Economics Club of Hampton Roads: "Tough Choices, Tough Times"

At their November 5th luncheon (sponsored by The Norfolk Foundation), The Economics Club of Hampton Roads presented “Tough Choices, Tough Times,” the report of the NEW Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. Marc Tucker, President of the National Center on Education and the Economy, presented. Click on the logo above for the Full Report.

The NEW Commission's report is an update of the original 1990 report. New emphasis is placed on the fact that the U.S. is now in direct competition with skilled workers in other parts of the world willing to work for much lower wages. Example: Chinese skilled workers make 1/100th of the pay of their U.S. counterparts.

The 1990 Commission assumed that only the richest countries could pursue better education. Admittedly, they were wrong. The rest of the world has substantially raised their standards of education. When comparing just China and India (pop. 2.3 Billion) to the U.S. (300 Million), their top 10% of students is staggering in sheer numbers alone.

Automation is another pressure, in jobs and in wages, on the U.S. workforce. For every job sent off-shore, another 10 are being automated here.

The Commission forecasts: unless something is done about Education in the U.S., we will experience a steady lowering of our standard of living until it meets that of our biggest competitors, India and China.

The hope for America is that more niche companies will surface, those producing goods and services available nowhere else. Apple, for example, with their "mesmerizingly desirable" leading edge designers, marketers and manufacturers attracts the best educated, most innovative employees who also command very high wages.

According to the Commission's report, if we had lots of Apples in the U.S., we'd have a strategy to maintain a higher standard of living for a very long time. It doesn't matter where the company is located, only that they hire American workers. And, those leading edge companies won't come to the U.S. for a workforce unless ours is the best educated, most innovative, most creative workers AND the fastest, most motivated learners.

The comparisons and 40-year trends shown in the report do not bode well for this pressing need. South Korea, for instance, has made enormous gains in educational attainment and is now ahead of the U.S. in world standing.

40 years ago, the U.S. boasted the best-educated workforce in the world. Today, we are 10th and falling rapidly.

Our educational outcomes have not improved while our costs have increased (240% increase over the last 30 years, adjusted for inflation). Currently, 30 Million in the U.S. workforce are without a high school diploma, adding to the problem every year.

The Commission's studies show that today's American worker will experience 4 to 6 periods of unemployment and change jobs 10 different times. And, this negative trend is increasing exponentially.

The summation of the Commission's report is that our educational system has not changed in the last 100 years. We've tried more money. We've tried new initiatives. The one thing we haven't tried is to change the basic design of elementary and secondary education systems.

Cost neutral suggestions (to spend no more than we do now) are provided in the Commission's report and based on other country's best practices which provide very clear standards and accountability systems.

Suggestions such as:

• allowing the approximately 60% of 16-year old high school students who are ready for college-level work without remediation to move on if they pass a board competency test, saving money for courses no longer required at the junior and senior high school and saving on remediation needs in higher education
  
  
• investing in high quality early childhood education for ALL 4-year olds and ALL low-income 3-year olds, to prevent our current philosophy to "teach to the middle" (by 4th grade, the struggling "bottom" will never catch up)
  
  
• creating public-private partnerships with 3rd party performance-based contracts
  
  
• getting School systems out of direct-employment of teachers, a system which finds the best teachers in the wealthiest areas of the country
  
  
• eliminating our current system of "social promotion" whereby everyone expects to spend a specific number of years per school level whether basic competency is met or not, avoiding diplomas that are merely attendance certificates
  
  
• providing longer school days, year-round schools and top-up funding whereby each student represents the same dollar amount to a school district

The Commission report explains that we can't just cut costs and maintain our current lower standards. We need to get better results for what we now pay for Education.

You can download the full report at: http://skillscommission.org/pdf/exec_sum/ToughChoices_EXECSUM.pdf