The Low Skill - Low Wage Economic Target

A vigorous debate took place in the 90's in the USA, over whether the "skills mismatch" analysis was indeed correct in its statement that there was a need to scramble everybody up the high-tech skills hill in order to live in the bright sunshine of tomorrow. That is, students would to be better prepared for the work-world by a major change in educational policy and structure.

Essentially this involved adopting the European "streaming" system, setting "performance outcomes" for all levels, and dropping the Grade Twelve High school designation for a (Grade Ten) Certificate of Mastery and a portfolio based, life-long learning approach. Cal Crow's ERIC item on educational reform presents the case for changing the School System to prepare young people for a post-industrial world" (a technical term from the "post modern" school of thought).

Mark Tucker, Ira Magaziner, and Hillary Clinton were the main pushes in favor of the outlook, and their position focused in the America's Choice : High Skills or Low Wagesreport and similar reports see list.

David Howell, a spokesman for the other view sums up the issue well in his article The Skills Myth.

Essentially, what he says is that computer education etc. may well be in order, but the data does not support the theoretical basis used to justify the major shift in Education that took place in the 90's. He points out that the lower levels of job market has been flooded with workers from the next strata up, whose jobs have been cut.

He claims that no amount of scrambling is going to make a difference. The situation now is one of too many workers competing for low-paid jobs. What is needed now, for economic conditions to improve is for a stronger labor presence to be fostered, so that people can exact a fair return for the increase in productivity which has emerged through technology at the low end (e.g. checkout personnel in stores using automated checkouts).

Arthur Hu's Education Index piece on Who Is Mark Tucker? outlines the history of events along with supporting documents. It seems that the debate lined up pretty well on Party lines in he United States, and may seem remote from those of us in Manitoba. However, we might well consider that what happens in the States tends to come to us 10 years later.

Whatever one might think of the debate, two things are obvious:

  1. That economic development is very much related to educational reform, as the thrust for this reform movement came out of the National Center for Education and the Economy, and focused on improving the transition from High School to the work world.

  2. A "low-skill and low wage" interpretation of present educational dynamics will result in far more emphasis on labor reform than educational reform as a means of turbo boosting one's local economy.

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