USA! USA! USA!

The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).

Look, what does it matter if 10% of the population don't know how to read? In any sufficiently developed country, that is not the fault of the education system. I'm pretty sure that in the US, like most non-third-world countries, if you wanted to learn how to read, there is no shortage of resources enabling you to do so. The fact that there is a salient illiterate subpopulation suggests that there are jobs that the illiterate can sustain themselves with, most likely manual labor.

I think the bigger problem is the fact that there are all these overeducated college graduates that end up working in data-entry or sales counter positions.