--------
I'll claim commodification has changed by simply becomming more so. I work all day on mechanical things and the differences between generations are enormous. The trend is to modularize components that are replaced whole---cutting back on skilled labor for assembly or repair.
Dot, dot, dot, the current several generations (post-70s) have little or no experience repairing or fabricating routine items for autos, consumer goods, houses or apartments. They can't wrench, or build because they never learned from ordinary chores as a kid. Didn't work on their own cars, didn't fix up their apartments, don't fiddle with the refrigerator, stove, lights, sink, tolite or faucets.
Same goes the other way around for the older crew and computers. Never built one from found junk, didn't gerry-rig their phone, patch into a cable system, or swap out memory and motherboard upgrades. Don't know shit, cause they never played with the stuff. And the same commodifying trend is accelerated in computers.
Working class literacy is deeply intertwined with all of these technologies. (And the whole point to neoliberal capitalism is to erase the US working class as a labor force). So, naturally there are no fabrication shops, machine shops, or electronics labs in high schools any more because these are `too expensive' ---and school districts are too stupid (and tight) to figure out that a likely majority of working class kids are perfectly capable of learning all these technologies and might actually prefer them to the endless and tidious crap they have to learn from books (boring, boring, boring).
Elementary algebra, geometry, trig, (and statistics) are all used and can be learned within these various technologies---and used to be taught that way in other countries. The reason places like Sweden, Germany, Japan, (and regions within China and India) have greater literacy rates in their working classes is mostly likely because trades, crafts, and skill labor is provided as part of secondary education probably by some form of tracking...
[Ah, fuck it. It doesn't matter. This country sucks and has for a very long time...]
CG