(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
Hey Mav, you got the number for that truck driving school in Oklahoma? I think we’re going to need it. ETS dives into Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data to measure the abilities of the American millennial generation (aka our those tasked with keeping the lights on after the entire Baby Boom generation reaches retirement age circa 2030) compared to their peers around the globe. The news is not good:
One central message that emerges from this report is that, despite having the highest levels of educational attainment of any previous American generation, these young adults on average demonstrate relatively weak skills in literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments compared to their international peers. These findings hold true when looking at millennials overall, our best performing and most educated, those who are native born, and those from the highest socioeconomic background. Equally troubling is that these findings represent a decrease in literacy and numeracy skills for U.S. adults when compared with results from previous adult surveys.
Link to full report here. I’ll be reading through this, I’m not convinced that this squares with other analysis of PISA data available, but I plan to look into it. If it holds up it is a damning indictment not only of K-12 but also of our six year beer soaked odysseys of self discovery sometimes resulting in degrees apparently of lower value that we suspected higher education system.
Posted by matthewladner 
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