Date sent: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 02:13:35 -0600 (CST)
From: LindaP (Texas)
Subject: Schools hurt competition- Tucker


>Subject: Schools hurt competition- Tucker
>
>November 13, 1991
>
> 
>Some Economists Challenging View That Schools
>Hurt Competitiveness
> By
>Jonathan Weisman
>Contrary to popular thinking, skills shortages among high-school graduates
>are not
>primarily to blame for the dwindling competitiveness of the American
>workforce, a growing
>number of scholars are arguing.
>Indeed, the United States will not need huge numbers of highly skilled
>workers in the
>future unless substantial changes are made in government policies and
>corporate practices
>that have almost nothing to do with schools, these scholars assert.
>This revisionist theory of the relationship between schools and economic
>productivity
>flies directly in the face of a national school-reform movement that has been
>based largely
>on the need to make the United States more competitive abroad.
>Ever since A Nation at Risk proclaimed that a "rising tide of mediocrity...
>threatens our
>very future as a nation and as a people,'' it has been vitually taken as a
>given that
>improvements in the education system were needed to keep America's "slim
>competitive
>edge... in world markets.''
>Now, a new "think tank'' war about what is causing the country's economic
>ailments may
>be forcing some educators and policymakers to reevaluate just how important
>education is
>to the nation's future economic growth, and whether educators are setting
>themselves up
>for failure by promising what they cannot deliver: namely, an internationally
>competitive
>workplace.
>"This has had a major effect already on education policy and will continue to
>have a major
>effect," said Russell W. Rumberger, an associate professor of education at
>the University
>of California at Santa Barbara. "I don't think anyone would say schools don't
>need
>attention and work. It's a question of relative importance."
>Although there are advocates on the far sides of the debate, most now concede
>that both
>business and education must change to address the nation's economic malaise.
>No one is arguing that a highly skilled workforce is not desirable, if
>Americans want to
>maintain a high standard of living. And no one is claiming that improvements
>in education
>are unnecessary.
>But many would place less emphasis on education as the sole savior of the
>American
>workforce.
>Blaming the Schools
>The revisionist view holds that business management has stubbornly refused to
>transform
>the workplace and has chosen instead to avoid its responsibilities by blaming
>the schools.
>If current trends continue, advocates of this new line of thinking say,
>low-paying
>service-sector jobs will proliferate at the expense of technical
>manufacturing positions and
>management posts, and American business will continue to lose out to foreign
>competitors.
>Instead of taking steps to tackle the problems directly in the workplace,
>revisionists argue,
>businesses have found it easier to deflect blame by pointing the finger at
>inadequacies in
>the nation's schools.
>"Are the schools responsible for the management decisions that kept Detroit
>turning out
>self-destructing gas guzzlers until it lost its dominance of the market?"
>Gerald W. Bracey,
>an education researcher, asked in an essay published in last month's Phi
>Delta Kappan
>magazine. "Did the schools' sloppy pedagogy prevent industry from automating
>until it
>was too late?"
>Mr. Bracey resigned last week from the National Education Association. (See
>related box,
>this page.)
>Revisionists also claim that politics is behind the stubborn adherence by
>many to the
>traditional view that the schools are failing American business.
>Successive Republican administrations, as well as numerous state politicians,
>have
>embraced the orthodoxy because they have been uncomfortable with pressuring
>businesses to reorganize their workforces and retrain their workers,
>revisionists argue.
>Instead, they say, politicians and policymakers can look as though they are
>going on the
>offensive by advocating education reform. And, at the same time, they can
>avoid the much
>stickier political question of whether the nation needs a more aggressive
>industrial-technology policy.
>Education has been "an avenue of convenience," the revisionists contend,
>because it
>entails very little in the way of federal policies or investment.
>The trouble is, they say, that, unless business changes, efforts to improve
>the educational
>system will produce a mismatch between what is needed in the marketplace and
>a supply
>of overqualified workers.
>"Until you have investment in job creation and workplace transformation,
>you're just
>whistling in the dark to focus on workforce improvement," said Ivar Berg, a
>professor of
>sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.
>Statistical Support
>Revisionists point to a host of statistics and other indicators to make their
>point.
>In a report published last summer, for instance, the Economic Policy
>Institute disputed
>projections of impending labor and skill shortages.
>Instead, it concluded, the growth in highly skilled jobs has halted, while
>education has
>been promoted on the policy agenda at the expense of more direct economic
>investment.
>"An intelligent labor policy would create skilled jobs, not expect them to
>happen by
>themselves," said Lawrence Mishel, who co-authored the report with Ruy A.
>Teixeira. "I
>can't support the 'blame the worker, blame the schools' analysis."
>The E.P.I.'s report, "The Myth of the Coming Labor Shortage," said
>occupational-skills
>upgrading will raise wages by about 0.4 percent over the next 12 to 14 years.
>If wages are
>an indication of skill level, then there will be no "upskilling" of the
>workforce, the report
>concluded.
>At most, 30 percent of the new jobs created between 1984 and 2000 will
>require a college
>degree, compared with 22 percent of the jobs created in 1984, the report
>estimated.
>The rest of the jobs will show almost no increase in the skills required,
>according to the
>study.
>In fact, the E.P.I. study stated, the slight overall increase in the job
>skills required for the
>next 10 years would only necessitate a total of 0.4 extra years of schooling
>over the next 10
>years.
>"People who still use [the generally accepted] rhetoric are increasingly
>uncomfortable with
>it because they see what's going on around them," Mr. Mishel said. "If you
>ask someone
>in the Midwest if they see an explosion of high-tech jobs, they'd say, 'No,
>are you crazy?'"
>The Value of Retraining
>In another study, a team of researchers at the University of California at
>Los Angeles
>concluded that California's educational system had not caused the bulk of the
>state's
>economic misfortunes.
>The study of high-technology industries in California suggested that the
>state must try to
>solve its economic problems through changes in government economic policies,
>not
>through changes in the schools.
>To make its point, the study, published last month, noted that New United
>Motors
>Manufacturing Inc., a General Motors-Toyota joint venture in Fremont, Calif.,
>rehired and
>retrained laid-off G.M. workers in 1984 to build an auto plant as productive
>as any in Japan.
>Noting that G.M. had deemed the workers "the worst in the country" in the
>early 1980's,
>the study argued that the experience at the Fremont plant provides evidence
>that
>workforce retraining and new management styles can make up for employees'
>educational
>shortcomings.
>Revisionists also point to a study by a U.S. Labor Department researcher that
>concluded
>that the growth in high-skills jobs will stagnate in this decade, while
>employment in
>fast-food restaurants, small retail stores, and service establishments will
>continue to grow.
>The study, conducted by Ronald E. Kutscher, an economist at the Bureau of
>Labor
>Statistics, and published in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy
>Analysis last
>month, also found that the value of a college degree is likely to decline,
>leading to a
>growing number of people working in jobs for which they are overqualified.
>Between 1983 and 1988, the study noted, the number of college graduates
>working as sales
>clerks increased from 485,000 to 568,000; those working as secretaries,
>stenographers, and
>typists rose from 434,000 to 475,000; and those working as bartenders,
>waiters, and
>waitresses went from 119,000 to 125,000.
>Several studies and surveys have also reached the conclusion that American
>business is
>not moving quickly or enthusiastically enough to embrace the kinds of changes
>needed to
>create high-skills jobs.
>In a report commissioned by the Labor Department and released last month, the
>American
>Society for Training and Development concluded, among other findings, that
>the growing
>understanding of what it takes to compete has so far outstripped its
>acceptance in the
>workplace.
>Concurring on that point, a poll released in late September by Lotus Harris &
>Associates
>showed "a limited willingness of [the business community] to provide support
>to make up
>for the shortfalls in the education system." Just 14 percent of 402
>corporations surveyed
>said they had job-training programs that teach basic academic skills, and 67
>percent said
>they had made no major shifts to respond to changes in competitiveness
>demands.
>The Orthodoxy
>But despite the growing number of adherents to the revisionists' line of
>thinking, most
>observers say the original analysis that high-skills jobs will proliferate in
>the future still
>holds sway.
>"The majority opinion happens to be correct in this case," said Marvin
>Kosters, the
>director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
>That position, now considered the orthodoxy, holds that businesses cannot
>compete
>internationally because an ill-trained workforce has prevented them from
>improving
>productivity by adopting high-technology manufacturing or changing management
>to
>stress assembly-line decisionmaking and teamwork, rather than traditional,
>routine
>mechanization.
>The position also contends that the demand for high-skills jobs will respond
>to the supply
>of high-skilled labor, and that, because the education system has not
>produced enough
>highly skilled workers, the schools are largely to blame for the nation's
>competitiveness
>problems.
>Adherents to the theory that the labor supply is key--including the powerful
>business
>lobby and many politicians--have used it to raise education to the top of the
>nation's
>domestic priority list.
>"Employers would choose the high-skill, high-wage track [to economic
>development] if the
>education system allowed it," asserted Arnold Packer, who in 1987 co-wrote a
>ground-breaking study, "Workforce 2000," that in essence codified the
>orthodox position.
>The study, conducted by the Indianapolis-based Hudson Institute, also
>predicted an
>explosive growth in high-technology, professional, and managerial jobs during
>the 1990's.
>The explosion, concluded the study, would produce severe shortages in
>qualified workers
>and management unless the nation's education system was shored up. It largely
>ignored
>issues of workplace training or investment.
>Workforce 2000 Role
>Since the release of "Workforce 2000," the call for education reform in the
>name of
>improving business productivity has been embraced by a coalition of business
>leaders,
>politicians, and labor policymakers who together have created an
>unprecedentedly loud
>voice, observers agree.
>The U.S. Secretary of Labor, they note, is as apt to talk about education on
>a given day as
>is the U.S. Secretary of Education.
>"Workforce 2000' has gotten imbedded in the American psyche in an incredible
>way," said
>Marion Pines, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University. 'given the man on the
>street has
>in his mind an impending skills gap and workforce shortage."
>And, like the revisionists, supporters of the more traditional point of view
>can point to a
>number of studies and statistics to help make their case.
>In a study released last month, for instance, John H. Bishop and Shani
>Carter, both
>researchers at Cornell University, argued that the number of high-skills jobs
>will proliferate
>this decade.
>Unless steps are taken to improve the educational system, they argued,
>business will be
>faced with shortages of skilled workers.
>To make their point, the researchers noted that professional, technical, and
>managerial
>jobs, which accounted for 24.9 percent of the nation's jobs in 1978, made up
>52 percent of
>the job growth between 1978 and 1989.
>High-level sales representatives and sales manager posts accounted for
>another 10 percent
>to 11 percent of the job growth, according to the study, published in last
>month's issue of
>Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
>Moreover, the study predicted that managerial, professional, and technical
>positions will
>account for 69.8 percent of the job growth between 1988 and 2000. Such
>low-skills
>positions as operators, laborers, and service employees will account for only
>1.9 percent of
>the growth.
>The Bishop-Carter study also pointed out that wages for college-educated
>technicians and
>professionals rose substantially between 1983 and 1989, while the wages
>earned by
>high-school graduates fell.
>The result, the researchers noted, is that the ratio between wages for
>workers with a
>college degree and
>those with a high-school diploma is at an all-time high.
>Adherents to the idea that a supply of highly skilled workers will fuel
>competitiveness say
>that this wage ratio shows that the demand for highly trained workers is
>already much in
>evidence, and Mr. Bishop contends that shortages of college-educated workers
>will
>heighten in the 1990's.
>Agreed Mr. Kosters of the American Enterprise Institute: "The U.S. economy
>has already
>shown a tremendous capability of making use of more skills and more
>schooling."
>The Middle Ground
>The middle ground, favored now by many business associations and policy
>analysts,
>holds that workforce conversion and educational improvement must occur
>simultaneously.
>Contrary to revisionist assertions, the level of skills needed in the
>workplace is rising
>slowly, the centrists say, but not explosively, as the orthodox position
>contends.
>Most centrists, including many who once adhered to the orthodoxy, say
>business has
>been too quick to blame education and has been disappointingly reluctant to
>admit its own
>shortcomings.
>"America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages," an influential 1990 report by
>the
>Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, found only 5 percent of
>U.S.
>companies had substantially reorganized their workplaces.
>"All of us are better at suggesting that someone else cut their grass rather
>than cutting our
>own," said William Brock, a former U.S. Secretary of Labor and co-chairman of
>the
>commission. "Business is now using the schools, saying 'We haven't changed
>because of
>the inadequate product coming from the schools,' when it could be just the
>opposite, that
>schools are just responding to demand."
>The conflicting positions have emerged because the data on which they are
>based have
>been taken at different points in time, according to Frank Levy, an economist
>in the
>University of Maryland's school of public affairs and a centrist in the
>debate.
>Henry Levin, a professor of economics at Stanford University's school of
>education, for
>example, said the Bishop-Carter study overstated projected workforce needs of
>the 1980's
>by starting at the bottom of a recession and ending at the top of a recovery.
>"Look what has happened in the last two years to recent college graduates,"
>Mr. Levin
>said. "There is tremendous restructuring going on, [with] banks, investment
>firms, and
>other companies cutting management, professions feeling they have to make
>real changes
>by cutting back, and that's not just a function of the recession."
>Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy,
>said he
>thinks the argument over the data "amounts to a silly debate."
>"What it boils down to is that the composition of the labor force at some
>point in the
>future depends on the decisions people make now," he added, "not on
>projections people
>make now."
>Impact on Education Policy
>Both sides of the debate are quick to point out the policy ramifications for
>education.
>Supporters of the orthodox position maintain that no facets of the education
>system are
>performing adequately. They want the skills of all students in the system to
>improve
>dramatically, and they would like to see a growing number of students pursue
>advanced
>degrees.
>The revisionists would focus attention on improving the performance of the
>poorest
>achieving student populations and leave it up to business to train the middle
>and upper
>tiers of the nation's graduates for their positions in the economic world.
>Mr. Bishop of Cornell, for example, focuses on the need for more
>college-educated
>workers, saying that K-12 policy should encourage a college track, and that
>higher-education policy should aim at providing more financial aid, keeping
>tuition low,
>and getting students through college quickly, with more Advanced Placement
>courses in
>high school and more summer school in college.
>Mr. Levin of Stanford, on the other hand, says such policies would have all
>the wrong
>effects. By focusing on higher education, Mr. Levin said, such policies would
>raise the
>ceiling of educational achievement rather than lift up the floor.
>The view of education propounded by the Bush Administration that nearly all
>schools
>have failed has diluted education-improvement efforts that should be targeted
>at where the
>real failures have occurred: among the peorest third of America's students,
>Mr. Levin
>added.
>"There is a portion of America that is undereducated," Mr. Levin said. "By
>any measure,
>they are not going to be prepared for work." But, he said, case studies of
>plants that have
>modernized prove that the middle third are perfectly capable of handling
>advanced
>production methods given the proper training.
>Even studies sympathetic to the orthodox position, such as a 1989 report by
>the
>Massachusetts Institute of Technology Commission on Industrial Productivity,
>have
>stated that specific workplace training, such as that done in Japan and
>Germany, is far
>more efficient and effective than school-based vocational education.
>And the top third, according to revisionists, are doing just fine in
>workplace performance.
>Reluctant Educators?
>Mr. Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute concurred, saying that schools
>should not
>stress the lofty goals of "being first in mathematics and science by the year
>2000" when
>the real workforce-skill requirements revolve more around basic numeracy,
>literacy, and the
>ability to work cooperatively.
>Many observers agree that educators will be reluctant to embrace revisionist
>ideas.
>While they have not enjoyed what many term the "education bashing' that has
>sometimes
>gone along with the orthodox position, educators have basked in the attention
>it has given
>their field. Although revisionists do not say education is unimportant,
>educators fear that
>implication.
>"Everyone has subscribed to the argument for investing in human capital
>[through the
>schools]," Ms. Pines of Johns Hopkins noted. 'and even if it isn't true, we
>don't want to
>surrender it."
>"We have to go on the assumption that the greatest resource we have in this
>country is
>our people," she added.