SESAME STREET, NY—Reflecting national trends in the public school system, researchers from Columbia University have found that literacy rates are at an all-time low for a small yet popular neighborhood of New York’s inner city. In recent years, Sesame Street, featured regularly in documentaries on PBS, has become the poster child for the growing educational epidemic in urban America. One of the study’s primary authors, Dr. Lynn McAllister, addressed the matter.
“We’re all familiar with the budgetary woes, the dearth of quality instructors, and other issues affecting public education in America. However, our study shows that [Sesame Street] is actually predicting the decline elsewhere in the country. In our paper, we call this the Sesame Street Educational Index.”
McAllister and her colleagues found, among the prolific and alarming trends, that fewer letters were appearing in Sesame Street along with worse grammar and fewer large numbers. Many of the neighborhood’s residents still use the first three letters of the alphabet and some of the more popular letters, but unpopular ones, such as I and U, have nearly disappeared entirely from common usage. Few can even read whole words. For example, the only letter Cookie Monster, a furry blue creature, knows is “C… for cookie,” and that’s with the associated sense and memory of how the round treats taste. Likewise, Elmo, a furry, crimson resident that is popular on the documentary, commented in the third person, “Elmo knows A, B, and C… also the letters of his name. Not really sure how much [sic] letters there are.”
McAllister further lamented about the mathematical ability of the neighborhood. “The Count is the most proficient counter and mathematician in [Sesame Street], at least for his age group. However, we have noted that in recent years, the highest number that he reaches when adding has been slipping farther and farther below 100. Also, as of late, he has no apparent understanding of multiplication and can perform only rudimentary addition and subtraction. This seems to parallel some observations in a study of Barney and Friends before he had to be put down for trying to eat that kid.”
When asked for comment about the causes of Sesame Street’s low literacy rate and otherwise declining education, McAllister stated that it was a complex issue for the neighborhood but money may help.
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