According to today’s Wall Street Journal only 24% of U.S. freshmen entering colleges are equipped to do college-level work. These were students who had taken four years of English and three years each of math, science and social studies

The results are based on ACT (American College Testing) scores. In 2010, 1.6 million high school students took the exam so that colleges could evaluate their learning abilities. On a 36 point scale the average composite score was 21.0. Their English is mediocre (39% are less qualified than core requirements). Their reading skills are poor (again 39% cannot meet standards). Their math and science skills are even worse.

Michigan’s success rate was below average. Less that 39% met at least three of the four college readiness benchmarks. As a consequence CMU offers remedial classes to gigantic numbers of incoming freshmen, stretched out in some cases to three or four years.

Some blame the Democrats, teachers’ unions, and civil rights groups for watering down the high school curriculum. These arrows miss the mark entirely. It has much more to do with parents and the students themselves. Households with both parents working have little time to oversee their children’s progress in school. Often they give in to every teenage whim for new “toys” such as HDTV (which becomes a baby sitter for far too many hours each day), expensive cars and computers, and the latest cell phone for texting, tweeting, and facing books. They do not address school work other than prompting the kids to do well in sports.

On campus I see a majority of students walking from one building to the next with cell phones glued to their faces. You have seen drivers doing the same. Social connectivity is out of control. The web is the medium of choice for many as their only means of receiving the news each day, disregarding validity for speed.

The United States is falling behind: we ranked twelfth among nations in 2007 of adults ages 25-34 with an associate degree or higher. Canada, by the way, was first with 55.8%.

By enabling our children to waste their time by giving them counter-productive possessions, we have disabled them from enjoying a future as good as ours.