Mad skillz

A recent study by the American Institutes for Research claims that most college graduates are lacking in basic skills needed for everyday 21st century American life. In fact, the Associated Press reports that "More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks," which include "three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips" (AP, January 19).\nWell, what a load of bunk! I'm a college graduate, and I can totally analyze news stories and understand documents and ... have math skills!\nJust to prove it, I went and read the latest issue of The Economist. For those unfamiliar with The Economist, it's a well-regarded "weekly news and international affairs publication of The Economist Newspaper Limited in London." That's right. Not only is it named after economics -- it's British, like PBS. So you know it's really hard and \neducational.\nAnd what did I learn? Well, from the Jan. 18 piece "Opening the boss's pay packet," I learned that "on January 17th, America's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted to propose a set of rules that will require firms to unpick the complicated remuneration packages that American bosses enjoy to reveal the true cost of their \nemployment." \nWhich is good, because ... you know ... remuneration packages are very ... uh ... complicated and picky. And we need our exchange secured. Back in the good old days, remuneration packages were simple and everybody knew your name. You'd step outside and there, on your doorstep, was a bottle of milk and a package of remuneration and ...\nOK, so I didn't read the whole thing. It was boring, and I had more important things to do. But I got the gist of it, that's the important thing. And it's not like the study was on whether you can read The Economist. For instance, the AP story also said: "Almost 20 percent of students pursuing four-year degrees had only basic quantitative skills. For example, the students could not estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the service station."\nNow that's just silly. Who couldn't figure out how much fuel they need to get to a gas station? My car gets about 25 miles to the gallon. And the nearest gas station is two miles away. So that's 25 miles/1 gallon = 2 miles/X gallons and so that means that 25X = 2. And two divided by 25, that equals ... uh ... 25 into two and that's ... um ... and that's exactly ... not much gas.\nSo, clearly The American Institutes for Research are underestimating the vast stores of useful knowledge that we absorb in our four years of ardent study. Why, the article even claimed that college graduates could not "understand the arguments of newspaper editorials"! You know what I say to that? \nKerflugalum urpurp maluggi su.