Our unprepared graduates

Kathleen Parker:

Certainly not for the many young Americans being graduated from colleges that have prepared them inadequately for the competitive marketplace. The failure of colleges and universities to teach basic skills, while coddling them with plush dorms and self-directed "study," is a dot-connecting exercise for Uncle Shoulda, who someday will say -- in Chinese -- "How could we have let this happen?"

We often hear lamentations about declining educational quality, but the focus is usually misplaced on SAT scores and graduation rates. Missing from the conversation is the quality of what's being taught. Meanwhile, we are mistakenly wed to the notion that more people going to college means more people will find jobs.

Obviously the weak economy is a factor in the highest unemployment rate for those ages 16 to 29 since World War II. But there's more to the story. Fundamentally, students aren't learning what they need to compete for the jobs that do exist.

These facts have been well documented by a variety of sources, not to mention the common experience of employers who can't find applicants who can express themselves grammatically.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at October 6, 2011 1:08 AM
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