How Bad IS Education These Days?

The Ticker, who is even more irascible than I am, used to own a business in Chicago.  He would hire people to work there, of course.

...I instituted two tests before you could get an interview; when you came in and presented a resume you were shown the conference room and given a pencil, piece of paper and the two tests; nothing else was allowed inside.  The first was a request to write a basic business letter informing a customer that his account was disabled because he hadn't paid his bill, and to please remit the balance to continue service.  The second was a four-function (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) mathematics screening with 20 questions on it.  You needed a 90% on the math to pass and the letter had to be grammatically correct and formatted as a reasonable business letter.

90% of the applicants failed one or both and more than half failed screamingly, either being completely unable to compose a business letter that could be read and understood as reasonably correct English or failing to get even half of the math correct. More than a few applicants literally walked out leaving behind two blank pieces of paper for "answers", unable to do any of it. A couple actually wrote things like "**** you" on the test before walking out, clearly unable to do any of it.

Most-alarmingly was the fact that more than a third of those who claimed to be currently enrolled in college, including at [University of Chicago!!!!], applying for a part-time job while in school, were unable to pass these screens.....

That was perhaps 10-20 years ago.  Think "education" has gotten better since then?