Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!rutgers!att!chinet!john
From: john@chinet.chi.il.us (John Mundt)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Meter Reading as Computer Literacy
Message-ID: <7415@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 9 Jan 89 20:52:12 GMT
References: <12.UUL1.3#913@acw.UUCP> <5220@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: john@chinet.chi.il.us (John Mundt)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 44

In article <5220@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes:
>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.
>
>>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).


I believe that the frightening point is that even if these are indeed the
dregs of society, such a high percentage could exhibit such monumental
incompetence.

Granted, other questions, and this question itself, may have had more to do 
with illiteracy than with meter reading and the failure rate may have
reflected the non-reading portion of the population, but what is to be
done with these people.  By applying for a job, they are presumably
showing a willingness and desire to work and are finding that society
literally has no place for them in a useful capacity.  

If society cannot find meaningful employment (i.e., inculcation into the
mainstream of society) the problem will get worse.  Rome had its bread
and circuses, England its poorhouses.  Two divergent solutions to
the same problem.  Which way will we go?


-- 
---------------------
John Mundt   Teachers' Aide, Inc.  P.O. Box 1666  Highland Park, IL
john@chinet.chi.il.us
(312) 998-5007 (Day voice) || -432-8860 (Answer Mach) && -432-5386 Modem