Have recent generations forgotten correct spelling and grammar?

I make a big distinction between casual "chatting" on a forum such as this one ... and more formal writing. Here, I am very tolerant of misspellings and typos as I know that most of us are typing quickly and not taking a lot of time to proof-read and correct all of our casual convesation here.

But I am bothered by the appearance we give of our profession when we nurses use poor grammar on more formal documents. It makes us look very poorly educated when others can see that we don't know how to write in complete sentences, don't know that every sentence needs both a subject and a verb, don't know the right words or meanings of common expressions, etc.

As a part-time faculty member in an RN-BSN program, I grade student term papers. These are formal papers written in APA style, etc. I am appalled by the poor grammar, awkward or incorrect word usage, wrong punctuation, etc. that I see in approximately 33% of my students. Not only is it "not college level writing," it is "not 8th grade level" writing. The same people seem to also have a lot of time understanding the textbook and the nursing articles that we read in class. These students were obviously "passed along" in their earlier schooling without ever having to master the English language. they haven't forgotten it: they never learned it.

While such students may be adequate direct patient care providers, I am always conflicted about how to grade them. I am not teaching physical bedside care-giving skills. Their bedside clinical skills are irrelevant in assessing their academic skills. I am teaching them in their academic classes -- and that level of reading comprehension and writing is simply not at the college (BSN) level. I struggle with that.