Nope, the lag starts before they're even in kindergarten. Studies have shown that exposing children to books at a young age is critical to their ability to read later on, but a large and growing percent of parents aren't reading to their kids enough.

3rd grade is considered a pivotal age in reading, because curriculum from 4th grade on assumes the child can read and write independently. Currently, 65% of 4th graders aren't reading at their grade level, and as many as 25% can barely read at all.

By the time the average student is 12 (7th grade), they're still reading at an elementary school level. Most students who graduate high school can barely read, let alone comprehend, anything more complicated than a Buzzfeed article.

To say the problem is complicated is an understatement. NCLB is blamed for the shitshow that is standardized testing and tying performance to funding. But parents are also too overworked to properly support their kids' education outside the classroom. We went from most families having one parent at home full time, to having all available guardians working multiple jobs just to keep food on the table. It doesn't help that teachers are made to put up with more responsibilities every year, while their salaries continue to fall further behind. And let's not even talk about the pandemic or racial disparities.

Realistically, the problem is not solvable. We've entered the feedback loop where uneducated people actively distrust education, ensuring their children never have a chance at learning properly. Minimum wage for a family to be comfortable living on one income, as was the norm during the cold war, would need to be at least $25/hour; nearly double the amount we've been arguing over for the last decade.