Great expectations. Maybe not.

This piece from NPR explores what high school students are reading: on their own and as assigned in class. Most are not progressing beyond the fantasy reads of middle school. Evidence from the Accelerated Reader program reveals that high school readers are now assigned books three grade levels below what they were 100 years ago. This absence of the Classics from curriculum choices, of that complexity, intelligence, and reading rigor, is, of course, a cause for concern.