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College Students Lack Literacy
Frr writes to tell us that CNN has a rather disturbing confirmation of what many of us have already seen in practice. In a recent literacy study it was found that "more than half of students at four-year colleges -- and at least 75 percent at two-year colleges -- lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers." The literacy study took a look at three different type of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents, and having basic math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.
Formal contracts & documents should be written in Internet slang. "If you fail to pay your credit card debt we will take your car lol"
LINUX ONLINE POKER: Linux Poker
I should have went to a US college. I probably could have graduated there.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
I, for one, am not surprised. I never read __less__ books in my life than when I was in college. I was much too busy trying to get the course busy-work done to do any reading, or much learning for that matter.
So my boss was passing this article around a few days ago to make fun of one of our new hires. The new guy pointed out that all colleges are not equal. Strangely the study doesn't mention what schools were part of this survey. Does anyone know?
___Fewer___ books, dammit.
If you've gotten a credit card offer recently, there's a medium-sized standard box they include on the black-and-white legalese page which tells you the real (not introductory) interest rate, for instance.
Despite this, some people will briefly glance at the color glossy flyer, see "ZERO PERCENT (introductory) INTEREST!" and be shocked, yes, shocked, when the rates hop to twenty-seven percent or something ridiculous like that.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
They were original used for motor homes, so that in case of an accident, rescuers knew to look for a baby. Things got a little out of hand afterwards, though.
I am a teacher :) I teach industrial design at an art and design school in the south. I have been continually impressed with the lack of basic reading, writing and grammar abilities of the kids coming out of high school. These kids write things like "new cents" instead of "nuisance" (among other travesties of misfortunate homonym usage), end sentences when they feel like it (often without a verb), and balk at the thought of a three page paper in 8 point font.
I suppose this is "to be expected": it's an art school, after all. However, my students excel at the type problems listed in the article (interpreting, analyzing, comparing and contrasting) : not only can they interpret things like exercise and blood pressure tables, they continually shatter my expectations when assigned the task of redesigning the 1099 tax form or visualizing the supply chain from raw material to mass produced object.
My point is, I guess, that these kids are absolutely and systematically awful at "traditional" skills of reading, writing, and rhetoric. They seem to have compensated for these issues, however, by learning to visually unravel problems and to solve them through less traditional methods. I don't think this is taught in high school, and so I'm left wondering two things: where do they learn these "innovative" problem solving methods, and what the fuck ARE they learning in high school?
The VAST majority of the lower classes vote Democrat, and people who are more successful tend to vote Republican.
Though this topic isn't exactly germane to the thread...but your assertion was true about 20 years ago, but isn't so true today.
Poor minorities are the main poor group voting for the Democratic party, however the Republicans have swept the white poor and lower class groups and middle income groups (as indicated by the demographics of the states they are winning.) Democrats are taking the high income coastal types (and Republicans are taking the very high income corporate executives.)
Interestingly, the Economist noted that the Republican party has no interest in making changes to the tax code to relieve the AMT. The AMT tax is typically paid by people making over $100,000 per year (essentially, people who are in the upper income range, but not exactly rich.) The reason that the Republicans don't care for the AMT payers is because they tend to be Democrat voters. The Republican base is now the middle class with campaign funding from the very rich, and that's what they will continue to concentrate on.
As for the grandparent post, both parties are happy with dumb voters. Nothing's better than someone who will consistently vote for a particular name or issue for little reason at all.