Year End Stuff: We're The Kids Of America

On vacation until 2016, so I have a couple of pieces to put up for the next week or so, nothing major.

Year end predictions and scorecard are coming on the 31st as usual.

For today, news that the kids are not all right.

Fortune reports that Generation Y Americans (those born after 1980) lag behind their overseas peers in literacy, numeracy and problem-solving in technology-rich environments. Researchers at the Princeton-based Educational Testing Service (ETS), who conducted the study, administered a test called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, to measure the job skills of adults in 23 countries.

Here's how we fared, according to ABC Chicago:


Top 5 scores in literacy:
1) Japan
2) Finland
3) Netherlands
4) Australia
5) Sweden

The United States placed at #17 out of 23.

Top 5 scores in numeracy:
1) Japan
2) Finland
3) Flanders (Belgium)
4) Netherlands
5) Sweden

The United States placed at #21 out of 23.

Top 5 scores in PS-TRE:
1) Japan
2) Finland
3) Australia
4) Sweden
5) Norway

The United States placed #18 out of 20.

The results were shocking to researchers as American millennials were found to be the most educated generation ever, according to the study.

"We really thought [U.S.] Millennials would do better than the general adult population, either compared to older coworkers in the U.S. or to the same age group in other countries," Madeline Goodman, an ETS researcher who worked on the study, told Fortune. "But they didn’t. In fact, their scores were abysmal."

The study concludes that a more expensive and expansive education "may not hold all the answers."

You mean the rest of the world has passed us by in education?

You don't say.