great googly moogly!

Have any of you seen this? I feel glad when I say that I can do all of the things mentioned that "most" college students cannot do. However, I learned these things without the help of college. Strange, neh?


Study: College students lack literacy for complex tasks

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than half of students at four-year colleges -- and at least 75 percent at two-year colleges -- lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers, a study found.

The literacy study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the first to target the skills of graduating students, finds that students fail to lock in key skills -- no matter their field of study.

The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.

Without "proficient" skills, or those needed to perform more complex tasks, students fall behind. They cannot interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.

"It is kind of disturbing that a lot of folks are graduating with a degree and they're not going to be able to do those things," said Stephane Baldi, the study's director at the American Institutes for Research, a behavioral and social science research organization.

Most students at community colleges and four-year schools showed intermediate skills. That means they can do moderately challenging tasks, such as identifying a location on a map.

There was brighter news.

Overall, the average literacy of college students is significantly higher than that of adults across the nation. Study leaders said that was encouraging but not surprising, given that the spectrum of adults includes those with much less education.

Also, compared with all adults with similar levels of education, college students had superior skills in searching and using information from texts and documents.

"But do they do well enough for a highly educated population? For a knowledge-based economy? The answer is no," said Joni Finney, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, an independent and nonpartisan group.

"This sends a message that we should be monitoring this as a nation, and we don't do it," Finney said. "States have no idea about the knowledge and skills of their college graduates."

The survey examined college students nearing the end of their degree programs.

The students did the worst on matters involving math, according to the study.

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. About 30 percent of two-year students had only basic math skills.

Baldi and Finney said the survey should be used as a tool. They hope state leaders, educators and university trustees will examine the rigor of courses required of all students.

The college survey used the same test as the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, the government's examination of English literacy among adults. The results of that study were released in December, showing about one in 20 adults is not literate in English.

On campus, the tests were given in 2003 to a representative sample of 1,827 students at public and private schools.

It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Cuba able to help Katrina victims after all.

Anybody remember how, back when Katrina had first struck, Castro/Cuba tried to donate money, and then just doctors, to help those affected by the hurricane? And how Bush freaked out and refused all help from Castro/Cuba - took offense to it in a major way?

Well, looks like Cuba found a workaround:

US allows Cuba to play in Classic

The US government has backed down on a decision to ban Cuba from playing in the inaugural World Baseball Classic.
The US Treasury Department issued a licence on Friday allowing the Cubans to participate in the 16-team event.

It follows threats by the International Baseball Federation to withdraw its sanction of the tournament, and by Puerto Rico to withdraw as a co-host.

The US government initially used laws enforcing economic sanctions against Communist Cuba to bar its team.

US laws aimed at punishing Fidel Castro's government continue to prohibit certain commercial transactions with Cuba.

The first application to allow the Cubans to take part was rejected in mid-December by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

But Major League Baseball's commissioner's office and Players' Association reapplied after Cuba said it would donate any profits it receives to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

"We worked very closely with World Baseball Classic and the State Department," said Treasury spokeswoman Molly Millerwise.

"The agreement upholds the legal scope and the spirit of the agreement. It ensures no funding will make its way into the hands of the Castro regime."

The Cuban national team was cleared to take part by Cuban President Castro in November.

Cuba won the Olympic gold medal in 1992, 1996 and 2004. The United States won in 2000.

The World Baseball Classic will take place from 3-20 March in the US, Puerto Rico and Japan.

Today's Journey

Okay, so I thought I would have an uneventful day... and for the most part I guess that's true. No more of my animals died at least. For those of you who also read crabbyolbastard you know that our cat Loki was in hospital for another unknown infection. Fortunately I knew the warning signs from last time - and I learned a couple more from this time as well - and we got him in sooner.

Today, my final version of the study plan was rejected, too much anthro, not enough economics. So I had to add the Resource Economics class to my schedule (after missing the first class). I may have to drop both the Women & Culture along with the Democratization of Latin America - pity, I enjoyed the first W&C class immensely. I also ended (just in case I do have to drop the other two - which now directly conflict with the new class, which originally wouldn't have but the teacher reassigned the day/time, gah!) signing back up for the Plants & People Anthro class. The good news is that I only have to do a 3 credit Plan B paper so I may be able to graduate, if not on time then at least only a month or so after the usual May graduation date. I could care less about the pomp and ceremony, I just want the degree.

Then at lunch today. HA! We were all discussing going hiking and camping (in general) starting to make plans for the coming season, and of course tales of the past came up. Talk started centering around Mount Washington and Mount Monadnock, how plenty of people who hike unprepared die on the first and how the second is "one of the most climbed" and so forth. Again a tale of the past comes up CoB and his brother comparing notes from the last time they climbed Monadnock together - his brother doesn't remember anything unusual while CoB claimed he was two days in serious pain. He was also talking about how in shape he was at the time from cycling, then both his Mom and I at the same time started talking about if you are really in shape using a specific set of muscles - when you use the muscles that aren't typically used during your usual training regimen then OF COURSE you would be in pain after a strenuous working of them. I then, in relation to the Mount Washington part of the discussion, quipped:

It's the unused muscle that kills you.

CoB turned to look at me... then tapped his finger to the side of his head... and we both start cracking up laughing. Since we're so in sync with each other (scary sometimes) we were both thinking of well, people in general not using their noggin to solve what seems to be common sense day to day events. And the not so common events. Politicians, hikers of Mt. Washington, everyone. Not that I'm implying that the brain is a muscle, come on folks. It is something else, however, that we refer to as "exercising" when we use it. Maybe you had to be there.

Then we all ended up at Eastern Mountain Sports, checking out the gear. Where was I to be found? Right underneath my kayak of course. It is on sale too - 30% off. I got the usual though, it won't fit through the door and I gotta get a job and be making money, and I'd need a roof rack too, etc, etc. *painful sigh*

So now, the science-cheese-geekfest is on. Dante's Peak (with Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton and the boy child in Third Rock From the Sun) followed up by the new sci-fi thriller MAGMA. Yeah.