Teachers keep saying kids cannot read. Is the situation that bad? [video]

My experience : I taught 7th and 8th grade summer school math for a couple months.

The curriculum for this class included additiong and subtraction. About a fifth of the students struggled with this.

Additionally about a fifth of the students couldnt really read beyond the level of simple words/phrases (see bob run, etc)

This was both an opt-in and a remedial session. There was no grading at all, only an attendence requirement. So effectively anyone who failed all their classes in 7th or 8th grade could show up to summer school, do nothing, and get passed on (and really, even if they didnt meet the attendence requirement, they got passed on to the next grade anyway)

It struck me that this is likely what their entire education had looked like up to that point : failing to engage at all with their own education, and being effectively ignored and passed on to the next grade.

Depends on the school district/location, but it is probably worse than even some teachers realize. I'm afraid it's one of those must see it to believe it phenomenon, and unless you have experience working a diverse sample of students, it is easy to believe that things are better in other locations.