Evening star., 1954-06-10
Fifth Of a Series

properly prepared IN basic gram
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Fifth Of q Series
mar. and he specified, spelling.
punctuation, vocabulary. SEN
tence structure. alphabet" in
that order. Looking up from the
paper he said, 81 know they know
the alphabet. They can write
1t out or say it. But they don't
have automatic command of it
and that slows them up in fling"
Continuing from the paper, he
said: 1T is often observed that
the students understanding of
business math has been weak
ened by lack Of adequate prepa-
ration in basic math." He listed
the areas of deficiency as addi-
ton. subtraction. multiplication,
division, fractions-about the
whole field.
The employer, unfortunately,
had no concrete data. He re-
marked that perhaps he was not
q competent witness because he
could not cite figures to back
up his criticisms.
Those criticisms, however,
were the result Of observations
by q responsible observer.
no%o uo-I - ESuI
One trouble in writing about
education is finding concrete
facts to back up statements
made about the schools and the
adequacy of the job they are
doing. It is never more difficult
that in a search for data on
how we'll or i'll the schools are
training the young people who
are not going to college but who
are going to work after high
school graduation.
You could probably make up
your mind on either side on the
basis Of opinions If it were not
for one impressive bit of evi-
dence. This comes from the big
gest employer in the country
the Army.
The Army made some COM
parsons between the selecteeS
of World Wars and II. It
amounted to an Endorsement Of
the work of the schools.
On the criticism side, there is
this statement of the Chicago
Board of Education: 1T is a
. common complaint among buSi-
nessmen that the young people
seeking employment are not well
grounded in the fundamentals"
This was made As years ago.
So today's criticisms are not new.
About a year ago, the Com
merce and Industry Association
of New York obtained the opin-
ions of 288 companies represent
ing Is different industries. One
section of the questions was,
do you believe high school re-
cruits have received sufficient
basic training in reading, writing,
spelling, grammar, arithmetic?"
Their Answers.
Here were the answers:
Reading-26O companies an
swered and 166, or 64 per cent,
said yes.
Writing-267 reported; 81, or
"a per cent, answered yes.
Spelling-260 reported; only
g, or II per cent. found sufficient
training in spelling.
Grammar-262 replies; 81, or
10 per cent. said yes.
Arithmetic-260 reports; 118,
or As per cent, said yes.
1t should be pointed out this
was a Sampling of opinion and
a pretty impressive one, but the
figures were not test scores.
Personnel departments of
number of big companies were
appealed to. The testing of ap-
plicants for jobs to determine
their scholastic skills is not as
prevalent as was expected. Test
results over a period of years
are almost nonexistent, so far
as could be learned.
Seeks Ability to Think.
There was this. statement
from the employment Office of
the Prudential Insurance Co.'S
home Office at Newark, N. j.:
I'm the vast majority of our
openings we are looking
primarily for people with the
ability to think for themselves
and who can get along with
other people. In our opinion
today's applicants are generally
well developed in those quail
ties"
The statement was made that
It is difficult to answer whether
today's applicants are better
than their predecessors. But it
was said that generally speak
ing I'VE feel the schools are
doing very good jobs"
Here again were opinions, but
no figures.
Finally, more concrete data
was obtained when the tele-
phone, gas and electric compa-
nies in Washington were con-
suited.
w. c. Taylor, head of the
Chesapeake and Potomac Tele-
phone Co.'S personnel depart
ment, said that in 1858 there
we're 1,168 girls tested for jobs
as telephone operators. They
were given a simple test in ad-
dition and subtraction. The
number failing to pass was 1873,
or 11.8 per cent. On q clerical
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