The total dumbing down of America: Eleventh graders given assignment to read "Three Little Pigs" book for kindergarteners

(NaturalNews) For years, Americans concerned with declining educational standards on the primary level have watched as politicians in bed with the teachers unions continually make excuses for poor performances and promise to "fix" discrepancies with "more money" and "more teacher training."

Nothing has worked, even though the United States spends more per student, per capita, on primary education than any other industrialized nation. U.S. students still lag behind those of developed nations.

As CBS News noted in 2014:

The United States spent more than $11,000 per elementary student in 2010 and more than $12,000 per high school student. When researchers factored in the cost for programs after high school education such as college or vocational training, the United States spent $15,171 on each young person in the system -- more than any other nation covered in the report.

In December 2013, the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, added:

American 15-year-olds continue to turn in flat results in a test that measures students' proficiency in reading, math and science worldwide, failing to crack the global top 20.

Book is regularly assigned to kindergarteners

If a recent assignment at a school in New York City is any indication, the reason that American students lag ought to become very obvious.

As reported by the New York Post under the headline "Here's the proof a NYC diploma is worthless," state education officials recently discovered that 11th graders at Landmark High School were assigned a third-grade tome – The Three Little Pigs – as a reading assignment earlier this year.

"The report from the state Education Department says the classic children's fairy tale was just one of several ridiculously easy reading assignments uncovered at" the same school this year, the Post noted.

"'The Three Little Pigs' story was read round-robin style in a grade 11 classroom, which demonstrated limited student access in this class to grade-level text," said the report, from the department's Office of Accountability.

Following a two-day review of the Chelsea school – an institution that has been flagged for poor outcomes and performance – investigators found very "low level" texts in other classes as well, the Post reported.

Some students at Landmark struggled when it came to reading, digesting and understanding age- and grade-appropriate texts.

Private schools okay for the elite, not for the little people

"In classes where students were observed reading challenging text, when asked to answer simple questions about the text, most either reread the words in the text or said they did not know," the report noted.

Here's another telling fact: The classic Three Little Pigs, which is largely illustrated, is actually recommended at all city public schools, but only for kids who just finished Kindergarten.

"I can't even believe this is part of a high school's instruction," the ex-official told the Post. "I'm very surprised to see this. This doesn't seem reasonable for a high school."

That's putting it mildly.

In additional state Education Department findings, young adults at Flushing High School, where the Post reported that 150 failing students took quick "credit recovery" courses so they could graduate, did not remember ever getting a single assignment that was "memorable or challenging."

The Post continued:

At Brooklyn's Boys and Girls High School, more than one-third of all classes were being disrupted by students' chatter a month after Mayor Bill de Blasio touted supposed improvements there in March.

Meanwhile, the ruling class and financial elite continue sending their kids to swanky, expensive private schools on the primary and secondary levels while doing little to nothing to fix failing public schools that do not prepare American kids to compete with children in other developed countries for higher-end employment or to be the next generation's leaders.

Unless, of course, you're President Obama. Then you hypocritically complain about "other people" who use private schools while sending your own kids to one.

Sources include:

CBSNews.com

NPR.org

DailyMail.co.uk

NYPost.com

BizPacReview.com