text: illiterateness - cause for concern? places like yahoo answers and other general forums really expose the magnitude of complete illiterateness in today's youth. what's going wrong in the schools and does it concern you as much as it does me? it is a serious problem, and, as others have said, the teachers are a large part of that problem, not the solution that they should be.  my grandson brought home a handout from his language arts class (see - they don't even hide that they're not teaching english). it was rife with spelling and punctuation errors, total lack of parallelism, and incomprehensible composition. my  favorite part was the paragraph that contained three references to missed work - once it was "makeup", then "make up", and just to cover all bases "make-up". a very close second was a statement that the teacher expected common curtsey. at first i thought she wanted them to bow to her - then i realized she messed up "courtesy" so badly the spellchecker never missed a beat.   did a proofreading job and sent to the superintendent of schools. never got a response.  p. s. to those of you questioning the word "illiterateness", i would suggest a good, unabridged dictionary.