Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!acw!guthery
From: guthery@acw.UUCP (Scott Guthery)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Meter Reading as Computer Literacy
Message-ID: <12.UUL1.3#913@acw.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jan 89 15:17:49 GMT
Organization: Austin Code Works
Lines: 35

Just when you think it can't get any worse ... New York Bell reports
that they had to interview 22,000 people to fill 2,000 *ENTRY LEVEL*
positions.  One of the tasks that tripped up the applicants the most was
reading numerical displays either off a tube or a LCD-type display.

Ya gotta ask yourself what the world looks like to the 20,000 that
flunked the test ... and who is going to be supporting them for the
rest of their lives.  You also have to ask yourself what the money
we gave their school boards was spent on. Down here in Texas I know
... backfield coaches and band uniforms.

It's all well and good to debate whether you really need Volume II of 
Aho & Ullman or whether Mead & Conway belongs in EE or CS but when
less that 10% of our secondary school graduates can't qualify for 
their society's entry level jobs, we're heading for the cliff at a
mind-boggling rate.

Mathematics, plain old mathematics, is fundamental.  Buying Apples
and running the computer literacy scam are diversions meant to keep
the taxpayer's eye off the bottomline.  When, oh, when will we understand 
that learning is hard ... that it has to be hard ... that you can't 
candy-coat it with relevance or wrap it in empty self-esteem.  When
will we stop accepting excuses for failure and start demanding success?

Simply put, when will teachers teach?

							Cheers, Scott

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