I found this podcast from this 
post:
I subbed today for a 7th and 8th grade teacher. I’m not exaggerating when I say at least 50% of the students were at a 2nd grade reading level. The students were to spend the class time filling out an “all about me” worksheet, what’s your name, favorite color, favorite food etc. I was asked 20 times today “what is this word?”. Movie. Excited. Trait. “How do I spell race car driver?”
I've only listened to one episode so far, but it's really well produced, seems well-researched and very well put together.
From what I gather so far, the ways that the American public school system "teaches" kids how to read is not only completely wrong, but actually saddles them bad habits which fundamentally hinder their reading comprehension.
A huge swath of American adults are functionally illiterate, and I think I'm starting to understand why.
it's even more nonsensical than that. governments have been trying and failing to stamp this out for 20 years. the people behind it built a cult following in elementary education circles and rebranded their curriculum so they could keep peddling their nonsense, changing the description to avoid falling afoul of the law but without changing the content. it's literally that the publishing company had a much larger marketing budget than any of the researchers saying "no, stop". so until public media started running the story, there was no meaningful education for teachers telling them " this theory of reading education is wrong".
it's capitalism eating itself.
You'll think that people look at public services like education as a product are stupid but we all know deep inside that the commodification of education has the end goal of making more divisive with premium private education for the elite and the bare minimal for the ''public'' education (which can be run by religious institution just like the good olde days).
Ultimately this is just a way to stratify society with more defined castes
I’m flashing back to my middle school days when most of the kids in “accelerated programs” came from wealthy families