Reports on college literacy levels sobering

[Fumesucker]

Article is fairly old but I don't see any evidence that things in this area are improving.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/10928755/ns/us_news-education/t/reports-college-literacy-levels-sobering/#.VkojwLxdSUm

WASHINGTON — Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.

Those are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers.

More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks.

<snip>

Almost 20 percent of students pursuing four-year degrees had only basic quantitative skills. For example, the students could not estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the service station. About 30 percent of two-year students had only basic math skills.

[romanic]

1. Well that explains the recent craziness lately on campuses.

No but being serious this is part of a much larger problem. Our schools, be it public or charter, have failed our younger generation for the last ten or more years. Testing and scores took priority over engaging instruction and required reading. Schools are nothing more than drone factories now. *sighs*

[msongs]

2. yes but they can multi task on their cell phones and tablets tn

[RadiationTherapy]

7. While multitasking is an illusion, skill with research on technology is the future of "intelligence"

No one wants you calculating the exact quantities of plutonium needed to operate a nuclear plant, etc., on paper or counting on fingers and toes.

[TheSarcastinator]

3. if you are interested in reading more about this issue

I highly recommend "Academically Adrift" by Arum & Roksa. It lays out all the various facets of the problem very clearly.

http://www.amazon.com/Academically-Adrift-Limited-Learning-Campuses/dp/0226028569

[Hortensis]

4. This is my one big argument against making college

100% free for everyone. Not everyone belongs there. Now, trade school, sure!

A reason so many, including children of religious fundamentalists, are in college in the first place is that a degree is seen as a passport to the middle class. Maybe they can wear a hat that says so instead.

[GummyBearz]

5. And a good point it is

I see news stories weekly about the bar tender who got a masters in X, has huge student loans, but cannot find work other than being a bar tender. Well, maybe that person should have gone to trade school?? What a concept..

[Hortensis]

8. Are you making fun of me or agreeing? Can't tell. :)

To me, a bartender who got a masters in something academic enough to not be immediately marketable in the job market obviously has the right stuff for college -- not just gifted with adequate brains but with the thirst for knowledge that lead him to pursue his interest in Central American history instead of a drearily practical major.

I was talking about the semiliterates mentioned, by far most of whom are not sufficiently practiced in reading because of a lack of thirst for knowledge. I imagine we all know the various tactics they use to even graduate at all. We should cut them a break by paying for bartender's school.

[GummyBearz]

26. I am agreeing with you

I may have exaggerated the master's part. Sorry about that. But seriously, trade schools are important and it is a damn shame they don't get the respect they deserve. Parents seem to ingrain the idea of college into their kids these days, but it is not the best option for everyone.

[Hortensis]

28. I agree. I think the outsourcing of jobs has at least greatly

increased appreciation of, if not actual respect for, positions in local trades.

[Yo_Mama]

31. Parents? How about schools!!!! There has this push that everyone must go get a degree

Why I don't even know. A lot of the jobs that society needs done are not taught in colleges, and frankly a lot of students would be happier and more successful in these fields, without the large debts and with an income.

There is a culture that disrespects all non-intellectual callings. Not that the skills needed in many of these fields aren't pretty demanding.

If you can't do basic math you can never be a good artisan in most fields.

[GummyBearz]

34. I agree with your sentiment

In my experience schools didn't play a role in telling me or my peers to go to college. Our parents did

[Art_from_Ark]

51. In the '60s, there were public service announcements for higher education

One featured Abraham Lincoln talking with an employment counselor. The counselor asks Lincoln about his education, and Lincoln replies that he studied a lot on his own. The counselor then says, "Sorry, Lincoln, you aren't going anywhere without that sheepskin (college diploma)" The voiceover then says, "To get a good job, you need a good education"

Another PSA showed runners lined up for a race. The gun sounds, and one runner immediately falls far behind. Voiceover: "Trying to get a good job without a good education, is like trying to run a race in lead boots."

[hifiguy]

39. The German system makes a lot of sense.

Not everyone wants to go to college and not everyone belongs in college, to be blunt.

[GummyBearz]

41. I could not agree more

Parents are doing some of their children a mis-service by engraving college as the only option to them...

[Hortensis]

44. Whereas, frankly, I saw it as unquestionably fascistic. It's not for

the state to label children's futures and limit their potential options while they are far too young to make any choices for themselves, and often bear little resemblance to the people they will become. This has been going on a long time in Germany, back when I was a teenager, yet we are still learning how to evaluate potential and in what ways, and why.

IMO, our own system of educating all children to a certain standard we believe all citizens should meet, with advanced classes for those who would benefit, is far, far better, consonant with a free society. It doesn't matter to me that many people are more comfortable under fascism and that most may be appropriately "labeled." Even if some people are making unwise choices here, they are their own choices, not the state's.

[hifiguy]

45. The modern educational system of

Social Democratic Germany (its governmental institutions are basically SD no matter who is in power in the Bundestag) are fascistic?

Wow, who knew?

And the German non-university technical schools don't exactly turn out janitors and file clerks either, but then Germany still has a highly technological manufacturing/engineering sector that the state protects, and fiercely. Not to mention unions and a social safety net worthy of the name.

[Hortensis]

47. As I said, some are very comfortable allowing the state

to assist them with their life decisions, the more efficient and satisfying the state's decisions are, the more the security. And, no, fascism is hardly a new way of looking at this, even fascism-light.

I'm a liberal, which as Mussellini said was inconsonant with fascism because liberalism is the individual, fascism is the state.

[hifiguy]

48. I see zero wrong with steering a kid who doesn't have the aptitude

for or interest in college away from college as long as s/he is pointed in a direction suited to their talents and interests and provides the tools for earning a decent middle-class living..

College is not for everyone, as anyone who has ever spent a year or two on a campus can vouch for.

[Hortensis]

53. Isn't that a big "as long as," though, Hifiguy?

How are often indifferent and often not wise school employees processing thousands of children each year supposed to do a good job figuring out what a homely, quiet, eccentric little Bernie Sanders might be interested in or capable of as an adult?

Fascists would look to what became of him as an argument for Germany's system. He spent decades sliding from all kinds of temporary lines of work to others, not earning a steady salary until he was in his 40s. He would have been a far more productive member of society if he'd been channeled into a plumbing apprenticeship or trained as a billing administrator.

Obviously a lot of people, not just a few Scott Walkers who cause our hair to stand on end, would say yes. Yes is good for the state, good for business, and promotes an orderly society.

[hifiguy]

54. The modern German system seems to work pretty well

for everybody. Unfortunately Germany is a far more rational and utlitarian society than the US, so any attempt to recreate that system here would undoubtledly be FUBAR'd. But in principle the German system makes a lot of sense.

[Hortensis]

56. People do have opportunities to change their

channeling in Germany, but it is BOTH the principle and the practice I have problems with. In practice, just because it works for many doesn't mean it doesn't fail many too. I was a child myself, probably 10 or 11 or so, when I first learned that if I lived in Germany I'd have been placed in one of 3 tracks (at that time), only one leading to university. I was appalled.

I was a poor kid who'd been in and out of literally dozens of schools as we moved around, just walking into each school alone and "enrolling" myself, and no way I wanted any of the administrations/teachers I'd dealt with making that kind of giant decision for me. They weren't mean, some were nice, but many couldn't be bothered to even realize I couldn't see the blackboard while I was there, and never knew the third-grade reader they were giving me in the fourth grade I'd already gone through in the second.

So what would be reasonable to expect of a bunch of typically very ordinary people making decisions strongly affected by large factors that have nothing to do with the individual? Like currently prevalent political ideologies, cost factors, and local business needs?

“I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take the power from them, but to inform them by education.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

[GreatGazoo]

9. you can't teach those who aren't interested in learning

I really suspect the lemming like push to send 'every kid to college' is being backed by the financial industry, the same people who came up with the 30-year mortgage. College is expensive by design and a great way to keep people paying interest for decades.

There should be an alternative where you prepare in whatever way you want and just pay to take some tests or have your thesis evaluated. In the age of video, why do they require college students to sit in a lecture hall? Likely it so they can perpetuate the way they all get paid.

[Hortensis]

11. So agree. Costs exploded just when the means of education

meant a very good education could really be free, or close to. Even better how that programs can identify every weak spot and send new problems designed to hit them until understanding is achieved.

[hunter]

12. Free trade schools too, but more importantly, living wages for new high school graduates.

College was nearly free when I was a student and jobs that payed good wages were pretty easy to get, no college required. That's why many high school graduates didn't go to college; they got good jobs that paid living wages, jobs that would pay for both a good car and a good apartment.

I graduated without any student loans, and not because my parents were wealthy.

Those days are long gone.

College isn't the problem, our entire fucked over and fearful society is the problem. We attack one another instead of those who profit by selling us out, who profit by running everything into the ground.

We need to tax the filthy rich out of existence, throw the corrupt bankers and politicians in prison...

Basically we need to unite and claw back our ownership of this nation.



http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027349550

[Hortensis]

16. Sounds like you and I went to college and sought jobs

about the same time. That's what I want for today's kids. Free college is fine if enough people want it, but writing a check for a loaded semester of heavy courses for about the same amount I paid for weekly groceries worked very nicely back then.

[Fumesucker]

14. A lot of trades require a fairly decent knowledge of at least kitchen arithmetic

For instance the average carpenter is far better at adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying fractions than most Americans.

When misreading one small item in a complex 100 page set of prints can cost you or your company tens of thousands of dollars or more you have to have some degree of literacy.

Don't automatically assume that trades are for those of lesser intelligence.

[snagglepuss]

24. Eggsactly. The biggest misconception is that tradespeople are dodos.

I was speaking a a young black security guard in my building. He was super smart and I asked what his plans were were. Guess what? Electrician.

[Hortensis]

33. Trade schools are for people who are not interested in taking two years

of general education classes about literature, economics, history, language, and all the rest before they can get to learning which color wire attaches to what. Intelligence is only one factor in play.

Many people lack, somewhat or completely, any interest in knowledge about the world outside their own little purview, so why push them into years of tedium studying university-level courses just enough to get from quiz to quiz so they can forget it all as soon as possible? A plus for this is that fewer of them would end up running for congress or even the presidency some day.

As for people headed straight for trade school, plenty do have a thirst for knowledge. They make their choices, and in the world most of us want those would include university education. If they choose to be electricians who satisfy their thirst for knowledge by reading in their leisure time, fine.

The point is, these people are not pushing themselves/being pushed into an inappropriate waste of years of their lives and money and energy that could be far better spent elsewhere -- or invested in someone else.

[hifiguy]

40. Smart young man.

Jobs in the building trades can by definition never be offshored.

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. There's also the kick-the-can-down-the-road problem.

Why should community colleges be expected to teach the 4th grade practical math that the students lack?

But so long as schools can pass the problem off to someone else...

Improve K-12 public education and expand availability of Pell Grants.

Advanced math is put to practical application primarily by blue collar workers; Trade School isn't remedial, it's where people learn to put their education to work.

[Hortensis]

35. Oh, yes. A long time ago I tutored English to some of

those students. The happy part was that some who hadn't paid attention during 12 years of public schooling learned what they needed very quickly when they found themselves being kicked out of college for lack of skills. Not all were happy stories of course.

As for math, of course, there are all those so-called "blue collar" jobs being offshored because people who would want them don't have the education. A lot of blue collar is high tech and high skill, definitely requiring post high school education, just not a "college education."

[Recursion]

52. I'm an electrical engineer and my brother is an electrician. He uses math more than I do.

I have Wolfram, Matlab, and Spice on my computer; I can't remember the last time I had to solve a system of linear equations in my head. He has to daily when he calculates impedances.

[tkmorris]

38. I don't think that has to be an obstacle

You can do a great deal to make college more affordable, and even free in many cases, without issue. All that is necessary is to make certain that prospective students are actually qualified academically to be there in the first place. The system we have now boils down to essentially "if you can afford it you're in", which is a large part of the reason why we have so many there who really shouldn't be.

[RadiationTherapy]

6. Universities are companies. Students are investments. Parents are customers.

[hunter]

13. That's a really fucked up way to look at society.

[RadiationTherapy]

17. I am a 13 year university staff member. Do you have any specific questions about my assertions?

[hunter]

30. I'm intimately familiar with the current system.

I escaped before it all went FUBAR, my wife and kids are still in the fire.

I really don't have any questions for you. If you see education that way, I truly don't know what to say to you.

A civilized society strives to be a literate society, to educate every child, and that's essentially a socialist endeavor because not every parent can afford a good education for their child.

[RadiationTherapy]

32. I don't see education that way. I see universities divesting from education in exchange for money.

I value education and am grateful that I live in the internet age. Information and education can both be accessed by so many. Already, I think, degrees in things like Art History, Literature, and Music Studies can be had at the undergraduate level essentially at no cost by watching videos and participating in some chatrooms.

In any case, this uni employee - who also went through undergrad and grad school while in my late 30s during this decade - is convinced that the mission of a university is one other than providing education.

[hifiguy]

19. Largely true these days.

I went to college and law school back in the 1980s and that wasn't really the case then, though it was beginning to tend in that direction. But in those days a year of tuition and books at my state's flagship public university was around $1500.

Things have gone seriously to hell throughout this society since the Zombie King was elected back in 1980. And no one has even tried to roll any of it back.

[RadiationTherapy]

23. Hmmm. Unis are now run like corporations and corporations demand more degrees for low pay.

Golly gee whillikers, Mr. Peabody! How's it all work!?

[hifiguy]

29. To the benefit of no one but Big Bu$ine$$,

that's for sure.

I went to college, nearly a decade after dropping out of high school, to become an educated person before proceeding on to specialization in law school. I took five quarters of general humanities (classics. literature, music, art, theater all were a part of their curriculum) classes, two quarters of Shakespeare, enough European and English history to have had a history minor if I'd declared it, the hard science course requirement, which I very much enjoyed., and still more than fulfilled the requirements for an honors division poli sci major, which included what amounted to a master's thesis in my school's very demanding and highly ranked - at least then - undergrad program. Managed in four years, but did go to summer school each year.

I viewed college as a place to become a reasonably learned human being, not as a place to pick up a career certificate. That's what grad school is for.

[hobbit709]

10. I remember a study done some time back that said 40% of Americans were functional illiterates

Can't read, write and count at a fifth grade level.

[Hortensis]

15. More like 50% if you count in there those who avoid

reading at newspaper level because lack of skill makes it feel like too much of a chore.

After visiting a friend a long time ago who didn't have a reading lamp anywhere in her condo (I carried a decorative floor lamp that illuminated the ceiling in from another room to a chair and then to the bedroom), I started noticing lamps or lack of them wherever I went and was shocked to realize how common that was. Little or no lighting after graduating high school or college, little or no reading and declining ability. It's not like riding a bicycle, after all. You don't learn in a few hours and pick it right up again 40 years later.

Of course, computers have invalidated, or at least weakened, the lamp clue to reading habits.

[snagglepuss]

21. "lamp clue to reading habits"

"I carried a decorative floor lamp that illuminated the ceiling in from another room to a chair and then to the bedroom ..."






What a picture. What a sleuth. Thanks muchly for my laugh o' the day.

[Hortensis]

27. Welcome. My friend was out of state that night.

We were flying out together the next morning and I spent the night alone, so all "social face" restraints were no doubt replaced with lots of mutterings as I searched for a light. This happily was before she could monitor her home on her smart phone.

BTW, she and I read commercial insurance policies for a living in those days, dozens of tissuey pages of tiny print, so she was fully literate. I often think of what we would have given for a search feature...

[Fumesucker]

22. Riding a bicycle is a very poor example, most people don't have a clue how it's actually done

Virtually everyone will say you turn the handlebars in the direction you wish to go.. That is exactly opposite of what happens in reality.

[hifiguy]

20. I'd guess it is at LEAST that.

At least 50-60% of the populace has zero critical thinking skills, and that includes a LOT of college and university graduates.

[PowerToThePeople]

25. And it degrades the value of the education.

If many are coming out ill prepared, what is thought of those who are? They both have degrees. More money down the tube.

[valerief]

37. When I think of American education, I think of Kimmel's bits.

&index=5&list=PLs4hTtftqnlB5b12gaErZ54al4sQ7iINJ

[Gidney N Cloyd]

36. I've been in higher ed for over 30 years and I have seen this getting worse.

More and more of our time and resources are going to getting students up to speed for college level work. It may be due in various parts to K-12 doing a worse job, our paying closer attention to an ongoing problem, changes in typical student profiles-- all kinds of moving targets, but the bottom line is the traditional age students as a group seem to struggle more.

[Fumesucker]

42. K-12 schools simply can't teach critical thinking to too great an extent

Because students taught to truly think for themselves are much more difficult to control and tend to see the hypocrisy throughout society far more than they would otherwise and they tend to start that critical thinking with the school system itself.

[Octafish]

43. Hence, the testing.

And the lousy school books from Texas.

[hifiguy]

46. Drop the mic, Fumesucker.

You just won the argument.

?a=1106906635954

[Gidney N Cloyd]

49. Critical thinking skills would be wonderful, too, but these kids can't do math or write.

In greater and greater numbers traditional age students are being thrown into developmental (remedial) math and reading/writing classes.

[Fumesucker]

50. I've been told that common core was supposed to improve math and writing skills

What I see more than anything is that my grandkids just don't get the kind of one on one home help from their parents that I had time to give, life is a lot more hectic than it was when I was raising kids. It doesn't help particularly in math that the teaching has been changed so much that it's difficult for someone who didn't learn that way to properly help them either. The terminology and techniques are so different I'd have to sit down and read the entire book through before I could do much with it and I'm pretty good at math.

[Vinca]

55. I think technology is making us dumber.

Example: the Oxford Dictionary's "word of the year" is an emoji.