Indiana Workers Lack Basic Skills

[Judi Lynn]

Indiana Workers Lack Basic Skills



(Fort Wayne, WANE, Jan. 20 2005)-1/3 of Indiana workers lack the basic skills to perform jobs that are part of today's economy according to the Indiana Chamber. That lack of knowledge could be keeping businesses for coming here. The chamber says more than 1 million Hoosiers have workforce literacy skills below the minimum national standards for success. In short their english, mathematics and problem solving abilities are poor along with other areas the Chamber claims are important in today's knowledge based economy. The study says employers need to play a critical role in identifying employees with problems and offering solutions within the company. Also individuals should self identify their own situation. Indiana's program will be similar to one Kentucky started 5 years ago that now has 51,000 employees participating. It has become so successful there is a waiting list to receive funds. In the future, the Chamber's "Literacy Project" calls for a statewide workforce summit, pilot workplace program and full time executive director.
(snip/)

http://www.wane.com/Global/story.asp?S=2836683&nav=0RYbVQV3

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. A red state too.

[hippiechick]

2. Not news to anyone who moved here from anyplace else ...

:silly: I was amazed at how totally stupid and willfully ignorant a very large percentage of the people who I've met since I moved here are.

They're almost proud if it: "We don't need that that fancy learnin' and no college edumacashun, nyuk nyuk, Cletus let's go tip some cows and shoot at some beer cans"



:hippie:

[shrike]

24. I beg to differ

I moved here from "somewhere else" and found Hoosiers to be polite, gracious people. I felt accepted here immediately -- no one cared that I didn't grow up in the region. (Contrast that to my five years in New England, where I always felt like an outsider.)

Then again, I live in Northwest Indiana, steel mill country, heavy union, lots of Democrats, heavy Chicago influence.

[phylny]

29. Hmm, my experience in NW Indiana was less than stellar.

We lived there for 8 years (Munster) and I can honestly say that I've never met a colder, nastier group of people than the ones in NW Indiana. I'm not saying it to be rude, but it's the truth. We ended up moving to Naperville, one hour away, and it was like being in another world compared to Indiana.

My husband ran a plant up in East Chicago - one of many he's run in many states in the U.S. - and I can tell you that he felt the men and women who worked for him were amongst the worst he's ever had. They were lazy, conniving, and engaged in much backbiting.

Again, I'm only speaking about our experience, but I was thrilled to move out of there. The only great thing about Indiana was that the state legistlature had mandated small class sizes for lower elementary grades. Our kids had 16 students max in Kindergarten, 17 in first, and 18 in second. I attribute those small class sizes to the fantastic start in school our kids got.

Oh, the other great thing about Indiana is that our third child was born there and can say she's a Hoosier. We were happy to have her, and happy to move four years later.

[shrike]

33. Guess we saw the region with different eyes

I reiterate what I've said before: never met a nicer group of people than here. Sorry you had such a bad experience, but I stand by what I've said.

[phylny]

39. I'm not doubting your view of things at all,

just relating our experience.

We've lived in seven states over the past 25 years, and our "living in Indiana experience" was mind-blowing to the both of us in how horrendous it was. We've never had a problem anywhere else we've lived.

I particularly enjoyed going to a public meeting in Munster, after the Plainfield tornado (1989/1990?), and being told that they didn't have warning sirens in Munster because "we never get tornadoes here."

Yarite :)

[shrike]

43. Odd

Very odd, in fact. Munster historically has been the moneyed area in northern Lake County. (Gary, Griffith, et. al. served the lunch pail crowd.) They had the best schools, best of everything. Even now, it's being rediscovered by Chicago transplants who don't mind commuting to the loop.

Right now our congressman is pushing for a commuter rail system that would stretch almost the entire length of Lake County. If that happens, we might as well change our name to Little Chicago.

[phylny]

50. Hey, the schools WERE great. Our CHURCh was phenomenal.

We just didn't find it a very friendly place to be, that's all.

But, it was our experience, no one else's :)

[shrike]

53. You probably wouldn't want to tell me which church you went to.

Because I'm sure I've seen it.

Nah, invasion of your privacy.

[phylny]

59. Hmm, it's on Columbia Avenue

Does that narrow it down?

:) Great church, great people. Honestly. See, I'm fair, no?

[shrike]

36. PS, it also hasn't stopped the Illinois folk from coming in droves

We get more of them every day. I meet a lot of them and they're pretty nice, too. Generally I find people treat me the way I treat them.

My only objection with the ex-Chicagoites is sometimes they've come in with an attitude. One of my several jobs is covering municipal meetings for the local newspaper. I'll never forget the guy who came to speak at the public portion of the meeting. After thoroughly trashing the town, he said, in all seriousness, "Do you ever travel? Do you ever leave town, go elsewhere and see how other people do things?"

The board president said, "I'm not going to dignify that with an answer."

I guess the moral of the story is, there are jerks everywhere.

[Mizmoon]

44. That seems awfully mean eom

[EVDebs]

3. The basic skill they lack is "not being an immigrant"

"Nation's immigrants account for bulk of labor force growth since 2000"

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-01/nu-nia010804.php

[whistle]

4. What do you expect from a state that refuses to turn their clocks

...ahead to daylight savings time.

[AZCat]

8. Hey!

We here in Arizona also refuse to adopt daylight savings time, and I'm glad.

Daylight Savings Time SUCKS.

[whistle]

19. Oops another republican state which love to waste electricity

[AZCat]

22. DST has very little to do with our electrical use

By far, Arizona's electrical use is dominated by air conditioning, and to eliminate that we'd have to shift the clock considerably more than one hour.

During the summer, our peak load is twice our nighttime load. Until something is done about that, our refusal to participate in DST won't affect the power industry here - it's constrained much more by the demands during summer.

[whistle]

64. Okay, good case, so just why do Arizonians not change to DST...

....so they can get to see sunsets one hour earlier?

[BiggJawn]

20. So we get ONE thing right!

It's the rest of you sheep who twist your clocks back and forth for the wartime shipyard workers...

Uh, WHEN did the last Liberty Ship slide down the ways at Kaiser?

[shrike]

34. We turn 'em back in NW Indiana

But we do everything Chicago does.

[HoosierClarkie]

5. Most people with an education

leave. :(

[JitterbugPerfume]

6. I am so embarassed

sigh


but it IS true Hoosiers are an ignorant bunch of people


I want to MOVE so BAD

[MountainLaurel]

56. Like many places

It's the same situation in WV -- of the kids I graduated with who were at the top of the class, I think only two or three are still living there. Both are doctors who moved back after going to school elsewhere. The other one is sort of a basket case anorexic who snapped because of the academic pressure put on her by her parents.

[LynzM]

7. Not news to anyone who's lived there...

Sadly. There are intelligent, educated people in Indiana, but it seems, many who are willfully ignorant or uneducated. I worked with many people who were functionally illiterate, couldn't handle money, or fractions, and many other examples....

[central scrutinizer]

9. This is the state that tried to legislate the value of pi

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Pi_through_the_ages.html

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana: It has been found that a circular area is to the square on a line equal to the quadrant of the circumference, as the area of an equilateral rectangle is to the square of one side.
(Section I, House Bill No. 246, 1897)

The bill was passed back to the general assembly by the Committee of Education with the recommendation that it be passed. It was passed on February 5, 1897 with a vote of 67 to 0.

Then, it went to the Indiana Senate. By accident, a mathematics professor from Purdue, C. A. Waldo, happened to be attending the debates on the day the bill was read to the Senate. He managed to educate some of the senators in a hurry, and the bill was tabled.

[American Tragedy]

47. You've got to be joking, right? That's hysterical.

Why would they do that?

[central scrutinizer]

49. no, it's true

I don't know what their motivation was, but if you search google for <pi indiana> you should be able to easily find plenty of documentation. Snopes also mentions it:

http://www.snopes.com/religion/pi.htm

there is a hilarious April's Fool parody piece reprinted there.

[Ripley]

10. Alabamians can be trained, why can't Indianans?

Mercedes, Toyota and Hyundai have all built auto plants in Alabama where the education is awful and there was no history of a manufacturing workforce. However, the companies (altho not American) have excellent job training and remedial education which allows many of these people to get into very high paying manufacturing jobs. I think the starting pay for an assembly line worker at the MBUSI plant is around $25/hr plus great benefits.

However, I think this talk about "lacking work skills for today's economy" is all about people not wanting to take lower wages and/or benefits for their work. Why should they? When money is exorbitant in our society for entertainers, sports figures, wars, tax cuts for the wealthy and CEO's...why the hell should workers who are educated and skilled just settle for customer service work for a pittance?

Let's all be entrepreneurs!!! Yep, it's sooooooo easy to get a start-up business loan and open a restaurant or baby-clothing store or knick-knack store. And your odds of being in business in 5 years are soooo good. Not.

The repukes have sold out the American Workforce.

[Ariana Celeste]

11. Indiana in a nutshell-

Now this is just MY guesstimation :):

50% family values christian bush lovers
20% educated non drug addicts
30% drug addicts, educated and not-so-educated

I was SHOCKED when I moved here to Indiana from Washington State... not only are there so many ignorant assholes, but a lot of people don't seem to understand the whole pedestrians have the right of way thing... and most people who have almost hit me with their cars were mean bullish looking large women. (No offense to large women, a lot of you are beautiful :) and moreso than most skinny bitches) Also, the road system around here is just freakin awful. Tons of meth addicts in this state, too.

It's really no wonder that drug addiction is such a problem in Indiana, there is nothing to do but family based activities, church, and watching Colts games. Nothing against drug users, by the way. ;)

[54anickel]

13. HA! Sorry, but that one line in your post makes me think you are being

assimilated:

No offense to large women, a lot of you are beautiful :) and moreso than most skinny bitches

Welcome to DU :hi:

[Ariana Celeste]

15. lol... thanks for the welcome!

:hi:

[NEOBuckeye]

14. You forgot Basketball

But yeah, Indiana isn't exactly reknowned throughout the Midwest for its' high educational achievement. Remember as well that it is home to that "paragon" of enlightenment, former Vice President J. Danforth "Potatoe" Quayle.

Try Minnesota if you're looking for well educated folk in the Midwest. Michigan also seems to value education. Most of the Blue states do.

[shrike]

26. Actually, Indiana's got some great schools

Purdue, IU Bloomington.

Trouble is, the young people usually leave after college because the professional jobs aren't there. I know a young man in Oregon who'd love to come home to Indiana, but he works for Hewlett-Packard -- where will he find a comparable job in Hoosierland.

[Igel]

48. Rose Hullman. n/t

[shrike]

57. Pardon my ignorance

But I have no idea who Rose Hullman is.

[Igel]

61. Maybe it's Rose-Hulman.

It's the name of a pretty good engineering school in W. Indiana. Terre Haute. One of the regional schools with an excellent reputation, and a decent national reputation, but not up there with MIT and CalTech.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

41. Illinois is no slouch either

U of Chicago, Northwestern, U of Illinois...

Granted, I'm an Illinois native, but I generally found/find most folks from Illinois to be reasonably well educated and polite.

[American Tragedy]

18. LOL! Damn hoosier drivers!

Sorry, I'm just kidding! I'm from Louisville, and we sometimes like to bitch about Indiana commuters, even though we're probably not any better.

[shrike]

35. Sure is pretty down there around the IN/KY border

Know this doesn't have much to do with the thread, but scenically it's one of my favorite parts of Indiana.

[shrike]

25. Not where I live

Been here eight years and it's turned into home.

[eridani]

30. Hey, NO ONE east of the Rockies gets pedestrian right of way

Major shock moving from California to Boston. Risked death on a daily basis until I figured out the rules.

[underpants]

38. The more I learn about Indiana the worse it gets

Strange

[shrike]

45. We're not so bad here

Honest. I wouldn't have lived here eight years if that were the case. It sure is fun to bitch about things, though.

[Ariana Celeste]

55. Nah it's not too bad..

best thing I can say is that the crime rate is pretty low... beats falling asleep to gunshots and rap music like I did in WA.

There are plenty of great people, but plenty of ignorant assholes too.

It's boring, but all in all, it's not too bad living out here. I miss WA for the scenery, WA beats cornfields any day, but I'm very comfortable here in the Hoosier state. :)

[shrike]

58. Yeah, Washington is gorgeous

One thing I like about IN is that the COL is so low where I am that I have more freedom than I've ever had in my life. Don't have to work 80-hour weeks anymore. And I can go vacation in wonderful places like Washington.

[LiberalFighter]

12. And in today's USA Today Ft Wayne made the news

They reported about Mens Health magazine's Dumbest City list and Ft Wayne was #1

[Rose Siding]

16. In the running for Most Self-Defeating Typo...

In an article about literacy skills, we read:

"That lack of knowledge could be keeping businesses for coming here."

They also forgot to capitolize "English" :eyes:

[QuasimodoJones]

40. Speaking of literacy...

IIRC, that's spelled "capitalize".;)

[Rose Siding]

62. Pay me

I'll be more careful.

[rzemanfl]

17. My mind played a trick on me; I misread this as "India workers..."

which is the kind of headline I'd have seen in my youth. Now we send jobs there, don't we?

[BiggJawn]

21. Indiana employers lack basic decency

They don't PAY enough for us to bother learning how to read.

I have a degree. I read Sagan. I have read Chaucer in the original and UNDERSTOOD it.

I just filed my 1040 EZ yesterday. I don't even make 40 kilobucks, and I'm a "technical worker".

Sometimes I don't act too bright at work, because I figure at these prices, they sure as shit aren't paying me to THINK....

[shrike]

27. LOL

Where do you live in Indiana, I'm curious.

[BiggJawn]

31. Northern part of the state.

I used to live in Indianapolis, and I made even LESS there. But then, I was one of those "lazy, stupid government workers" that everyone loves to hate until that government function gets privatized to a for-profit outfit...

[shrike]

37. You know, it's funny, I've always had a good time in 'Nap town

They've done a lot with that city over the years. Such a pity they have so many wingnut types. Sort of ruins the whole experience.

[Ellen Forradalom]

51. Sagan?

Françoise or Carl?

[BiggJawn]

52. Carl. n/t

[AwakeAtLast]

23. Here's a good example for you:

I worked in a GM plant for about three years doing minor engineering work. The engineers had to figure out ways to identify left hand and right hand parts without using "L" or "R". No shit! Sometimes they would use shapes, sometimes they would make the pieces fit with others if they used the correct side. This took so much time and money. If workers could figure out circle and square, why could they not figure out L and R? :shrug:

And don't even get me started on the driving! Ugh!

[SoCalDem]

28. MOST current workers "lack skills"..

Think about it. Technology is zooming along faster than the "educational curve" of the workers.

Assume you are a guy who's been on the job for 10 years.. Without college, you learn ON THE JOB..You have a wife, a house, a couple of cars, some kids, and MANY bills, so who's got the time OR money to constantly "re-train" and get ahead of the curve? Even if you did, is there a guarantee from your boss, that you will be promoted or lay-off proof? Nope !

High schools today graduate kids who are hopelessly behind except for menial entry-level jobs. Technical schools cost a lot of money, and some are just plain scams. Even with a technical "degree", it's no guarantee that the skills YOU learned are the same ones that companies are looking for.

Companies today are more interested in making the few empployees they already have, MULTI-TASK. Employees who resist are often laid off. For the employer, it's a win-win..he gets the work of two empployees for the cost of only ONE..and the ONE he kept, is scared to death of losing his job, so he's willing to forego raises, work off the clock, never call in sick, and basically work his ass off for wages of a decade ago...

Colleges ae turning out graduates faster than companies can absorb them, and the real chiller is that after 4 years of struggle, and 40K of debt, graduates are often returning to their "pre-college" after-school jobs, or they are settling for lower wages than they need to live on their own.

Think about what YOU learned in high school and/or college.. Did it really prepare you for the job you have now?? Or did you luck out through a web of friends, or family to get the job you have now.?

When schools must "teach to the test", they are limited in what they can teach. Things you do NOT learn are not even apparent, until years later.

[American Tragedy]

46. That's what I face when I graduate...

[SoCalDem]

60. I honestly don't know how college kids manage once they finish

I personally know people with BA degrees who are working for $10 an hour, and have second jobs so they can pay their loans.

Kids who went directly to jobs out of high school have 4 years "on the job" when the college kids graduate, and more than a few of them are making what (or even less) than their co-workers who did not even go to college..

I guess if you have specialized degrees, it's easier, but the BA does nothing in lots of cases.. It just shows that you stuck to it for 4 years and read a lot of books ..:(

[shrike]

54. Boy, did you nail it

I can't understand how they expect a working person supporting a family to "retrain" -- and at his/her own expense! Who has the time? Who has the money? And if you're laid off anyway -- it's just not doable for most people.

[justice4all]

63. You said it!

My observation over the years has been that many companies only care about what a person can do for them this week or this month. The tremendous pressure on management for short-term results leads them to keep putting off your skill development, unless they have absolutely no other choice.

It's when the economy sours that your situation gets ugly. You're in danger of being laid off and your skills, which have helped your company stay afloat, are superceded by other skills which you haven't had time to train for because you were so busy doing the work of 2 people.

I've seen many talented, hard working people get bitten by this problem.

[klyon]

32. they also lack unions now

KL

[leesa]

42. This sounds like a scam to me. Who's making the $$$ with this

program? I mean these are unskilled laborers....how much reading skill do they need to be on the line or to operate machinery??

I'm all for education, but this just sounds like an excuse for outsourcing.