We are distracted by urgent demands to renovate or build new schools; but laying bricks and mortar won’t prevent illiteracy — and we are truly illiterate.

If we speak of it, we should quietly whisper and pray no one outside our community overhears us, but only 76 percent of the fourth–graders in East Auburn Community School (the most successful elementary school) are proficient in reading. The remaining 11 fourth-grade classes are worse to shameful. There is only 9 percent proficiency at Longley.

We ask our professional educators why our children are failing, but neither their silence nor their creative excuses help our children. We are unable to refute them; we are not professional educators. But the most persuasive argument is that other schools are doing better and so should we.

Schools in Florida and in Finland are successful. Florida’s fourth-grade students are ranked second in the world in reading; Finland is third. Can you believe it — Florida, with less favorable demographics than our own, is second in the world?

In international testing, Finland’s 15-year-old students lead the world in reading, mathematics and science. They do so using less money, less instructional time and (our children will love this) with less homework.

Common sense tells us, since we have the same attributes possessed by Finland and Florida (and this notably includes fourth-graders and 15-year-old students), we should also be successful.

Do we need to renovate or build new? The question should be, why are we failing to educate our children in our existing schools?

Richard Sabine, Lewiston