Spelling and Grammar - lost in today's generation?

Interesting blog I found (not by me):

What saddens me more, if saddens is the correct word to use in this context (it is for me; I don't know about others), is the loss of vocabulary.

Without the adequate vernacular, abstract ideas and concepts cannot be given voice, and that abstractness is what humans are. It is the non-linear and the intangible aspects of ourselves, not the empirical nature of our biological bodies, that make us sentient. When the ability to be precise is lost, when that precision is never taught... A person's deepest thoughts cannot be consciously recognized. Those thoughts will still be there, but they can never emerge into the person's cognitive processes; as a result of that, an absolutely vital piece of what makes anyone intelligent is completely lost.... I've seen too many kids in my generation struggle horribly to put even simple abstract thoughts into words, because they just don't know the language to do so, and all they know is a vague feeling of sorts; they can't analyze anything... It makes me sad. The problem is particularly pronounced in the inner city. IMO the biggest reason that those kids seem to be locked into that life is that they are only ever taught language that relates to the here-and-now; it locks them into only considering the temporal things that they see before them in their current lives. Without the ability to form broader ideals and to place things into context, breaking free of any sort of what most of us would consider a non-desirable lifestyle is simply impossible... and that ability cannot be had if the adequate vocabulary needed to develop it is never taught.

Of course, the breakdown of grammar and spelling is related to that. Everything correlates to everything else... The essential disregard within our culture as a whole for language is disheartening at best and catastrophic at worst. It will lead to the eventual collapse of... everything... Britain's a bit ahead of us in that regard. What they are now is what we will be in five or ten years. (Our democracy is about to end as well, IMO, due to the historical cycle; democracies last only as long as people fail to realize that they can vote in ways that would benefit them personally, rather than the country as a whole; that realization has finally sunk its claws deep into the American mind.... once that realization hits, democracies always fail, historically speaking, and eventually become totalitarian in a way... Well, they move from democracy to oligarchy, essentially, if one thinks of the government as an oligarchy, and from there to totalitarianism... it's only a matter of time before America moves further down that path; we're already halfway to an oligarchy. I always wonder if people realize what's happening, or what they're doing when they vote for certain measures and certain people... Anyway. HUUUUGE digression right there.)

It just kills me, though, that kids aren't taught vocabulary... It is absolutely essential if they are to move beyond where they are in life. I do not understand how the world at large misses that. Far too many children are never even given a chance... everybody deserves the opportunity to improve his lot in life... and we never give that opportunity to most of the population.