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 theyre not going to be able to do those things, said Stephane Baldi, the studys 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 ...
Let them tend bar at an airport Holiday Inn for a year.
For that classic deer in the headlights look; hand the clerk $1.04 when paying for that 79 cent item...ROTF!
Yes, exactly. Or work in a mailroom for Pitney Bowes. Just about a year of that kind of stuff would bring the pie-in-the-sky idealism down to a more practical, respectable, and real-world vision.
But, what do I know? :-)
Unfortunately, what I am seeing are an increasing number of young people in those jobs. Basically, they stay stoned to keep their sanity. There is, I'm convinced, an entire class of people who deal with each and every day of their lives with either legal or illegal drugs of some form or another.
I hate getting beck pennies with my change, so I do just that very thing whenever I pay for something in cash.
I am feared and hated by change-making monkeys in two counties.
Have you checked out Kinko's lately? Since Fedex took it over they've managed to fire or replace every worker who knew what they were doing...every Kinko's in the city is filthy now with stoners kind of shuffling around behind the counter in a daze...
Funny you mention - I used to use Kinkos a lot to bind materials for information products I sell. I noticed that too and quit using them about 18 months ago or so. No matter how simple the job (copy and bind 2 copies of a 210 page manual), they could never get it done sooner than 24 hours.
Copymax, on the other hand, often does it while I wait or just mill around the store, and when I see they are unusually busy I say 'I can just come by tomorrow by noon' and they seem really appreciative.
You are right about Kinkos - stoners it appears to be.
Or how about $5.00 and 4 cents? Watch them hand you back the five, four singles and 25¢. LOL!
You are right, parents have to take an active role.
taking a guess # 4
The best Kinkos in NYC was on 34th and Madison. Although out of my way, I used them all the time. Now, they're as bad as all the rest. I've also heard reports from L.A. regarding the lowered quality as well. It's too bad, they were a great company.
The ones in LV all stink now. Oh well, I'm sure the suits at FexEx know what they're doing! ;-)
I'm a firm believer that you can always tell a well run company at the point of sale. Kinko's/Fedex don't pass the test. The company that really seems stand out to me lately is Boar's Head. Trucks are clean, the drivers alert and well-turned out. The product is good.
With the loss of mfg jobs, what America has left for blue collar are service jobs. And let me tell you, the state of service jobs stinks.
Yea, I hear that.
Is your choice of alternate spelling proving to us that you are politicaly correct or are you a feminist?
The better way is to give them a dollar and let them key the register before you give them the added 4 cents. Not one in 10 knows what to do.
What alternate spelling would that be?
You will still get to dimes and a nickel in change.
"Womyn" rather than "Woman". Are you sure the apostrophe usage is correct in "Womyn's Studies" or is that something else that's changed since my days in a hardwood floored classroom?
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