WEST LAFAYETTE, IN—In the latest evidence of declining education standards, a report published Tuesday by researchers at Purdue University found that the average U.S. high schooler writes a manifesto at a second-grade level. “The sophomores who call in bombs threats and the juniors who shoot up their schools typically write manifestos at the level of a much younger student,” said study co-author Marvin Figuerosa, adding that the hundreds of manifesto writers the researchers examined lacked proficiency in spelling, grammar, and syntax, and could not assemble a consistent or comprehensible argument. “From basic stuff like an inability to capitalize proper nouns—such as the names of classmates they want to shoot—to misspelling simple words like ‘kill,’ ‘them,’ and ‘all,’ we’re seeing a severe deficit of writing skills among these students. Their manifestos are riddled with run-on sentences about executing all the popular kids and are hampered by descriptions of blood and gore in which the vocabulary is limited to that of a 7-year-old. In addition, most of these students wind up plagiarizing the writings of other mass murderers because they fail to use proper citations, something they should have learned to do years ago. It’s quite distressing to see them failing in these areas.” The researchers also concluded that in cases where the manifestos did display adequate writing skills, the students had most likely received help from their parents.