How much would it cost to produce a K-12 National Recommended Reading List? The majority of books are mediocre to crap. So if school is mediocre teachers using mediocre books couldn't an excellent book list be better?
100 books for kindergarten
200 books for 1st Grade
300 books for 2nd Grade
etc.
That would come to 9100 books for K-12.
I could have read this in high school if I had known about it:
The Tyranny of Words (1938) by Stuart Chase
George Orwell mentioned Chase in an essay on politics. Chase published the book, A New Deal shortly before FDR's famous speech. He was a member of FDR's brain trust.
There is lots of old sci-fi free on the Internet now:
Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper
The Servant Problem by Robert F. Young
Black Man's Burden &
Border, Breed nor Birth by Mack Reynolds
Omnilingual by H Beam Piper
Deathworld by Harry Harrison
The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley