The front page of today's Inquirer highlights the very unpleasant fact that public schools are cranking out illiterates:

Tens of thousands of Pennsylvania high school seniors who failed state math and reading tests got "empty diplomas" last year because they had not learned basic skills, Pennsylvania Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak says.

Statewide, 45 percent of the 127,000 seniors failed the tests, leading Zahorchak to lament that diplomas were awarded to many who "show up and shut up."

Asked about the proposed requirements, Philadelphia and suburban students didn't like them.

Jamillah Hannibal, a college-bound senior and student activist at the the Kensington International School of Business, Finance and Entrepreneurship, said she had not passed her math PSSA. "I'm not educationally challenged. I can do the work, but tests are not my strong point," she said. "I've worked my four years so hard to graduate, and [under the proposed regulations] I couldn't see my diploma because of one test? That's wrong."

At the West Chester Area School District's Henderson High School, senior Sanjay Kataria said no "empty diplomas" were granted there. "Teachers will make sure that if students are to graduate, they deserve it," even if a student can't pass a state test, he said.

About 30 percent of the district's graduates failed 2006 math or reading tests, state data show.

Classmate Deanna Talbot agreed: "Graduation should be a completion of everything you've learned. . . . Not being able to graduate because of some number [on a state test] is probably one of the most horrible things that could happen to a student."

Many employers have a different view. Tracee Hunt, vice president for human resources at the Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling Co. and a member of the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board, a government-chartered organization that studies employment issues, said she "wholeheartedly" favored the tests. "You end up hiring individuals who have a high school diploma, and when you start to go through the training process, you find out that they will not be able to handle the job, based on their competency levels," she said.

Many students entering college also lack skills. Only 21 percent of students applying to four-year institutions nationally are college-ready in all areas, Edna Baehre, the president of Harrisburg Area Community College, told the state Board of Education last week.

If I were an employer and thought I could get away with it, I might have applicants take the PSSA test that has the educrats in such a tizzy. Sample tests are available here, and I thought I'd share one question from the 11th grade reading proficiency section. First the passage:

1 Although the octopus is often viewed as a vicious monster, it is actually a gentle and intelligent creature with many interesting characteristics. 2 While some octopuses in the extreme depths of the ocean reach gigantic proportions, most are three feet or less in diameter. 3 Many could fit on the tip of a persons thumb. 4 Large or small, an octopus has the ability to camouflage itself by changing colors to match its surroundings. 5 This talent is not confined to a single color either; an octopus can match color patterns and even mimic surface textures. 6 Imagine a polka-dotted octopus!

7 Another fascinating physical ability of these animals is that they can flatten themselves and "ooze" like jelly through small cracks; octopuses as large as three feet across can slip through a crack 1/8-inch thick!

8 Furthermore, these animals are easily trained. 9 In one trial, a scientist continuously prodded an octopus in an attempt to elicit color changes. 10 The octopus refused to cooperate and was finally lifted from the tank. 11 As soon as the irritated invertebrate was in position to take a direct shot, it sprayed ink all over the scientist who had been annoying it. 12 There was no doubt about the octopus's intentions as it only sprayed one person. 13 Even though other team members were within close range.

1. Which word should contain an apostrophe?

A. persons in sentence 3
B. its in sentence 4
C. textures in sentence 5
D. animals in sentence 8

2. Which sentence would best conclude this passage?

A. In the Pacific Northwest, there is an octopus that spends most of its life in trees.
B. There are similarities between a squid and an octopus, but they are very different creatures.
C. Octopuses are intelligent and fascinating creatures and undeserving of their false reputation.
D. The man who was sprayed is Dr. Thomas Cerny, an expert on octopuses and squids.

3. In sentence 8, the word Furthermore could be replaced with which transitional expression without changing the meaning of the sentence?

A. In other words
B. In addition
C. On the other hand
D. As a result

4. Which is an incomplete sentence?

A. sentence 5
B. sentence 6
C. sentence 11
D. sentence 13

There's plenty of irony in my argument, though. Because, while I may be literally literate, in many ways I am a cultural illiterate.

I don't mean to sound like a snob here. Far from it. I have pointed out a number of times that I never read science fiction. Many of my friends not only read it, but over the years when I've gotten together with them, I've noticed that they can engage in long conversations comparing what they've read, urging each other to read this novel and that novel, or this writer and that writer, and expressing occasional surprise on learning what someone or other has actually dared to not read. (I can always beat them to the punch on that one. They might as well be talking about obscure Sanscrit texts.) Whether they are better for being scifi literate -- or I am worse for being scifi illiterate -- is not the point; it's simply a statement of fact. (I'm well-read in history, trained in the law, and know all about pit bull pedigrees, though.)

If you think science fiction illiteracy is bad, there's another area where my cultural literacy is shockingly bad. (And it is sometimes embarrassing.)

Television. My problem is that I hate it. I find most of the people on it annoying, I don't like having my mind led by others, and I just don't have the patience that is required to get past the loud and annoying commercials. Occasionally I'll turn something on, but the first commercial makes me turn it off. My television set is there so when duty calls I can always tune in and watch important breaking news or political debates (much as I hate the latter), but for entertainment purposes, it's either Turner Classic Movies or DVD rentals. The one exception was that I used to watch the Sopranos (I'm a Godfather fan, and when a friend found out I'd never seen the show, he came over and gave me his collection of tapes, and kept bugging me to watch them until one day I was snowed in with nothing to do, and I spent two days falling in love with the series. Best of all, it had no commercials!) That aside, there's no TV in my life.

Now for the embarrassing part. Whether I like it or not, because this culture is largely a TV-based one, I am regularly reminded that I don't have any idea what people are talking about. There was a show called "Friends" that was on for quite some time. I used to sit there cluelessly when people talked about it, for I never watched a single episode. That seems to have died down, and I think "Friends" is off the air, because I think I read about it in the newspaper. (I just checked, and yes, I did. So that part of my cultural illiteracy is fading away as fewer and fewer people discuss the show....)

But there are plenty of times I am in situations where people take it for granted that I, a reasonably informed and apparently intelligent person will understand what they're talking about, and I just plain don't.

I have never watched American Idol. My knowledge of the show consists of tidbits I've heard about and read about. It's apparently a listener-interactive amateur contest consisting of awful singing. I'd never turn something like that on, even if there weren't commercials (which I'm sure there are), because I can't stand hearing stuff like that.

So yesterday I read this:

...no one pays me to blog "American Idol."

While I certainly understand the feeling of obligation (or "blogligation"), it warms my heart that there is such diversity, because I don't think I could blog about American Idol. Having never watched the show, how could I? This is part and parcel of my cultural illiteracy, and it is a fact of life. The only way I can change it is to turn on the TV.

As if I needed another reminder, Glenn Reynolds recently linked a very interesting post about the pitfalls of excessive irony.

The ironic man, whom Mr. Purdy personifies as the sitcom character Jerry Seinfeld . . . is an outright menace. With his ''style of speech and behavior that avoids all appearance of naivete -- of naive devotion, belief, or hope,'' the individual armored in the irony . . . has withdrawn from the political arena just when it needs him most.

See what I mean?

Regular readers know that irony is not normally an alien topic to me, but here it was. Now I have to worry that an important irony may have been largely lost on me because the discussion assumed fluency with Seinfeld -- a show that (probably ironically) I do not watch.

Yes, here I go again.

I have never watched an episode of Seinfeld.

I've had an occasional glimpse while flipping through the channels (or seeing a YouTube segment), and along with hundreds of thousands of people, I know he uttered the famous "Not that there's anything wrong with that" about homosexuality (which doesn't matter or something), but beyond that, I'm incapable of understanding the nuances of serious Seinfeld discussions. (Hell, another time Glenn compared Scalia to Seinfeld -- and I'm sure there's not anything wrong with that.) I could always turn to Wikipedia, and I'm sure there are bulletin boards discussing the show, but would that really make me literate? I mean, in the TV context, isn't watching required? Wouldn't I "only be cheating myself" if I relied on the Wikipedia entry to understand the nuances of Seinfeldian irony without even watching an episode? Isn't that a little like reading CliffsNotes (or even Classics Illustrated) instead of the literature itself?

Much irony is probably lost on a self-cheating cultural illiterate like me.

And that's tragic, isn't it?

(It better be, or there goes my moral equivalency argument!)