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“Reading, language comprehension, and critical thinking are more universally needed than, say, matrix multiplication or integrals.”

Based on current wisdom. Current wisdom has a spotty track record though. It was once an obvious truth that reading was only for a select group. Universal literacy would have been as absurd back then as the notion of universal math literacy is now. Which is depressing, because one would hope that at least this historical analogy, and it’s implications, had occurred to more people.