Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ucsd!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!dykimber
From: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Meter Reading as Computer Literacy
Message-ID: <5220@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 9 Jan 89 02:56:18 GMT
References: <12.UUL1.3#913@acw.UUCP>
Reply-To: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 31

In article <12.UUL1.3#913@acw.UUCP> guthery@acw.UUCP (Scott Guthery) writes:
>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 ...

I assume that not all 20,000 of the people who were rejected screwed up on
the LCD test.  Remember, you could get 22000 einsteins in there and still
less than 10% would be successful.

>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.

You mean "can," I think, and that's not true.  Are you sure all 22000 of them
were secondary school graduates?  And in any case, you're assuming that the
group of people who weren't in the applicant pool are distributed the same
way as a group of 22000 people who are applying for an entry level low paying
position.  I'd be willing to bet that a random sample of 20000 people would
do better than a group of 20000 NYC unemployed (or seeking entry level work).
In other words, I think you're looking at a sample of some of the less
intelligent and less educated people in society (as well as some who are
just unlucky).  So even if I accept that only 2000 were qualified for the job
(not entirely borne out by what you say), I still don't accept your conclusion
that more than 90% of todays secondary school graduates would have failed
the test as well.

                                               -Dan