Arguing that American schools are not meeting their goals in developing concerned, active citizens who seek to continue to read and learn after their formal schooling has ended, this paper supports this argument by citing information concerning adults' use of books and mass media. The first section of the paper assesses current adult reading and media behavior in terms of the stated goals of education, while the second section examines two reasons why education has not made a greater impact on postschooling reading and media behavior: (1) the pervasiveness of the nonschool curriculum and (2) habits developed by the school curriculum. The third section suggests steps that reading educators must take if educational goals of lifelong learning and reading are to be met, and identifies a series of "macropropaganda" techniques (strategies that influence the larger news or media picture) used by the media that educators must teach their students to recognize and analyze. (FL)