Educating and Training the U.S. Work Force for the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

The main arguments of this paper can be summarized in the following propositions:

• 1 U.S. national competitiveness — and particularly its future competitiveness — will depend more on the technical literacy of its labor force than on the number of its scientists and engineers.

• 2 The average K-12 education is increasingly mismatched to the requirements of the future work force, even if there were no change in the demographic composition of that work force.

• 3 In the future new entrants to the labor force will be drawn increasingly from groups that have been poorly served by the public K-12 system and as a result are weak and uninterested in mathematics and science.

• 4 U.S. economic performance is deteriorating so rapidly that we cannot afford to simply wait for educational reform to take effect, important as that is. We must mount a major national effort to upgrade the skills of the currently employed work force — not so much specific work-related skills as the basic language and math skills necessary to learn the new skills required by technology and market structure change.

• 5 The technologies in the workplaces of the future will require managers to give low-level workers much greater discretion and responsibility. To continue improving quality and productivity will mean drawing on the talents and experience of workers at all levels, not just scientists and engineers. The most competitive organizations will be those that can foster continuous collective learning from the bottom to the top of the organization.