Bernie Sanders added a new photo.
I was educated in a public high school in New York State, where at the end of the year, in most major subjects, I had to take a state “regents” exam to test whether the material sunk in. Some testing is fine. But according to a report issued yesterday by the Center for American Progress (based on a close look at 14 urban and suburban districts in seven states) today’s students are required to take state or district tests an average of once a month, some students as frequently as twice a month. Can we get a grip? When testing is emphasized over learning, students learn only to take tests, and the joy of discovery is extinguished.
I’m often amazed how easily big corporations can lure academic “experts” into make whatever findings they're willing to pay for. Latest example: The National Retail Federation has just released a study by University of Georgia economist Jeffery Dorfman purporting to show that retail jobs pay well relative to other industries, and “retail has a higher percentage of workers age 35-54 who make between $48,000 and $72,000 per year.” Hello? The study focuses on full-time jobs, ignoring the disproportionate number of part-time and temporary workers in retail (Walmart continues to hire more and more part-timers). And it compares workers with “similar levels of jobs skills and experience” relative to other industries. But, of course, one of the major problems is retail jobs don’t build job skills, and don’t keep people on long enough to gain much experience.
All this would be laughable were it not for the fact that retail jobs are the fastest-growing job category in America -- and Walmart, MacDonalds and others are using this sort of deceptive data to try to convince Americans this isn’t something to worry about.
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