Let’s Tax About It: Denmark Wants Kids to Read More
What we choose to spend our money on is what we value. In Charlotte, election day revealed that more people than not value a multi-pronged transportation plan that aims to alleviate car traffic and expand public transportation via a one-cent sales tax increase.
I totally concede (get it?! election talk…) that spending money is not the only way to signal support of a value and also that money can be allocated unwisely. But what’s that phrase? Oh right…it’s “money talks.” And the dreaded “taxes” is, collectively, how our money is spent.
Or *not* spent, as is the case in Denmark which in August announced it will eliminate its 25-percent VAT on books as a way to combat a “reading crisis.” The gist is that lowering all-in book prices will lead to more people buying them. And hopefully actually reading them. Time will tell whether that logic plays out as intended.
I think the main reason this headline (here, NYT from August) is interesting is that “reading crises” are not exclusive to the US — although if you live here that would be your lens. According to this BBC piece, “…a quarter of Danish 15-year-olds cannot understand a simple text.” I’m not trying to be a national booster or anything, but hey Americans: We are not alone. (At least in this regard.)
In the US, we talk on and on and on about reading skills. (Remember No Child Left Behind from way back in the day?!) It is a very real issue, particularly post-Covid. But here’s Denmark, signaling that they value their citizens being able to decode text and think critically. A signal isn’t data or progress — or even action, necessarily — but it’s sort of a murky way of tackling a problem.
Forgetting one’s government and taxes for a moment, what signals are we as individuals sending about the reading crisis — wherever we may live? This afternoon I’m heading to my twice-weekly tutoring session with an elementary schooler where we work exclusively on reading skills. In this case, nothing financial is at stake; I’m volunteering so it’s just a tax on my time. I don’t mean to be all virtue-signal-y about announcing that, but … it’s just my way of tackling a problem.
originally published on instagram