Factors Driving Education Reform

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Factors Driving Education Reform

• Unit 1 Day One

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Globalization

• Purpose
• To understand how changes in the labor market are
  driving the need for education reform in the
  United States.

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Globalization

• Key Question
• How have changes in the global economy impacted
  the level of skill attainment necessary in the
  current and future workforce?

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Distribution of Education in U.S. Jobs
Carnevale and Desrochers. Standards for What?
The Economic Roots of K-16 Education p 18
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The Impact of Globalization

• The Education System under which America rose to
  economic supremacy is not keeping pace with the
  innovations of other nations
• The fastest- growing and best-paying jobs have
  been those that require at least some college
• Currently, six in ten jobs are held by workers
  with at least some postsecondary education or
  training, compared with two in ten in 1959
• The ultimate consequence could be declining
  economic competitiveness for individual states
  and the nation.

Carnevale and Desrochers. Standards for What?
The Economic Roots of K-16 Education p.vi
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• How Long Will America
• Lead The World?

Newsweek
June 12, 2006
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How Long Will America Lead The World?

• No worker from a rich country can equal the
  energy of someone trying to move out of poverty.
• Americans do not really know how fast the rest of
  the world is catching up.
• So what should the United States do? First, be
  scared, be very scared.

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• In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In
  America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears
  and that is our problem.
• Young Chinese, Indians, and Poles are not racing
  us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top.
  They do not want to work for us they dont even
  want to be us. They want to dominate us . . .

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Globalization

• The Challenge
• What changes are necessary in our schools as a
  result of changes in todays global economy?

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Trends in International Math and Science Scores

• Eighth Grade Scores
• Singapore
• Korea
• Hong Kong
• China
• Japan
• Belgium
• Netherlands
• Estonia
• Hungary

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• Malaysia
• Latvia
• Russia
• Slovak Republic
• Australia
• United States

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College Enrollment

• In the past decade these first world countries
  have each increased the number of 18-21 year olds
  in college by at least 10 percent
• United Kingdom
• Ireland
• France
• Spain

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College Enrollment

• In the past decade the United States has
  increased the percentage of 18-21 enrolled in
  college by
• ZERO percent
• We still have more students in college than any
  other country because of our large population.

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• Neglecting to raise educational achievement will
  put the United States in the position of losing
  our preeminent economic status in the world.
• Competition in the world market comes down to
  who has the best human capital?

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Idea Based Goods and Workers

• If you are an educated worker making and selling
  some kind of idea-based product consulting or
  financial services or music or software or
  marketing or design or new drugs the bigger the
  market is, the more people there are out there to
  whom you can sell your product. And the bigger
  the market, the more new specialties and niches
  it will create.

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• If you come up with the next Windows or Prozac,
  you can potentially sell one to everyone in the
  world. Educated,idea based workers will do well
  in globalization.

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• If you are selling manual labor or a piece of
  lumber or slab of steel the value of what you
  have to sell does not necessarily increase when
  the market expands, and it may decrease. There
  are only so many factories that will buy your
  manual labor, and there are many more people
  selling it. What the carpenter or nanny has to
  sell can only be bought by one factory or one
  family at a time, while idea-based products can
  be sold to everyone in the global market at once.

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• There may be a limit to the number of good
  factory jobs in the world, but there is no limit
  to the number of idea-generated jobs in the world.

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An Example

• How does the gap between the educated and
  undereducated look in a a real life scenario?
• To make the numbers manageable, lets say right
  now there are 100 people in America and 1000
  people in China

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• America has 80 educated, idea based workers and
  20 undereducated, manual laborers.
• China has 80 educated, ideas based workers and
  920 undereducated manual laborers.
• Before the Chinese opened free trade, only the 80
  American educated workers could compete in the
  world market

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• But with free trade, China is competing in the
  world market, so there are now 160 educated, idea
  based workers
• 80 American
• 80 Chinese
• But the market has also grown from just the 100
  Americans to 1,100 Americans and Chinese. This
  is good newsmore competition, but a bigger
  market.

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• Some of these educated Americans may have to move
  horizontally into new idea-based jobs, but with
  such a big and complex market, the jobs for
  educated, idea-based workers will be there. As
  China develops more educated workers, their wages
  will rise to meet ours ours will not go down.

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The bad news.

• In this new open market, there are now 20
  undereducated Americans, and 920 undereducated
  Chinese. Any jobs that can be moved to China
  will be because they will work for less keeping
  their wages depressed and American wages
  depressed. These undereducated Americans will
  have to move vertically to improve their lives
  and not to be a drain on our economy.

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• Each year America has fewer and fewer jobs for
  the undereducated. This will only increase with
  the expansion of the global market. More and
  more of the undereducated will be unable to find
  jobs making them turn to alternative
  economies or welfare. This will not only doom
  them to a life of poverty, but will eventually
  become an untenable drain on the financial
  resources of our country.

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• As educators, it is our moral responsibility to
  educate ALL children and prepare them for a
  post-secondary education. Nothing less than the
  future of our country is at stake.
• This is a tremendous responsibility. Thank
  goodness the best people in the world are charged
  with it.

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• TEACHERS!
• Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
  committed individuals can change the world.
  Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
• - Margaret Mead