectual framework necessary to understand the world.
Other examples are equally alarming. Young adults are asked what eight percent of one hundred is, and they cannot answer. Some guess wildly incorrect numbers. Others simply say they are not good at math and refuse to try. Eight percent of one hundred is eight. It is elementary level reasoning. Yet it is beyond the grasp of individuals who hold high school diplomas, and some who are currently enrolled in and attending college.
At the same time, many of these same individuals can effortlessly name celebrities, social media influencers, and entertainment figures. This contrast reveals something deeply troubling. These young minds are capable of learning. They are capable of remembering. They are capable of retaining information. They have simply not been taught to prioritize knowledge that actually matters. They have been conditioned to consume distraction rather than develop intellect.
This intellectual emptiness did not happen by accident. It is the predictable outcome of a system that has shifted its focus away from intellectual development and toward social conditioning. Increasingly, students are being exposed to ideological frameworks, emotional narratives, and activist perspectives before they have developed the cognitive ability to evaluate those ideas critically. They are encouraged to react emotionally to complex issues rather than analyze them logically. They are taught to feel before they are taught to think. Emotion has replaced reason as the primary intellectual tool.
Students are even encouraged, in many cases, to participate in protests and demonstrations related to political and social issues. Yet many of these students lack the basic historical knowledge, economic understanding, and civic literacy necessary to fully comprehend the issues they are protesting. Younger students participate because authority figures encourage them to do so. Older students participate because it provides an opportunity to escape the classroom. The result is the same. They are mobilized emotionally without being developed intellectually. This is not education. This is conditioning, bordering on abuse.
At the same time, the system continues to produce graduates who are functionally unprepared for adult life. The case of Alicia Ortiz, a young woman who graduated high school and entered college only to discover she could not read or write proficiently, is not an isolated anomaly. It is simply a visible example of a much larger problem. Students are being passed forward regardless of whether they have mastered the material. Diplomas are being awarded regardless of whether they represent genuine academic achievement. The system has replaced mastery with progression.
Technology has further accelerated this intellectual decline. Young minds are constantly overstimulated by social media, video platforms, and endless streams of passive entertainment. These technologies are designed to capture attention, not develop intellect. They reward impulsive engagement rather than sustained concentration. They encourage consumption rather than creation. Many students now believe that technology will think for them. They see no need to develop reasoning skills when answers can be instantly retrieved.
But information retrieval is not the same as understanding. Understanding requires effort. Understanding requires struggle. Understanding requires a foundation of of knowledge. Understanding requires the development of neural pathways that allow independent reasoning. Without that development, the mind becomes dependent rather than independent. This is where the true danger emerges.
A population that cannot reason independently is a population that must rely on others to interpret reality. They become dependent on external authority to define truth. They become easier to influence, easier to persuade, and easier to control. At the same time, they become less capable of solving problems, less capable of innovation, and less capable of sustaining the systems upon which society depends.
There is also a brutal irony in all of this. The individuals who most need to understand the severity of this situation are often the very individuals who cannot read well enough to understand it. Some of them could literally not read this article, even if their life depended on it. That is not meant as an insult. It is an indictment of the system that failed them. They were denied the single most important intellectual tool required for independence.
Their future was stolen before they were old enough to realize it was happening. The most terrifying aspect of this crisis is not simply that intellectual decline is occurring. It is that it is occurring at scale. When forty percent of children cannot read proficiently, the problem is no longer individual. It is systemic. It is institutional. It is cultural. It represents a fundamental shift in the purpose of education itself.
Public schools were once designed to create informed citizens capable of sustaining a free society. Today, they increasingly produce individuals who lack the intellectual tools necessary to question the world around them. The results are already visible. A generation less capable of reasoning. Less capable of critical thinking. Less capable of independence. When kids are more worried about looking dumb, than actually being dumb, you know there is a problem. There is definitely a problem.
History has repeatedly demonstrated that intellectually weakened populations are vulnerable populations. When individuals cannot reason independently, they must rely on others to interpret reality for them. They become dependent on external authority to define truth, and we’ve seen how dishonest and controlling some authority can be.
Make people dumb, and they are easier to control. But there is an even greater danger.
Dumb people do stupid things. A society built upon intellectual weakness is not merely controllable. It is unstable. When large portions of the population lack the ability to reason, solve problems, and think critically, the long-term consequences affect everyone. Infrastructure suffers. Governance suffers. Innovation suffers. Civilization itself becomes fragile.
Public education was once one of the greatest strengths of American society. It was the system that transformed children into capable adults. It was the system that built thinkers, builders, innovators, and leaders. Now, it increasingly produces followers. This did not happen overnight. It happened gradually. One change at a time. One lowered standard at a time. One replaced priority at a time.
And now, the consequences are visible everywhere.
The most disturbing part is not that this is happening. The most disturbing part is how few people seem to care that it is happening. Because when a society stops educating its children, it is not merely failing the present.
It is surrendering and abandoning the future.
