Posted on 01/21/2006 10:26:44 AM PST by voletti
WASHINGTON: More than half of students at four-year colleges in the United States - and at least 75 percent at two-year colleges - lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers, a study found. The literacy study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the first to target the skills of graduating students, finds that students fail to lock in key skills - no matter their field of study. The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips. Without “proficient” skills, or those needed to perform more complex tasks, students fall behind. They cannot interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school. “It is kind of disturbing that a lot of folks are graduating with a degree and they’re not going to be able to do those things,” said Stephane Baldi, the study’s director at the American Institutes for Research, a behavioral and social science research organization. Most students at community colleges and four-year schools showed intermediate skills. That means they can do moderately challenging tasks, such as identifying a location on a map. There was brighter news. Overall, the average literacy of college students is significantly higher than that of adults across the nation. Study leaders said that was encouraging but not surprising, given that the spectrum of adults includes those with much less education.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailytimes.com.pk ...
That's why there are liberals in the world. Reason and logic are not taught anymore.
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And it is the perfect platform for breeding more liberals -- which is why the libs hold on so tight to the unions and the flunkies that are the teachers and lock-step members.
Make me want to vomit when I think about it.
A Special Ed teacher that I know tried to get her school district to develop a real-life experience courses for some of her students who were really low functioning. Instead of teaching them algebra, she wanted to teach them how to make change after purchases, balance a checkbook, etc. She was laughed out of the conference room by the silly liberals she worked with. Sad.
So what? It may be on a dozen other newspaper too. In a dozen other countries.
But you're right in the aspect that the Pakistani (and other foreign newspapers) are publishing this as a way of "down-grading" the US.
newspaper = newspaper sites
AP exagerrating for efect as usual? Why not take the logical next step and lay blame where it is due, namely the lib-dominated school system?
Genrally I relish reports of bloated NEA damage.
However, people DO pass the LSAT and go on to Law School to make certain that credit card offers, software agreements and the like are as unreadable and patience-tiring as possible. Such was a bad example, Herewith the afroesaidmentioned notwithstanding, excepting the Party of the Second Part, Hereinafter called...&etc.
I would wager that two years of apprenticeship - actually doing something - would go farther in the marketplace than these specious four-year degrees (excepting of course hard sciences, math, engineering).
Even worse, many people go for Masters and Ph.Ds and end up in their mid-30s never having held a job in their lives, and finding that there are so many others just like them that the competition for the few jobs for which they may be qualified is among the most intense in the market. These people are essentially unemployable, unfit for even menial labor because they have never developed the most basic of work ethics.
One of the saddest people I know is a 36-year-old Art History Ph.D. candidate. She has no future whatsoever other than sucking the teat of her daddy's fortune until she is old and grey - not even marriageable since no man would want to acquire a wife who has done nothing substantial for anyone else in her entire life and is nearing the end of her childbearing years anyway.
There are two places to place blame:
The NEA for protecting poor performers...
and the majority of parents of public schools who expect the school to do everything related to their child's education...
And people wonder why my kids are in Catholic school...
The first step to restoring math literacy is ending tax withholding! Governments (fed, state, local) will have to teach math properly to secure their revenues.
You sure don't get much to show today for a $200,000 college education.
The whole apprenticeship thing is extremely dicey. Pick the wrong field and you're screwed for life. Tool and die work, for instance, is dead in this country. Though a guy I used to know did something similar for diamonds/gems and went from minimum wage to six figures in a couple of years.
Interesting about your friend the art history student. I happen to know a couple who are doing pretty well in museums and galleries and auction hourses. Combine art history with an MBA and you have a killer resume. Could it be that she's not all that motivated?
Apprenticeship is no more dicey than a college degree, and requires less of a time investment. Pick the wrong college degree and you are just as screwed as if you apprentice to a dead craft. You can always re-apprentice in a new field, that's essentially how people change careers already, take a position at the bottom of the new field and work their way up. The difference with apprenticeship is that even if the trade dies the work skills, ethics, and experience remain. Contrast this to a poorly-chosen degree which cannot be usefully applied to anything else.
The thing about the museum field is that there is an extremely limited number of jobs for a large number of people who want them. They're great once you're in - but if you can't get in, there is no alternative. Even when you are in you have basically no leverage as an employee, whereas with another skill you could credibly have the option of leaving one employer for another.
On my Art History friend... yes a lack of motivation is definitely evident - and this eternal-education path that is available is a prime enabler for this behavior. In the commercial world that sort of behavior would be corrected quite quickly!
That would "teach 'em." :O)
Not long ago, I read a news article in which a paragraph ended with, "...or whatever."
I'd like to say it was some leftwing rag like the NY Slimes, but it wasn't. It was in the Wall Street Journal. This is why I maintain that "journalism" is not the name of a profession or even an occupation, but simply an activity-- an activity, apparently, which requires no particular training or skill.
Related only vaguely to this thread, they have a relatively new program at the Guggenheim where an art doctoral students conduct free tours as part of their apprenticeship. I love that. These are really bright kids who have real enthusiasm for art.
Anyway, I'm of the mind that someone with motivation can make any degree work in the marketplace. The problem is, 99.999% of the kids are not motivated. They got into those programs because they were "easy" and now just want some job where they can show up at 9 and leave at 5.
I agree. I told my kids that if they wanted their parents to pay for them to earn a college degree; the minimum requirements were for them to take Economincs, Accounting, Finance and Marketing courses. After that, the could persue underwater basket weaving.
p.s. When I say motivated, I mean highly motivated. I have something wrong with my hearing that has plagued me for years. Whenever somebody says, "Family is the most important thing," what I hear is, "I like to sit at home and watch TV."
I'd never hire somebody with those those priorities.
INteresting.
Liberals tell us that colleges are hot beds of liberalism because they are better educated.
However, it now appears that college grads don't possess critical listening or reading skills.
That is probably why they are liberals, not education but lack of education.
INteresting.
Liberals tell us that colleges are hot beds of liberalism because they are better educated.
However, it now appears that college grads don't possess critical listening or reading skills.
That is probably why they are liberals, not education but lack of education.
The future is here. Biting satire? Nowadays anyone who can write a coherent paragraph is a genius. My mother was an average writer in her day, graduating from college in the sixties. By today's standards she can walk on water.
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