Why aren’t our students learning?

Norris Inman, Las Vegas

Sunday, Sept. 15, 2013 | 2:03 a.m.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich says employers should spend more on upgrading workers’ skills. The workforce needs to be better educated in order to understand the training.

I have a friend (a college graduate) who cannot read a tape measure. This person, confronted with filling a water softener that has a 200-pound capacity with bags of salt each weighing 40 pounds, overfilled it.

Another friend asked which was more powerful: a 1/3-horsepower motor or a 1/2-horsepower motor. I bought a bicycle with a small dent in a fender, and the store gave me a 10 percent discount. It took three employees to figure the discount.

Why should employers be asked to educate employees when our public schools are failing to do so? Over 70 percent of high school students cannot pass the proficiency exam the first time around.

Continue the status quo and China will surely outdo us.