A US Report prepared in 2007 by ETS (Educational Testing Service) called America’s Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation’s Future identified 3 powerful forces producing polarisation in American society.
They are
- divergent skill distributions
- changing economy
- demographic trends
The report’s executive summary makes interesting reading.
Here are some of the trends:
Wide disparity in literacy and numeracy skills
- USA ranks 16th out of 21 OECD countries with respect to high school graduation rates
- literacy and numeracy scores for 13 and 17 year olds have not changed in 20 years
- large numbers of the adult population, 16 years and over are illerate
- substantial differences exist among groups, realted to social, educational and economic opportunities
- the degree of inequality between best and least proficient is amongs the highest in OECD countries
Seismic changes in the economy
- driven by technological change and innovation
- employment in manufacturing dropping
- job growth is being generated by white collar work. This is resulting in increased life time earnings for educated males, with diplomas and degrees
Sweeping demographic changes
- In period 2005-2030 US population will grow from 300 million to 360 million, become increasingly older, with immigration having significant impact.
- Among the native born, the growth will mainly be in Hispanic share of the population.
- Approx 50% of the current Hispanic population are foreign-born, and have not completed high-school, and large numbers do not speak English
Predictions
- By 2030 average levels of literacy and numeracy will decrease by 5%
- as better educated individuals leave the workforce they will be replaced by those who have lower levels and education and skill
- newly arrived immigrants will take the jobs requiring better education
- or those jobs will go to workers in lower wage economies world wide
- It is likely that the USA will gradually lose ground in relation to other countries, becoming more divided socially and economically in the process
2 Comments
Yeah. That’s my problem. I’m illerate too.
But seriously. You have to worry about a statement like this; “newly arrived immigrants will take the jobs requiring better education”. It’s as if the locals were better educated, and that’s one problem for most countries’ ‘professional educators’. They can’t get past the idea that they just can’t ‘train’ people for jobs, because the industries in which they will work don’t exist yet.
If you look at where the (globally orientated) jobs are likely to be, its in MEDIA. If one doesn’t accept this, then they haven’t been looking at the fastest growing industry during the 1990’s = call centres, which pass as the (adult) education institutions of today.
Perhaps if, rather than putting up a meaningless term like “changing economy”, these report writers had spent some time putting this report on a Web site, and furnishing it with the kinds of interactive media tools which have been requested during the 2020 conference, the need for moderators might become perfectly obvious.
It would be a bit useless if they can’t spell though:)
Simon, the spelling errors are probably mine (I prefer to think of them as typos, or proof-reading oversights)
Although the report was an American one, I wondered whether it had implications for Australia
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