The purpose of education is to prepare people for a changing economy.

Competitiveness21st Century SkillsGlobalizationWorkforce ReadinessInnovation

Education Pays

The Great Divide, 2004-14Jobs in the Top 30 on Both Lists

• Job Number Rate Pay Education

• College Teacher 524 32.2 VH Doctorate• Home Health Aide 350 56.0 VL S OJT• Personal Care Aide 287 41.0 VL S OJT• Software Engineers 222 48.4 VH Bachelors• Medical Assistants 202 52.1 L M OJT• Computer Systems Analysts 153 31.4 VH Bachelors

Why are we losing medium skilled jobs and what does it mean for education?

How Computerized Work and Globalization Shape Human Skill Demands

Frank Levy , MIT

Richard J. Murnane Harvard University

Two kinds of “Rules”

Rules-based logic ( “Does this credit card number match a number in the airline reservation data base? Yes/No”)

Pattern recognition (Using statistics to estimate the risk of a making a housing loan based on responses to 14 questions on an application form)

Hollowing Out the Job Market

The Changing Job Market

What state and federal policy encourages.

Breadth, not depth, in a narrow range of disciplines

Standardized test taking skillsRules-based skills Facts and information

What the economy wants

Knowing more about the world Portable Skills – problem solving, creativity, innovationInterdisciplinary thinking, seeing relationshipsCritical thinking, assessing the quality of information.Emotional Intelligence, people and communication

skills

Education and the EconomySome Players

• Partnership for 21st Century Skills• Business Roundtable• The Education for Innovation Initiative• Business Coalition for Student Achievement• Center on Education and the Economy • New Commission on the Skills of the American

Workforce

Partnership for 21st Century SkillsMember organizations include (among others):

Adobe Systems Incorporated, American Association of School Librarians, Apple, BellSouth Foundation, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Dell, Educational Testing Service, Ford Motor Company Fund, Intel, McGraw-Hill Education, Microsoft Corporation, National Education Association, Oracle Education Foundation, Texas Instruments, Verizon.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Education

21st Century Skills

• Information and communication skills• Thinking and problem-solving• Interpersonal and self-direction skills • Global awareness • Financial, economic and business literacy, and

developing entrepreneurial skills to enhance workplace productivity and career options

• Civic literacy

Business Roundtable

160 member companies represented by their chief executive officers.

Business Roundtable Members$4.5 trillion in annual revenues More than 10 million employees. Nearly a third of the total value of the U.S. stock marketOver 40 percent of all corporate income taxes paidPaid $112 billion in dividends to shareholders and the economy

in 2005. Give more than $7 billion a year in combined charitable

contributions -- nearly 60% of total corporate giving.

Business Roundtable

Standards, assessments, accountability,

teacher quality, parental involvement, school autonomy, learning readiness, school safety and discipline, and technology.

A Few State Affiliates of Business Roundtable

• A+ Education Foundation (Alabama) www.aplusala.org• Prichard Committee (Kentucky) www.prichardcommittee.org• Partnership for Successful Schools (Kentucky)

www.partnershipforsuccessfulschools.org• Council for A Better Louisiana www.cabl.org• Maine Coalition for Excellence in Education www.mainecee.org• MS Economic Council www.msmec.com• Mississippi Public Education Forum www.mec.ms• Public School Forum of North Carolina www.ncforum.org• New Mexico Business Roundtable for Educational Excellence

www.nmbree.org• Oklahoma Business and Education Coalition www.obecinfo.com• Tennessee Business Roundtable www.tbroundtable.org

Tennessee Business Roundtable

The Tennessee Business Roundtable believes that the future of Tennessee’s economy is directly tied to the health and performance of our public education system. Without a better-educated and well-prepared workforce, we cannot expect to attract the high-tech industries of the future. It is imperative that businesses across the state expand their partnerships and alliances with public education. We can no longer sit back and criticize the system without being part of the solution.

Center for Education and the Economy

It helped shape state standards for over half of all public school students.

Played important role in the framing of the Goals 2000 legislation, the National Skills Standards Act, the School to Work Act and the Workforce Investment Act, as well as legislation in over a dozen states

Center for Education and the EconomyState Programs

America’s Choice -- carefully aligned instructional materials, assessments, management systems, professional development, coaching and consulting.

Works with many states on Workforce Development programs, including AL, KY, LA, ME, MS, OK, SC among others.

New Commission on Skills and the American Workforce

Bipartisan – scholars – business leaders – school chancellors– education commissioners – former cabinet secretaries– governors

New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce

Funders:

The Annie E. Casey Foundation Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Lumina Foundation for Education William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

First Commission on Skills of the American Workforce -- 1990

• Worldwide market developing for low-skill labor

• U.S. should abandon low-skill market.• Compete in market for high value-added

products and services• Adopt internationally benchmarked standards

for education.

The Problem According to Tough Choices or Tough Times

• Teachers are recruited from among the less able of the high school students who go to college.

• We waste resources by failing to focus on early education.

• Standards movement has helped but gains have been modest compared to increased costs.

• Growing inequality in family incomes is contributing heavily to the growing disparities in student achievement.

The Problem According to Tough Choices or Tough Times

• Teacher pay system rewards length of service. Does not attract the best college students or reward the best teachers.

• Testing system rewards students good at routine work. Does

not encourage students to display creative and innovative thinking and analysis.

• School Bureaucracy -- people who have the responsibility do not have the power, and the people who have the power do not have the responsibility.

Tough Choices or Tough Times

“There is not enough money available at any level of our intergovernmental system to fix this problem by spending more on the system we have. We can get where we must go only by changing the system itself.”

The Solution According to Tough Choices or Tough Times

• Get teachers from top one-third of high school students who go to college.

• Early childhood education for all 3 and 4 year olds.• More money for poverty students.• Develop testing systems that require construction of

answers. • Every school must affiliate with a “helping organization” --

teacher training institution, profit or non-profit organization – to provide assistance.

The Solution According to Tough Choices or Tough Times

• School boards no longer “own” schools. They contract to operate them, keep data, report to the state.

• Schools operated by independent contractors, maybe teacher-owned companies.

• Teachers employees of the state.• Schools funded directly by state using pupil

weighting system.• College board exams for every student by 10th

grade or earlier. Must pass to get out of high school.

The Solution According to Tough Choices or Tough Times

• Choice of any contract school in the district.• Every adult worker has right to get the education needed to

pass the College Board Exam.• “Personal Competitiveness Accounts” – created at birth and

funded by federal government, with voluntary contributions by the individual and employers. Used to pay tuition for continuous upgrades in education after high school.

• Regional Economic Development Authorities

What is YOUR vision of the role of schools and education in the economy?

Some questions

What is the role of government in job creation, wage regulation, health care and retirement?

Can the earth sustain a global standard of consumption equal to that of the U.S.?

Is that all there is…to education?

The purpose of education is to prepare people for a changing economy.

Or

The purpose of education is to prepare people to change society, to overcome injustice, and to

improve the human condition.

Education and the Just Economy

• Competitiveness with Cooperation

• 21st Century Skills with 21st Century Consciousness

• Globalization with Social Responsibility

• Workforce Readiness with Workforce Organizing

• Innovation with Loyalty and Security