Educating the American Workforce for 21 Century Jobs

Much has been written about the dire state of the American education system when we compare our scores in math and science to other nations.  Even more disappointing is the return on our investment in education, where the US falls into the "high spenders, low achievement" category (see chart below).

In a recent assessment, the US ranked a dismal 35th out of 64 nations in math, and an equally disappointing 27th out of 64 countries tested in science (see chart below).  Even more worrisome is the trend, which continues to show American students slipping behind.

Harvard professor Jan Rivkin, who co-chairs a project on U.S. competitiveness states "while our scores in reading are the same as 2009, scores from Belgium, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Poland and others have improved and now surpass ours.  Other countries that were behind us, like Italy and Portugal, are now catching up.  We are in a race in the global economy.  The problem is not that we're slowing down.  The problem is that the other runners are getting faster."

Before I entered the business world I spent over a decade as a high school teacher,  I then lived and worked in Korea in international trade, and happened to live for a time with a Korean family.  I saw firsthand how Korean students would spend extra time each evening attending special private schools, where they would work on improving their math, science, and language skills.   Is it surprising then that we see South Korean students performing in the top 5 or 6 in the world in math and science assessments.

If our workforce is to effectively compete in an increasingly global economy, we must figure out how to improve our basic math, science and I would argue language skills.  The study below shows that throwing more money at the problem does not yield better results.  From my experience teaching in the US and seeing how Korean students perform, my conclusion is that family involvement in students' performance is one of the most important variables.

But there are two other variables I believe are just as significant.  One is the expectations we place on our students.  We need national testing standards that allow for a comparison of our students performance to students' from other countries.  This way we can better understand where to set the expectations, and focus our efforts on achieving goals that match ever changing global standards.

The other variable is career goals, which need to be clearly articulated for each and every student, and through our educational and vocational training systems ensure that every student has the opportunity to learn the relevant knowledge and skills required for a successful career in their chosen field.

For example, in the Unites States there are as many as 500,000 manufacturing jobs that go unfilled because employers can't find qualified workers.  In the IT and technology space the numbers are even higher.  Overall it's estimated that 3 million jobs go unfilled in America because of lack of skills. In one recent study, 43% of business owners said unfilled jobs were impeding their businesses from growing.

This gap increases the risk of companies moving out of the US to find more skilled workers, in addition to reducing the productivity and revenue for the firms that remain, which negatively impacts our GDP.  So we need to work harder to match our current students with current and future available job opportunities. Anything that falls short will lead to chronic underemployment and unemployment, and all of the social ills that result as a consequence.

The recent passage by Congress of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which updates the job training system in the United States to make it more aligned with today's needs is one positive step.  But I believe we need to go one step further and develop a national industrial and educational policy, led by Congress.  This policy should clearly set national goals that can provide guidance for our secondary schools, colleges and universities, vocational and apprenticeship training programs, and families trying to align their student's career goals with both future employment trends, and the proper education and training path necessary achieve their goals.






http://educationnext.org/whystudentsinsomecountriesdobetter/