Too many job seekers can't do basic math

[azgreg]

» Too many job seekers can’t do basic math » News -- GOPUSA

WASHINGTON -- Before job-seekers fill out an application for work making foam products for the aerospace industry at General Plastics Manufacturing Co. in Tacoma, Wash., they have to take a math test.

Eighteen questions, 30 minutes, and using a calculator is OK.

They are asked how to convert inches to feet, read a tape measure and find the density of a block of foam (mass divided by volume).

Basic middle school math, right?

But what troubles General Plastics executive Eric Hahn is that although the company considers only prospective workers who have a high school education, only one in 10 who take the test pass. And that's not just bad luck at a single factory or in a single industry.

 

[justabubba]

» Too many job seekers can’t do basic math » News -- GOPUSA

another example why we, as a nation, need to design an education system which is not based on our nation's needs from the agrarian 1800's

 

[274ina]

funny, Corps cant do basic math either.

48 hours worked

and they cant get 8 x 1.5 x payrate.......

They just pay 40hrs, and say go ahead and sue us for 3 years to get it..........and we will pay no fine, only what we owe you.

And why would they hire an American that will sue, they will just hire that cheap H1b or illegal that has no clue about
overtime........

 

[Fisher]

If the applicants were all fresh out of high school, I could see this as an issue. If the applicants have been out of school a decade or more, not so much. A lot probably just need a refresher. STEM-H jobs are going to be the only way forward for us, but standardized curriculum's that do not allow teachers time to make sure everyone is up to speed before moving forward to the next lesson will just leave struggling students further and further behind.

 

[justabubba]

If the applicants were all fresh out of high school, I could see this as an issue. If the applicants have been out of school a decade or more, not so much. A lot probably just need a refresher. STEM-H jobs are going to be the only way forward for us, but standardized curriculum's that do not allow teachers time to make sure everyone is up to speed before moving forward to the next lesson will just leave struggling students further and further behind.

i agree with nothing in that post

the applicant either has the skills required by the employer or they don't. and what the cite tells us is that 90% don't
to me, that yells that our population is either inately stupid, or under-educated - or both
none of those options is a good one
but the only one we have the power to address is the possibility this stems [no pun intended] from a weak education system
so, why the hell are we keeping an education system designed in the 1800s when most Americans earned their living on the farm

your complaint about teachers moving on before everyone in the class has mastered the material is actually a symptom of the real problem
why should the advanced students have to wait until the stupid students finally catch on to the material. why aren't we ability grouping instead of mainstreaming the stupid with the smart

 

[Fisher]

i agree with nothing in that post

the applicant either has the skills required by the employer or they don't. and what the cite tells us is that 90% don't
to me, that yells that our population is either inately stupid, or under-educated - or both
none of those options is a good one
but the only one we have the power to address is the possibility this stems [no pun intended] from a weak education system
so, why the hell are we keeping an education system designed in the 1800s when most Americans earned their living on the farm

your complaint about teachers moving on before everyone in the class has mastered the material is actually a symptom of the real problem
why should the advanced students have to wait until the stupid students finally catch on to the material. why aren't we ability grouping instead of mainstreaming the stupid with the smart

My school system does so IDK. My kids will be in private school unless they choose to go to a STEM related charter school for HS where kids don't get left behind and dumb butts don't get in. Sorry, but a 35 year old who hasn't done anything other than adding and subtracting in close to 20 years isn't going to likely know how to find the density of something off the bat on the fly.

 

[justabubba]

My school system does so IDK.

this is unclear whether the school mainstreams or ability groups

My kids will be in private school

private school performance is mixed, and overall not better than public school. jesuit run schools tend to be among the best while Christian operated schools tend to be the worst when performance measures are compared

... unless they choose to go to a STEM related charter school for HS where kids don't get left behind and dumb butts don't get in.

so, if your kid is not selected by the charter/STEM school, it appears private school is on the horizon. hope you have a jesuit operated school nearby, if that is the result

Sorry, but a 35 year old who hasn't done anything other than adding and subtracting in close to 20 years isn't going to likely know how to find the density of something off the bat on the fly.

which means the 35 year old does not possess the base knowledge needed by the employer. that says nothing to counter my point

 

[MaggieD]

» Too many job seekers can’t do basic math » News -- GOPUSA

They are asked how to convert inches to feet, read a tape measure and find the density of a block of foam (mass divided by volume).

Umm...I was smart enough to start a business when I was 19 and retire by age 40. I can't find the density of a block of foam. But I'll bet I could learn how in about two minutes. They must use that test as a way to sift through the hundreds of applicants they get for each job. That's the only thing I can figure.

 

[Aunt Spiker]

Umm...I was smart enough to start a business when I was 19 and retire by age 40. I can't find the density of a block of foam. But I'll bet I could learn how in about two minutes. They must use that test as a way to sift through the hundreds of applicants they get for each job. That's the only thing I can figure.

This.
It's the capacity to learn and retain new information that should matter more - not 'what you know when you apply' - there's absolutely no reason for the brain to retain information when it is not used.

Maybe that's the real issue - that businesses expect people to be already adequately educated in whatever regard they deem necessary . . . is there a reason why they cannot teach these basics?

 

[Lutherf]

Why would it surprise anybody that basic math skills are lacking in a huge chunk of the population? I'd imagine that the same goes for reading and writing.

We've been catering to the least common denominator for all these years and now people are surprised when people are idiots? Brilliant:roll:

 

[blackjack50]

another example why we, as a nation, need to design an education system which is not based on our nation's needs from the agrarian 1800's

I'm just curious. What part of our education system was supposed to be left on the farm?

 

[justabubba]

This.
It's the capacity to learn and retain new information that should matter more - not 'what you know when you apply' - there's absolutely no reason for the brain to retain information when it is not used.

Maybe that's the real issue - that businesses expect people to be already adequately educated in whatever regard they deem necessary . . . is there a reason why they cannot teach these basics?

why should they teach their newly hired employees the basics when they can instead weed out those applicants who do not posses them

 

[blackjack50]

why should they teach their newly hired employees the basics when they can instead weed out those applicants who do not posses them

Seriously. What are we teaching that needs to be left behind? You said we are based on agrarian thought. Why?

 

[Aunt Spiker]

why should they teach their newly hired employees the basics when they can instead weed out those applicants who do not posses them

They're complaining about it - hence - it's not what they want.

If they're just weeding out - what exactly are they complaining for?

*edit - I'll add that companies who choose to train from the bottom up do so to ensure that they have less conflicts with people who 'think they know a better way' - it can be a significant problem.*

 

[Fisher]

this is unclear whether the school mainstreams or ability groups

Our school system ability groups at least as far as the smart kids go after a very long tortured era of "tracking" which was a fancy way of saying they put rich kids all in the same classes and poor kids all in the same classes.

private school performance is mixed, and overall not better than public school. jesuit run schools tend to be among the best while Christian operated schools tend to be the worst when performance measures are compared

Our school is more or less secular though it does have classes at a church. It is a satellite campus of a well established Academy in the area. We do have a wide assortment of religious schools. The Jesuits do okay and the Baptists ones tend to produce people with lettuce for brains.

so, if your kid is not selected by the charter/STEM school, it appears private school is on the horizon. hope you have a jesuit operated school nearby, if that is the result

They shouldn't go to the STEM school if they are not qualified for it. If they want to go to one of the other public schools, maybe. I don't want them in a 4K student HSl but that will be their choice really.

which means the 35 year old does not possess the base knowledge needed by the employer. that says nothing to counter my point

Sure it does. Condemning schools for information applicants may have known at one point but no longer know off the top of their head is just crazy. Most people forget more than the learned. Sometimes it just takes a refresher to drag that skill out.

 

[MoSurveyor]

i agree with nothing in that post

the applicant either has the skills required by the employer or they don't. and what the cite tells us is that 90% don't
to me, that yells that our population is either inately stupid, or under-educated - or both
none of those options is a good one
but the only one we have the power to address is the possibility this stems [no pun intended] from a weak education system
so, why the hell are we keeping an education system designed in the 1800s when most Americans earned their living on the farm

your complaint about teachers moving on before everyone in the class has mastered the material is actually a symptom of the real problem
why should the advanced students have to wait until the stupid students finally catch on to the material. why aren't we ability grouping instead of mainstreaming the stupid with the smart

Thank goodness they did ability group in my school district - in high school, anyway. To some extent they also did it in earlier years but less so. Sadly, they've tended to focus on moving advanced and slow students to a different school instead of grouping in all schools like they used to. ((To clarify a little, I agree they should move those with behavioral problems because that disrupts the classrooms and, to some extent, the whole school but that's not what I'm talking about.)) There are some who excel in English but not math and they shouldn't be held back in an English class any more than the ones that excel in math should be held back in a math class. Just because a student can't do both, as required to attend those advances learning schools, doesn't mean they shouldn't be grouped by ability. We lose a huge amount of good abilities by holding kids back.

 

[justabubba]

Seriously. What are we teaching that needs to be left behind? You said we are based on agrarian thought. Why?

public school system developed in the second half of the 1800s was an era when most work was performed on a farm. farmers had big families to do that work. tending to crops is labor intensive in summer, hence, summer vacation
today, under 3% of our population work on farms. yet we have retained the summer off schedule

 

[imagep]

They're complaining about it - hence - it's not what they want.

If they're just weeding out - what exactly are they complaining for?

*edit - I'll add that companies who choose to train from the bottom up do so to ensure that they have less conflicts with people who 'think they know a better way' - it can be a significant problem.*

Ya, much of the time I prefer to hire an unskilled worker and train him. I've had way to many employees who would tell me that this or that can't be done with our equipment, some of these things that they claim can't be done we do every day.

I once had to lock up cans of sprayglue because an employee kept insisting that the water based glue that I insist on didn't work, so he would constantly grab a can of sprayglue out of our chemical cabinet. The sprayglue just get's everywhere and makes a huge mess, and it also get's inhaled everytime you use it (doesn't get you high though). I just can't see making a huge mess out of my shop, and filling up anyones lungs with gule. Five years later, I still have all but one of those same cans of sprayglue, and use the waterbased glue everyday.

 

[imagep]

Our school system ability groups at least as far as the smart kids go after a very long tortured era of "tracking" which was a fancy way of saying they put rich kids all in the same classes and poor kids all in the same classes.




Our school is more or less secular though it does have classes at a church. It is a satellite campus of a well established Academy in the area. We do have a wide assortment of religious schools. The Jesuits do okay and the Baptists ones tend to produce people with lettuce for brains.




They shouldn't go to the STEM school if they are not qualified for it. If they want to go to one of the other public schools, maybe. I don't want them in a 4K student HSl but that will be their choice really.




Sure it does. Condemning schools for information applicants may have known at one point but no longer know off the top of their head is just crazy. Most people forget more than the learned. Sometimes it just takes a refresher to drag that skill out.

My son went to a fairly large high school and loved having the opportunity to chose from a larger variety of courses and extra-curricular activities than smaller high schools can offer. His school offered multiple levels of most courses - TP (technical school prep), CP (college prep), Honors (which was really college prep), AP, and actual college classes for dual credit taught at several area colleges.

There is also some economy of scale at larger schools as far as costs go, and it's easier to get better qualified teachers because with larger schools. At many small high schools, they have just one music teacher, and that teacher may teach one band class, one chorus class, a music appreciation class and a string orchestra class. There are few music teachers who are actually interested in all of thus subjects or truly qualified to teach both string instruments and wind instruments.

 

[MoSurveyor]

Ya, much of the time I prefer to hire an unskilled worker and train him. I've had way to many employees who would tell me that this or that can't be done with our equipment, some of these things that they claim can't be done we do every day.

I once had to lock up cans of sprayglue because an employee kept insisting that the water based glue that I insist on didn't work, so he would constantly grab a can of sprayglue out of our chemical cabinet. The sprayglue just get's everywhere and makes a huge mess, and it also get's inhaled everytime you use it (doesn't get you high though). I just can't see making a huge mess out of my shop, and filling up anyones lungs with gule. Five years later, I still have all but one of those same cans of sprayglue, and use the waterbased glue everyday.

I can relate. I was the same way inside our own group of surveyors. Some survey chiefs didn't train people the way I surveyed so I preferred a newbie to someone I had to untrain. Some people just don't get that, though.

 

[imagep]

public school system developed in the second half of the 1800s was an era when most work was performed on a farm. farmers had big families to do that work. tending to crops is labor intensive in summer, hence, summer vacation
today, under 3% of our population work on farms. yet we have retained the summer off schedule

I am 100% for year round school. Our schools are expensive to build and equip, and often one of the most valuable resources that a community has. Yet we let them sit vacant for 25% of the year. Makes no sense to me.

I would like to see a school system where we don't group students by age into grades. We just have a standard minimum curriculum that a student has to accomplish and pass before he goes onto the next level course. One he/she has met all the minimum requirments for that school, then he goes onto the next school, and can graduate from high school at any age.

 

[Tigger]

If the applicants were all fresh out of high school, I could see this as an issue. If the applicants have been out of school a decade or more, not so much. A lot probably just need a refresher. STEM-H jobs are going to be the only way forward for us, but standardized curriculum's that do not allow teachers time to make sure everyone is up to speed before moving forward to the next lesson will just leave struggling students further and further behind.

We see it with our meter reader applicants here at work (electric utility). Part of their initial testing includes simple math (+/- of seven digit numbers w/o a calculator) yet we have at least a quarter of the applicants who fail that part of the test. We have quite a few others who fail other parts of the examination (including the drug screening), but that's a separate issue. These people are required to have a high school diploma, yet they can't figure out the difference between last month's reading of 1285694 and this month's reading of 1286328..... (0000634 or 634 kWh for those playing at home)

 

[MoSurveyor]

I am 100% for year round school. Our schools are expensive to build and equip, and often one of the most valuable resources that a community has. Yet we let them sit vacant for 25% of the year. Makes no sense to me.

*thumbsup* - as long as there's room in there for extended (2+ weeks) of vacation time and not all students at the same time. Some schools have minimum attendance requirements for passing a class during a given grade period. I'd hate to see that kill family vacations.

I would like to see a school system where we don't group students by age into grades. We just have a standard minimum curriculum that a student has to accomplish and pass before he goes onto the next level course. One he/she has met all the minimum requirments for that school, then he goes onto the next school, and can graduate from high school at any age.

A good idea but problematic until maybe the last couple of years when students can be held more responsible for studying on their own. Prior to that time, most students need guidance for studying and doing homework.

 

[imagep]

*thumbsup* - as long as there's room in there for extended (2+ weeks) of vacation time and not all students at the same time. Some schools have minimum attendance requirements for passing a class during a given grade period. I'd hate to see that kill family vacations.

Exactly. Not every student would have to attend every session. This way, we can actually have smaller buildings because while a school might have 2000 students enrolled, maybe only 1750 of them are attending the school at any given point in time. This would allow for more flexibility in parents being able to take vacations (trips) with their children. And students who are ahead in their classes might could take more sessions off and those who are behind might could attend more sessions so that they can (attempt) to keep up.

A good idea but problematic until maybe the last couple of years when students can be held more responsible for studying on their own. Prior to that time, most students need guidance for studying and doing homework.

Sure. But I think that there is some motivating factor in being able to "get ahead", at least for some students. And others who are slower may end up an extra year in each school level (like early elementary, intermediate elementary, middle school and high school), but that would allow them the time that they need so that they don't get hopelessly behind and give up, without any stigma of flat out "failing". Also, different kids progress at different rates, and bloom at different times, so even for the kid who was a slower learner in grades K-3 might could catch up during grades 4-6 or in middle or high school and graduate on time with the rest of their peers.

 

[gavinfielder]

Exactly. Not every student would have to attend every session. This way, we can actually have smaller buildings because while a school might have 2000 students enrolled, maybe only 1750 of them are attending the school at any given point in time. This would allow for more flexibility in parents being able to take vacations (trips) with their children. And students who are ahead in their classes might could take more sessions off and those who are behind might could attend more sessions so that they can (attempt) to keep up.

I have trouble with math classes that meet two days a week; skipping two weeks? I'd fail the class, without a doubt.

Now, only the students who need it go to class? Who decides who needs it? For good households, it might be the parents, but in a lot of cases, it's simply a function of whether the student feels like going to class or hanging out behind K-mart.

Granted, we're talking about different age groups obviously, but giving "flexibility" to K-12 students seems like a recipe for disaster.