Can anybody tell me why these kids in jr high and high school do not know how to compose a sentence?

All of the answers ahead are partially correct .But the problem goes deeper than that. Our country does not put education very high up on the totem pole. Teachers are under paid and school's don't have the necessary resource to run properly.The general public doesn't believe writing to be that important. How often do you have to write a paragraph in your work. Most don't. Teachers now days are told exactly what to teach, how to teach it and for how long each day to teach it. The state regulates it all. Then the state test the schools to see if they taught it. If a teacher fails to properly teach the S.L.E.'s (student learning expectations) it could mean they're out of a job. Then our president may jump in with his own agenda, No Child Left Behind to take up what ever few minutes you had to teach writing. Now the teacher has to do useless menial paper work for bureaucratic stupidity.

I am laughing. The question and all the replies ahead of mine have errors.

Because they are not taught to do that in school. It's "common knowledge" that if a person is a native speaker of a language, grammar comes along. Which is not true.

That is such a rediculous generalization. You are taking a small sample of the teenagers on this board, the ones you see on TV and the few you see in your everyday life and ASSUMING that no one knows how to compose a sentence. It's completely unfair. I'm 25 and have been composing sentences perfectly for 10 years or more. Most of the teens I teach compose sentences well, and my teenage siblings and friends know how to write properly as well. You need to ask yourself why you feel the need to judge the youth of America so harshly.

Because all test are multiple choice and you have to answer everything fast.

Ask their K through ? teachers. Then ask the parents why they did not intervene sooner, and provided their children with the extra help they needed. There are many alternatives, like Toastmasters, or other speech and debate clubs (4H) that can be real beneficial to a young person in helping develop, or improve their speech, and writing skills. Ultimately it is the parents responsibility to keep track of what the schools are, or are not doing, and do what is necessary to direct the education of their children. We home school, but the materials/curriculum's we use, can be purchased by anyone. Addition. Bud; I agree with you as well, although I am very much against absolving parents from their responsibility to help educate their children in schools, as well as at home. I also believe no child left behind is absolutely not going to make a difference, and will probably set our children back even further; it is simply an accountability measure for funding, and if funding depends on it schools will teach them how to pass the tests rather than educate them. No child left behind should be called no child, or teacher left alone, and in the end both are left in the dust.

I can tell you why (at least here in Florida) is the STANDARDIZED TESTING! These kids are coming into high school and they can write words like an artist paints a portrait; but there's no meaning to their words! And don't even let me get started on the spelling! My niece is in fourth grade and the teacher actually thinks that spelling is not important, but learning the process of composing an essay is very important. It's that kind of mentality that allows these kids to not be able to write one sentence correctly let alone an essay!

please don't sterotype!!!

Cell phones and texting!