by Lorraine Messineo

Created on: December 31, 2008

A fact that our government has managed to overlook is that "literacy" is more than just reading at an acceptable level. It also includes being able to comprehend and maintain the information accessed in the process. Additionally, the more access one has to that information in forms other than text, the easier it is to maintain. The efforts to make American children "more literate" will result only in children with better reading skills, but less access to a great deal of the knowledge contained within the text.

Of course, considering the heavy focus of the "No Child Left Behind" legislation on math, science, and reading, those children with aptitudes in math or science will have other avenues of accessing the knowledge of those texts and will have the necessary reinforcements, through those other studies, to maintain and develop those aptitudes in the future.

In order to focus on the above three subjects, and due to government support of religion-based private schools, and charter schools, budget cuts in education in our public schools have taken many liberal arts and vocational programs from the general student population. Children are not offered "home economics" or "shop" anymore in many schools. They were offered from junior high through high school when I went to school, and in a much less traditional manner to the same group when my children went to school.

Now once a child is in high school, she or he can opt for a vocational program through the public school system. Once enrolled in that program its a pass/fail when it comes to that all important factor-is there really an aptitude for the occupation or does the kid just like to fix cars or make pasta dishes? Is your child getting skills that will support his or her future?

Take a look at what's going on in universities. Many students don't declare a major right off. When I went back to school I changed my majors 2 times. At 48, I still didn't really know what I wanted to do when I grew up!

In today's society, one is not truly literate unless their knowledge is well-rounded. Knowledge can not be well-rounded if derived only from one source. We offer token arts and humanities to elementary students but then forsake them for education aimed at the sciences after that. Let's face it, only those trained in the sciences and math, who are able to understand formulas for weapons or wealth, are valuable to our government. They hold the keys to power!

No country has ever been a world power because they had the best

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