Defining 'Higher Education' Down

The good news: Oklahoma schools are teaching phonics. The bad news: It's in college.

To cite just one example (sadly, there are many), students at Tulsa Community College can take a college English course called "Spelling and Phonics," which is "designed for the student who needs to master basic spelling literacy and principles of phonics." And hey, just in case you're worried you're not getting your money's worth, "mastery of commonly misspelled words and decoding skills is included." Higher education, indeed.

If this information isn't depressing enough in its own right, contrast it with the requirements facing students hoping to be admitted to Harvard College around 1700: "Everyone competent to read Cicero or any other classic author of that kind extemporaneously, and also to speak and write Latin prose and verse with tolerable skill and without assistance, and of declining the Greek nouns and verbs, may expect to be admitted to the College: if deficient in any of these qualifications, he cannot under any circumstances be admitted."

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