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US Adults Score Poorly On Worldwide Test
New submitter Norwell Bob sends this excerpt from an Associated Press report:
"It's long been known that America's school kids haven't measured well compared with international peers. Now, there's a new twist: Adults don't either. In math, reading and problem-solving using technology – all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength – American adults scored below the international average on a global test, according to results (PDF) released Tuesday."
One of the aspect of this test, as far as I understood, is reading comprehension. If that fails, everything else fails, because any other training -- programming included -- requires reading.
There is a surprisingly high share of adults who can not comprehend a text they read (a skill, ironically, often practized in math classes).
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
America represented economic freedom - you could own your own house and even your own business, beholden to no-one. Today half of us dream of punishing "those people" who live that way.
Speaking as a non-american that's not what I as your problem. The people who enjoyed that economic freedom created brilliant innovative companies that then decided that economic freedom did not work so well for their profit margins. Worse they found that it was actually a lot easier to smother new and upcoming competition with either lawyers and court cases or by getting laws changed via lobbying than it was to out compete and innovate new companies.
As a result of that you ended up with a lot of companies who are rich from past glories and now use that to just hold everyone at bay slowing down the pace of progress and innovation to a pace they feel comfortable with. Worse you get some companies - yes banks I'm looking at you - who seem to have completely forgotten their raison d'etre (which was to stabilize and grow the economy by providing valuable financial services) and just go for profit at any cost, no matter how destructive and damaging that is to the economy they are supposed to be serving.
So is it any wonder that people are starting to question whether "those people" should live that way? It's not that people have a problem with successful people making money through clever innovations that benefit society - the problem is that there are lots of people making money for doing nothing useful (or even harmful) to society.