Well, hell, of course they are unprepared. Most of thenm can’t make change good enough to make a living at MacDonalds!
And that’s after they graduate from college.
When I started working at a Burger King as a high school senior back when LBJ was still in the White House, not only did we have to count change, we had to write the orders on a ticket, manually add up the total, and shout the order to the cooks and drink makers.
They put me on the front counter because, of all the seniors, I had the best grades in math and a loud mouth.
I'm not a big fan of collecting a lot of change and small bills. So, when I have a bill that is say $17.83 and I survey my available funds, I may end up handing the cashier $23.08. They're always seem a bit perplexed until they punch it in the register. In this case my change would be a nice tidy $5.25.
And, you are correct about that. More than 10 years ago, I worked at a Hallmark store and a group of teen girls came in to buy some candy. When one of the girls put down her change, she was a nickel short, which I told her. She stared at the change unable to compute why she was a nickel short. It was a real jolt to me about the quality of the schools that are in my area. This wasn't rocket science, I didn't ask her the square root of something, she needed an extra nickel.
Now, this is not the problem of the high school. There are a lot of problems at the high school level, but making change and being able to read well, should be things taught at the elementary school level.
People seem to focus on what is going wrong at the high school level, but I think you really need to go back to the elementary school level and start fixing that. Go back to basics! Teach kids how to make change, how to add, subtract, etc. Teach them how to read well, and in a way that they can progress on to more difficult material as time goes on. This is elementary school stuff.
Without the cash register to tell them what change to give, they have no clue. Ever see the look on a young cashier’s face when you pay with extra coins to get even dollars/quarters in change due? many times I’ve seen the light bulb go off after the machine has told them what to give back. Sad.
These kids barely learn anything in school. One of the most damaging losses is the ability to think.