A big mismatch exists today between how U.S. CEOs look at
the world and how many American politicians and parents look at the world – and
it may be preventing us from taking our education challenge as seriously as we
must.
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN; THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: Aug. 12, 2012 at 12:05 a.m. PDT
A big mismatch exists today between how U.S. CEOs look at
the world and how many American politicians and parents look at the world – and
it may be preventing us from taking our education challenge as seriously as we
must.
For many politicians, “outsourcing” is a four-letter word
because it involves jobs leaving “here” and going “there.” But for many CEOs,
outsourcing is over. In today’s seamlessly connected world, there is no “out”
and no “in” anymore. There is only the “good,” “better” and “best” places to
get work done, and if they don’t tap into the best, most cost-efficient venue
wherever that is, their competition will.
For politicians, it’s all about “made in America,” but, for
CEOs, it is increasingly about “made in the world” – a world where more and
more products are now imagined everywhere, designed everywhere, manufactured
everywhere in global supply chains and sold everywhere. American politicians
are still citizens of our states and cities, while CEOs are increasingly
citizens of the world, with mixed loyalties. For politicians, all their
customers are here; for CEOs, 90 percent of their new customers are abroad. The
credo of the politician today is: “Why are you not hiring more people here?”
The credo of the CEO today is: “You only hire someone – anywhere – if you
absolutely have to,” if a smarter machine, robot or computer program is not
available.
Yes, this is a simplification, but the trend is accurate.
The trend is that for more and more jobs, average is over. Thanks to
globalization and the information technology revolution, every boss now has
cheaper, easier access to more above-average software, automation, robotics,
cheap labor and cheap genius than ever before. So just doing a job in an
average way will not return an average lifestyle any longer.
Globalization and the Internet/telecom/computing revolution
together challenge every town, worker and job. There is no good job today that
does not require more and better education to get it, hold it or advance in it.
Which is why it is disturbing when more studies show that
American K-12 schools continue to lag behind other major industrialized
countries on the international education tests. Like politicians, too many
parents think if their kid’s school is doing better than the one next door,
they’re fine.
Well, a dose of reality is on the way thanks to Andreas
Schleicher and his team at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, which coordinates the Program for International Student Assessment
(PISA). Every three years, the OECD has been giving the PISA test to a sample
of 15-year-olds, now in 70 countries, to evaluate reading, math and science
skills. The U.S. does not stand out. It’s just average, but many parents are
sure their kid is above average.
With help from several foundations in the U.S., Schleicher
has just finished a pilot study of 100 American schools to enable principals,
teachers and parents to see not just how America stacks up against China, but
how their own school stacks up against similar schools in the best-educated
countries, like Finland and Singapore.
“The entry ticket to the middle class today is a
postsecondary education of some kind,” but too many kids are not coming out of
K-12 prepared for that, and too many parents don’t get it, says Jon Schnur, the
chairman of America Achieves, which is partnering with the OECD on this project
as part of an effort to help every American understand the connection between
educational attainment at their school – for all age groups – and what will be
required to perform the jobs of the future.
Schleicher’s team is assessing all their test results – and
socioeconomic profiles of each school – to make sure they have a proper data
set for making global comparisons. They hope to have the comparison platform
available early next year.
Says Schleicher: “If parents do not know, they will not
demand, as consumers, a high quality of educational service. They will just say
the school my kids are going to is as good as the school I went to.” If this comparison
platform can be built at this micro scale, he says, it could “lead to
empowerment at the really decisive level” of parents, principals and teachers
demanding something better.
“This is not about threatening schools,” he adds. It is
about giving each of them “the levers to effect change” and a window into the
pace of change that is possible when every stakeholder in a school has the data
and can say: Look at those who have made dramatic improvements around the
world. Why can’t we?
Thomas Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times
columnist.
Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/08/12/2252728/average-education-wont-cut-it.html#storylink=cpy
