1 / 25

The Skills Commission

The Skills Commission. The 1990 report America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages! was focused on the observation that portable low wage jobs were leaving the U.S.The 1990 report recommended improvements in K-12 so U.S. workers could prosper in high skill jobs. The Challenge. In 2005 the loss of p

bibiana
Download Presentation

The Skills Commission

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

    2. The Skills Commission Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce is bipartisan First Commission in 1990 was Chaired by two former labor secretaries --- Bill Brock (Reagan) and Ray Marshall (Carter)

    3. The Skills Commission The 1990 report America’s Choice: High Skills or Low Wages! was focused on the observation that portable low wage jobs were leaving the U.S. The 1990 report recommended improvements in K-12 so U.S. workers could prosper in high skill jobs

    4. The Challenge In 2005 the loss of portable low skills jobs was almost complete but there was a new challenge In 1990 nobody had seriously considered the idea that low wage countries could produce high skill workers at scale But China, India, and others are doing just that, for example, engineers

    5. The Challenge Thomas Freidman has told us the world is flat --- not really but it is getting flatter all the time The result is that U.S. high, medium, and low skill workers are being underbid Entire U.S. standard of living is at risk if we do not take action

    6. Average Weekly Earnings from 1969 to 2005 (in 1982 dollars)

    7. The Challenge The answer to maintaining a competitive advantage is a U.S. educational system that produces highly skilled, creative, and innovative workers. The current K-12 system is not meeting these expectations

    8. International Attainment

    9. U.S. Education System: Small Gains at Ever-Higher Cost

    10. Portrait of a Failing System

    11. The Challenge The problems with the K-12 system require more than marginal change Our K-12 system was basically designed for an agrarian society around 1900 --- built around elapsed time rather than skills and knowledge attained THE PROBLEM IS THE SYSTEM!

    12. Summary The world is getting flatter Other countries are producing high skill, low wage workers at scale The U.S. educational system is not capable of addressing this challenge The result of inaction will be a long run decline in the U.S. standard of living Creation of the New Skills Commission

    13. Recommendations Building A New System for the 21st Century

    14. Step 1---Move On When Ready Let students move on when ready Take college level exam at age 16 Most students should be college ready by age 16 --- essentially eliminate the last two years of high school If students don’t pass continue to offer opportunities

    15. The New Progression Through the System

    16. Step 2---Resources Elimination of two years of high school will save about $50 billion per year Additional funds of $8 billion Total funds available $58 billion

    17. Step 3---Early Childhood Invest $19+ billion in high quality early childhood for All available data supports an expansion of early childhood education All 4 year olds Low income 3 year olds

    18. Step 4---Teacher Quality Add $19+ billion to teacher pay Surveys show additional pay will attract higher quality Recruit teachers from upper one-third of college classes Abolish pay based on seniority --- instead based on student performance

    19. Step 5---High Performance School Districts School districts write performance contracts with variety of organizations to run schools Schools look like the best of charter schools Schools funded by the states --- teachers employed by the states but hired by individual schools

    20. Step 6---School funding $19+ billion provided by states for hardest to educate students

    21. Step 7---Curriculum Improve quality and reduce the number of tests Curriculum based on mastery of ideas and concepts --- for example, understanding mathematics not memorizing it

    22. Step 8---Education to the New Standard All members of the workforce 16 years old and older have access to free education up to the new college ready standard

    23. Step 9---Lifelong Learning GI Bill Government creates an account for every child of $500 when born and deposits $100 per year up to age 16 Workers can withdraw from the account only for educational purposes

    24. Step 10---Regional Economic Development Authorities Federal government to authorize states to create regional authorities to combine economic development, adult education, and job training

    25. Tough Choices or Tough Times Executive summary available at www.skillscommission.org Full report available on Amazon.com for $13.57

More Related