Economist Alan S. Blinder, former Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman and perennial adviser to Democratic presidential candidates, is now saying that a new industrial revolution—communication technology that allows services to be delivered electronically—will put as many as 40 million American jobs at risk of being shipped out of the country in the next decade or two. This figure is more than double the total workers employed in manufacturing today.
Mr. Blinder says there's an urgent need to retool America's education system so it trains young people for jobs likely to remain in the US. Just telling them to go to college to compete in the global economy is insufficient. A college diploma, he warns, "may lose its exalted 'silver bullet' status”. It isn't how many years one spends in school that will matter, he says, it's choosing to learn the skills for jobs that cannot easily be delivered electronically from afar (Wessel & Davis, 2007).
Jobs at Risk?
Economist Blinder divides 817 occupations into four categories, depending on how high the risk they will be moved out of the country, or "off-shored.” Each category has a corresponding index, with the number of workers affected. The higher the index number, the more likely it is for the job to be off-shored. Figure 2 below is a chart which summarizes his estimates and breaks down major occupations (those categories with 300,000 or more people) within the rankings.
Figure 2. Jobs at Risk
(Alan Blinder, Bureau of Labor Statistics, as cited in Wessel & Davis, 2007, p. A1)
(Alan Blinder, Bureau of Labor Statistics, as cited in Wessel & Davis, 2007, p. A1)
Note: Excludes 499,860 computer support specialists, whose jobs span two classes, highly off-shoreable and off-shoreable, with scores of 92 and 68.
The Research Evidence
Bennis and O’Toole are not alone in their assessment of the education crisis. Lion F. Gardiner's Article, “Why We Must Change: The Research Evidence,” summarizes research findings and raises a number of important concerns regarding both how students learn as well as how ineffectively American education is at addressing their needs as learners.
As an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Rutgers University, Gardiner’s perspective is profound:
We find a substantial body of evidence that clearly demonstrates a crisis of educational quality in our nation's colleges and universities. […] This crisis should evoke a serious and determined response from the entire professorate. But rather, [...] we too often find complacency within our ranks. We seem to turn a blind eye to the quality of our educational processes and results. The busyness of daily routine and the seeming rightness of the familiar obscures the need to change. (Gardiner, 1998. p. 121 emphasis added)
Gardiner continues by explaining the consequences of such faculty complacency:
We urge our students to think critically and provide activities we believe will help them to learn how. Yet, 30 years of research shows us that most of our students hold epistemological assumptions that prevent them from understanding and, therefore, engaging in critical thinking. (1998, see p. 123)
Gardiner’s frustration regarding the lack of practical application in education was translated to numbers as he cited one national study. It seems that only 12% of educators polled “utilized feedback from their earlier students” and only 8% invite experts into their lectures. Gardiner’s conclusion was that faculty “seemed to teach as they had been taught” (p. 125), with very few exceptions.
The problem with such educational habits is that faculty claim to advocate “effective thinking”—indeed, many claimed it “was their primary educational purpose.” Yet, Gardiner’s investigation found that “70 to 90 percent of professors use the traditional lecture as their primary instructional strategy” (p. 126). He further discovered that rarely are essay tests used (as is cited below), and that the main focus of each course was simply fact or concept recall—not application.
Gardiner goes on to explain:
If students are not thinking during lectures, what are they doing? Their attention drifts after only 10 to 20 minutes. They are listening, asking or responding to questions, or taking notes only half of the time. Up to 15 percent of their time is spent fantasizing. […] how much course content do students retain? Studies sometimes find rare high values where students retain 50 percent of the content, but values of 20 percent or less are common. (p. 127, emphasis added)
While Gardiner’s insight may be common among academic professionals, it does not negate the fact that we need to find better ways for students to retain more relevant information. If better ways can not be found, and only 20 percent is possible, then that 20 percent had better count.
Gardiner continues to expound on the weaknesses of education:
Only 17 percent of 1,700 faculty respondents at a research university said they use essay tests. These same respondents claimed only 13 percent of their questions required problem-solving. [...] numerous studies demonstrate widespread cheating among students on classroom tests, possibly involving 40 to 90 percent of all students. [...] One-third of students [in a national study of 6,165 respondents] with A's and B+'s cheated, as did two-thirds of 6,000 students at “highly selective” colleges. (Gardiner, 1998, p. 129)
[…] For well over a decade we have been warned that if we do not put our academic house in order, others [...] will step in to do so. They have begun to do this. We must act quickly. (p. 121) (emphasis added)
Clearly, many experts believe education is not living up to its own standards.
