If we continue to get education wrong, a new report argues, America’s decline will follow. So, the report urges radical changes in U.S. education.
The report of the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce departs from other recent reports in a number of interesting ways, including advocating a national system of teachers, with higher pay. It urges abandoning requirements for four years of high school, moving instead to a more European model where students may leave after 10 years for junior college. It is titled Tough Choices or Tough Times, published by Jossey-Bass for $19.95.
An earlier commission in 1990 issued a report titled High Skills or Low Wages. The new report continues in that vein, warning that international competition and automation threaten all low skill jobs in the U.S.
This commission was assembled with funding from the Gates Foundation and other sources.
Some details are available in The New York Times. A longer, much different view in in the Chicago Tribune. From the Tribune’s summary of how testing would allow 10th graders to get out of high school early:
How the testing would work
PASS
In 10th grade, students would take a rigorous test.
With a passing grade, the student and parents would choose between two options:
OPTION 1: Stay in high school for junior and senior years to prepare for elite 4-year university or to enter state university with college credit.
OPTION 2: Enroll at community college with possibility of moving on to 4-year university.
FAIL
If the student fails, he or she would stay in high school to take remedial courses and retake test until he/she passes it.
The executive summary is available here in 28 pages. The report is the cover story for the December 18 edition of Time magazine. You’ll probably see it in your local newspaper today.
More to come, surely.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] One blog covers the Chicago Tribune’s summary of 10th grade testing options. Jonathan Tasini, a blogger for the Huffington Post, writes in response to the report that education won’t lead to jobs. Jim McNelis is a 2nd year school board member and weighs in here. And interestingly, the Denver Post reports that Colorado’s legislature will consider any state-specific possibilities derived from the panel’s report. Lastly, several bloggers have written that they are frustrated with the $19.95 charge to even view the report, in this day of enabling technological access. […]
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Have you read the report, Steven? That’s what it looked like to me, too — a call for large government involvement.
On the one hand, in the current political environment that seems to be totally off the wall. On the other hand, maybe it’s the right solution. I’ve noted before that the industrialized nations whose kids beat ours in the achievement tests, all have national curricula set by a national ministry of education, or something close. Maybe they know something we don’t know.
I’m also not quite sure what to make of the report. I can’t watch all the bases any more (it was a lot easier staffing the Senate Labor committee, where the news seeks you out). I was unaware of the comission’s existence, and I have not been following it at all. I can imagine a group of Texas legislators getting the commission’s report and either being stunned into silence because it’s so contrary to everything Texas is working on, or breaking out in a tomato and cabbage-throwing howl fest against it.
I hope you, and others, will comment in some detail.
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The best way to continue to get education wrong is to increase, rather than to decrease, government involvement.
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