Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

245

The "Effective" Eighties : c. 1988

II. THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING?

SKILL TRENDS IN EMPLOYMENT BY OCCUPATION INDUSTRY CASE STUDIES: CHANGES IN THE NATURE AND STRUCTURE OF WORK RECONCILING OCCUPATIONAL COUNTS AND INDUSTRY CASE STUDY RESULTS III. ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION: A PICTURE OF DISCONNECTIONS WHAT DO WE NEED TO TEACH? TO WHOM? WHEN? HOW? What Do Students Need to Learn? Who Should Learn? When Should They Learn? How Should These Skills Be Taught? Vocabulary and Accountability EMPLOYERS AND EDUCATORS: ARE THEY LOOKING THROUGH THE SAME GLASSES? THE SIGNALLING SYSTEM BETWEEN SCHOOLS AND LABOR MARKETS THE STRUCTURE OF INDUSTRIES AND THE RESTRUCTURING OF IV. ECONOMIC CHANGES THAT AFFECT POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION AND TRAINING COLLISION BETWEEN HUMAN CAPITAL DEMAND AND SUPPLY EMPLOYERS’ TRAINING INVESTMENT PATTERNS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES ARE EMPLOYER TRAINING INVESTMENT PATTERNS CHANGING? V. EDUCATION AND THE ECONOMY: WHAT IS THE FEDERAL ROLE? REFERENCES

AMERICAN COMPANIES: ANY LESSONS FOR RESTRUCTURING SCHOOLS? The Structure of Industries The Restructuring of American Companies

Excerpts from the body of the paper follow:

WHAT DO WE NEED TO TEACH? TO WHOM? WHEN? HOW?

As the educational implications of the restructuring American economy become clearer, the incomplete—sometimes perverse—nature of current education reforms emerges. Those reforms targeted at improving students’ academic skills are clearly appro priate—up to a point, academic and work-related curricula should be the same. However, documented changes in the nature and structure of work and advances in cognitive science argue for a second wave of reform that involves fundamental changes in what we teach, to whom we teach it, when we teach it, and how we teach it. In other contexts I have talked about this second wave of reform as “shadows in the wings” for the simple reason that—to shift metaphors—this airplane is not yet ready to fly. The issues raised here pose formidable research, development, and evaluation challenges in areas such as curriculum (and associ ated textbook or software materials), pedagogy, the preparation of teachers, concepts and measures of accountability, and school structure. What do industry studies imply about the core skills that students need to learn? Eco