Posted on 03/13/2015 5:43:39 AM PDT by iowamark
Surprised? So were the researchers who tested and compared workers in 23 countries.
We hear about the superior tech savvy of people born after 1980 so often that we tend to assume it must be true. But is it?
Researchers at Princeton-based Educational Testing Service (ETS) expected it to be when they administered a test called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). Sponsored by the OECD, the test was designed to measure the job skills of adults, aged 16 to 65, in 23 countries.
When the results were analyzed by age group and nationality, ETS got a shock. It turns out, says a new report, that Millennials in the U.S. fall short when it comes to the skills employers want most: literacy (including the ability to follow simple instructions), practical math, and — hold on to your hat — a category called “problem-solving in technology-rich environments.”
Not only do Gen Y Americans lag far behind their overseas peers by every measure, but they even score lower than other age groups of Americans.
Take literacy, for instance. American Millennials scored lower than their counterparts in every country that participated except Spain and Italy. (Japan is No. 1.) In numeracy, meaning the ability to apply basic math to everyday situations, Gen Yers in the U.S. ranked dead last.
Okay, but what about making smart use of technology, where Millennials are said to shine? Again, America scored at the bottom of the heap, in a four-way tie for last place with the Slovak Republic, Ireland, and Poland.
Even the best-educated Millennials stateside couldn’t compete with their counterparts in Japan, Finland, South Korea, Belgium, Sweden, or elsewhere. With a master’s degree, for example, Americans scored higher in numeracy than peers in just three countries: Ireland, Poland, and Spain. Altogether, the top U.S. Gen Yers, in the 90th percentile, “scored lower than their counterparts in 15 countries,” the report notes, “and only scored higher than their peers in Spain.”
“We really thought [U.S.] Millennials would do better than the general adult population, either compared to older coworkers in the U.S. or to the same age group in other countries,” says Madeline Goodman, an ETS researcher who worked on the study. “But they didn’t. In fact, their scores were abysmal.”
What does that mean for U.S. employers hiring people born since 1980? Goodman notes that hiring managers shouldn’t overestimate the practical value of a four-year degree. True, U.S. Millennials with college credentials did score higher on the PIAAC than Americans with only a high school diploma (albeit less well than college grads in most other countries).
“But a degree may not be enough,” Goodman says, to prove that someone is adept with basic English, can do what she calls “workaday math,” or has the ability to use technology in a job. Curious about how the PIAAC measures those skills, or how you’d score yourself? Check out a few sample math questions, or take the whole test.
Oh. I know. Literature is a core subject. I’m talking about people who invented computers, figured out fighter jets, aircraft carriers, the space program. I knew some of them and still do. THey were educated. THey hated to read just like anyone, but they learned it. As a result, they could not only communicate and discern away from those who could not and cannot, they knew about virtue.
There’s no greater teacher, along with tradition and hard knocks, of virtue and evil, than literature.
Heck, if people knew Shakespeare like these people did and do, they would, 1) have Hillary’s number, which they do not, and 2) not allow the crap coming out of Hollywood to continue poisoning their kids.
Parents are the educators. that kids are uneducated is the fault of parents.
there.
I said it.
Anyway, basic math true science and history It’s not that difficult to teach they did it in the ‘40s.
Yes, access to certain technologies can build some bad intellectual habits. But it's awfully nice to be able to Google and Wiki stuff up. The key isn't fact retention anymore, it's how it all fits together, and if you can't retain facts you can't hook 'em up. The 'puter can't do that for you.
I do wish they'd stay off my lawn, though.
Without measuring the tutoring ( paid and unpaid), study clubs, and “after-schooling done by the parents and the children outside of the school it is impossible to know if any school is good or not.
I came to this conclusion because it is my anecdotal observation that academically successful homeschoolers and successful institutionalized children are doing the **same** amount of work in the HOME.
Well, gee! Both the home and institutionalized academically successful children are doing the same work in the home, maybe the school has **nothing** to do with their success! Maybe the only thing the school is doing is sending home a very, very, very expensive curriculum. Is a “duh” needed here?
I never had a low paying job. I learned about honesty an ethics from my father, the Boy Scouts, and the military. Good work habits extend from that base when combined with self motivation.
Did I nail it?
It's hard, it really is. I have one Honors class that keeps me alive. Really sweet kids, reasonably alert and good-humored... they are why I hang in there. But the low-skills ones... many of them aren't just low-skills; they have really rotten personalities. They taunt each other. They're irritable and bratty. Arrogant. Mind-numbingly arrogant, some of them. Administration just croons that the poor darlings have low self-esteem. I think "If they do, they are at least assessing themselves correctly." Nasty bunch. (Not all of them, of course. There are some sweet kids trapped in hell with the little monsters. But only a few.)
Ill be glad when boomers leave politics and leadership. Im a boomer and we dont impress me much
You seem to think that low paying jobs are the ONLY way to develop work ethics. I am proof that such is not the case.
My ethics came from my father, the Boy Scouts, and the United States Army. Showing up late to army events generally results in something much worse than being fired from a job you don't really want.
Illegals do take away the jobs youngsters used to make their own money. That is tragic.
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