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Tough Choices or Tough Times: The Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce

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This book by the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce is well written in clear terms with summaries and simple graphics. It is a must read for anyone interested in the future of the US economy. The Commission points out the risks of our poor pre-university education to the US economy. India and China are now competing with the US in the high skilled labor market (not just low skilled) and at lower wages. With the Internet, many jobs can be done anywhere, and companies will hire the best at the lowest cost (Indian engineers make $7500 annually with the same qualifications as US engineers who make $45,000).

The Commission describes how US universities continue to be the best in the world, but grade schools and high schools have fallen behind. In the 20th century the US pioneered universal education, and received an influx of talent, from scientists fleeing Germany before World War II to a more recent influx of Asian students, who stayed and worked here. But now, other countries have passed us in pre-university education and many foreign students are going back to their own countries after graduating.

"A Nation at Risk" came out in 1983, saying "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre education performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war." The Tough Choices Commission points out that since then we've had a more than doubling of spending on education (inflation adjusted) with only modest improvement. The Commission concludes that the main improvement, standards testing, turns out to be misguided because it is multiple choice, not essay, and thus doesn't teach the creative, out of the box thinking needed for the US to maintain its lead. Multiple choice tests are by definition "in the box" tests.

"A Nation at Risk" proposals in 1983 for merit pay for teachers were resisted, and teachers continue to come from the bottom 1/3 of University graduates. The Commission proposes merit pay for new teachers, with an opt-in choice for existing teachers, combined with higher salaries made possible by eliminating pensions and using 401Ks instead, like other professions. Other proposals include universal pre-school, school choice with funding following students, less bureaucracy and more independence for individual schools, adult education coordinated with the business community, and inter-city schools and supporting social services being coordinated under one person, such as the mayor. Finally, partial funding can be found by reducing the number of students in the last 2 years of high school by allowing board testing at the 10th grade, with those passing going to community college then a university, directly to trade school, or directly to work.

I have separately read that having funding follow the student to encourage competition among schools has been implemented successfully at the city level in San Francisco. The Commission shows that if pensions and vacation time are included, current teacher salaries are actually somewhat competitive. But talented young people prefer money now, and don't know that they would stay in teaching long enough to earn a pension. Thus, pension money could be moved to up front salary and portable 401Ks, with existing teachers having the option of opting in or staying with their pensions.

The proposal to coordinate social services with schooling to help the disadvantaged, such as by putting all under a mayor has been done in New York recently, with great success. By providing programs for kids until 5 PM, and help to their families, the disadvantages of a poor home situation can be addressed. The US economy is healthy because of the waves of immigration it has had over the past 15 years, and we can't afford not to train those immigrants so our business have a talented labor pool to draw on.

The board exams proposed at the end of the 10th grade will provide badly needed motivation to students, since they can get out of school earlier if they work harder, rather than marking time.

To cut bureaucracy, the commission proposed principals be given free reign on how to spend the money they get (which is based on the number of students). Also, school boards would not run schools, but would contract with others (such as private companies, groups of teachers, etc.). The school boards would then become performance contract managers.

Finally, the report proposes training of people in the workforce, since these people will be the largest part of our workforce for some time, and will need more advanced and creative skills.

While there are some debatable aspects of the TOUGH CHOICES OR TOUGH TIMES report, the call to elevate teaching to the professional level it deserves is certainly long overdue. One problem the report doesn't explicitly mention is that our education system right now is a two-tiered heirarchy in which educrats--the professional ruling class of policymakers, administrators, and midlevel bureaucrats who don't actually teach--wield far too much power and often earn staggering salaries, while teachers are treated like common day-laborers, underpaid and (often) undermined by the flaky, self-serving policies that educrats impose on them.

The report recommends raising teacher salaries to attract the best and brightest, i.e. those who would otherwise be doctors, lawyers, and other ambitious career professionals, by doing away with current teacher-retirement systems in favor of higher up-front cash rewards and 401(k) packages. Astonishingly, the NEA and other powerful teacher unions are opposed to this. But the fact is our schools are failing us, in part, because teachers are not treated like professionals. Yes, there are plenty of attractive benefits to teaching already, like summers off and seniority-based salary schedules. But the trade-off is that many teachers are willing to give up intellectual authority over their profession and allow themselves to be infantilized by condescending educrats. This is a Faustian bargain, and it's time to break it.

If the commission's compensation plan were implemented, more young and bright professionals would be drawn to the classroom, and they'd (hopefully) stay there rather than hopscotching up to an administrative desk job as soon as they could. They would be unafraid to challenge the bad policies of educrats, and they would serve their constituents (the students and their parents) in far more creative and effective ways, because real professionals do not allow themselves to be bullied. Teachers would finally have intellectual authority over their profession, the same way that doctors, lawyers, and other true professionals do. It may mean sacrificing some comfort and standing up to our own unions, but the long-term results would be well worth it. Independence, as we already know, sometimes comes at a high price.

The catastrophic decline in the quality of American public education has been diagnosed repeatedly since the 1950s in works such as James B. Conant's The American High School Today [The Conant Report] (1959), The Shopping Mall High School (1985), or E. D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy (1987). Now, a new report in this tradition offers up perhaps the most scathing indictment of our system yet. The report, issued on December 14, 2006, by the National Center on Education and the Economy's New Commission of the Skills of the American Workforce, is titled Tough Choices or Tough Times. The title suggests that if we do not make the difficult decisions that are required to resuscitate our schools, our future health as a nation is bleak.
The report is a thorough, strong, and incisive analysis of the extent to which American dominance in education worldwide has eroded along with our dominance in economics and market competitiveness. Moreover, despite some minor weaknesses in the report caused by its attempt to predict the global future and its occasional political caution, it should launch a national dialogue on our public education system.
[from my column in "The Sunday Paper" (Atlanta, GA)]
--Dr. Robert Zaslavsky, author of the recently published "The First Latin Course"

Citing Winston Churchill, who said America always did the right thing after it had exhausted all the alternatives, the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce calls for a complete overhaul of American education.

Unlike the Commission Report in 1990, which recommended that we improve our high technology skills and accept as inevitable the movement of low-skill jobs to global competitors, the current Commission draws our attention to the fact that we are losing high-skill jobs to global competitors as well. Such losses are projected to grow geometrically if we fail to act with an integrated whole system response.

The Commission recommends a major overhaul of American education to include how we define needs, develop curriculum, attract and retain world class teachers, focus scarce resources, assess stakeholders, and finance public education. All familiar words, I know, but the devil or angel, if you will, is in the details. Let's look at some of the most important.

Noting the poor scores made by U.S. students on international tests and the prospect that we will lose our leadership position in fields that require exemplary abilities in mathematical reasoning; scientific concepts; writing; creativity and innovation; self-discipline and organization; and teamwork, the Commission calls for regional economic development authorities. These authorities would be responsible for coordinating with existing institutions to develop goals and strategies that would serve as guides for local decisions and channel resources where initiatives contributed to the achievement of such goals and strategies.

The Commission calls for significant changes in school governance. School boards and districts would find their role focused on policy making, facilitation of educational networks, operation of support service centers, reporting, and writing performance contracts with those who operate the schools. Schools would be operated by independent contractors and would have complete discretion to determine spending, staffing, calendar, organization and management ---- all subject to the same safety, curriculum, and testing standards as other schools. States would recruit and train teachers; build standard curriculum and assessment agencies; investigate, review and approve networks; contract for special services; and develop statewide schools to serve gifted children.

Teachers would be employed and licensed by the state. Their compensation would shift from current practices, which are back-loaded to emphasize pensions and defined health care benefits, to one which is front-loaded to emphasize cash compensation. Under a front-loaded approach, pay for beginning teachers would be $45,000. Competent academic-year teachers could receive $95,000 and competent calendar-year teachers as high as $110,000. In addition, incentive pay would be paid to teachers willing to teach in remote areas, tough urban areas, and in fields with labor shortages like math, science, language, and special education. The objective of all these changes is to recruit, develop, and retain individuals who had graduated from the top third of their high school graduation classes.

To discover where much of the money is coming from to pay for these changes, you have to examine their recommendation in the area of assessment. Essentially, the Commission wants to shift American education from a system that is time-based to one that is based on merit, using Board Examinations to control progression. They would allow high school students to sit for the initial board examinations at the end of their sophomore year. If they score well enough, they will be allowed to begin a two-year technical training program or to enter a four-year degree program. Those who scored less well would remain to prepare for the second board examination which, when passed, would allow them to attend a state college or university. Neither progression would permit remediation at the next highest level. In short, no one would be allowed to progress unless they are ready and no one would be held back based on a scheme that honors time more than it does competence. The Commission expects this progression scheme to save $67 billion.

In addition to teacher compensation, the Commission would spend part of the savings on high-quality, universal early childhood education for three and four year olds. Supplemental funding would be made available to help schools with high concentrations of disadvantaged students, e.g. screening and diagnosis, tutoring; community involvement, etc. School financing would be a state, rather than a local matter. And the state would use a uniform funding formula that emphasizes equity over equality. New Federal money would be sought to fund interest-bearing Personal Competitiveness Accounts. These accounts would be funded by the Federal government with a $500 deposit at birth and annual contributions made to age 16. The fund would accept tax-free contributions from employers, states, and individuals. From these funds, individuals could draw to improve their education and skills as adults.

Reactions from the educational establishment have been mixed. Predictably, all favor high-quality universal education for three and four year olds and for injections of more money into the educational system. No one, however, wants to support recommendations that would require substantial changes for their membership. The National Education Association (NEA) doesn't want to support the shift in compensation because their current membership favors back-loaded systems. Neither the NEA nor the National School Boards Association wants to give up local funding and operation of schools. Finally, the National Association for College Admission Counseling cautions against using Board Examinations if they are built on the foundation of European models.

All stakeholders need to realize that the situation has deteriorated to such a point that anything less than a major transformation of American education risks being characterized as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. As the Commission emphasizes, this is not a set of recommendations to be cherry-picked. Instead, they require a thoughtful, soul searching reflection and authentic dialogue to meet the challenges that are quickly coming into view.

One of the best, if not the best book I have seen on the state of education in the USA. It should be a wake-up call to educators and parents, grandparents, and anyone who is interested in the continued growth of our country. Clear, concise, and well written by well respected people in the field of education and commerce. If you want to know the real reason the job market is in such a state, and where our schools are headed, read this. I do research on these issues and this is the best so far.

This report, the result of the second Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce in thirty years, represents "the canary in the mine." It is a warning to law makers, educators, students, parents and business people that we must overhaul the American educational system. Emphasis on creativity and innovation needs to be added to student learning and assessment as well as high levels of critical thinking. Instead of pushing toward analysis, teachers need to devise ways in which students can synthesize their learning; for example, thematically combining the content of a World Civ class with scientific breakthroughs. Creativity and innovation is the only way in which we can claim U.S. superiority in the fast approaching future. Countries like India and Japan are already ahead of us. We need to catch up quickly or lose our standing in the world marketplace.

As a father of two young children about to enter school, I picked up this book hoping to get some insight into the state of American education, trends and reforms in the making, the latest ideas for changes, and some insight into what is occurring in other countries. What I got was a long-winded, lofty proposal of reforms, many of which are politically impalatable to teachers' unions, and which fail to address many of the failures of the American education system. I will divide my review into two parts, a summary of the book, followed by a critique of what was left out.

The book begins with a short summary of its previous work that was undertaken and completed by the early 1990s. In short, that earlier work emphasized the susceptibility of routine jobs to be replaced by machines and of low-skill labor to be outsourced. This statement has been proven correct. The book then states that the current work is founded on the premise that even high-skilled labor can be outsourced because low-cost countries, like India and China, are producing high-skilled professionals in the fields of medicine, science, engineering, and IT services at an astounding rate. This premise has also been proven correct in the half-decade since the book's publication. The book then states that America's education system as a whole is not preparing enough Americans to compete for the highest-paying jobs with this globalized workforce. I agree with this statement.

The book then suggests several institutional changes to fix this failure. The first change is the establishment of standardized testing called Board Exams for college entrance. This testing would be available at the beginning of high school. Students would have multiple chances to pass these exams. Both of these concepts are practiced in the countries, and is universal in those whose school systems have surpassed America's. No Child Left Behind is correctly described as a step in this direction, though this book fails to mention that America already has three well-established versions of this Board Exam; the SAT exams, ACT exams, and AP classes and ensuing tests. The second change is the conversion of teacher compensation from a blue-collar union-style system with low wages and high retirement benefits into one closer to professionals, with high salaries based primarily on performance, and lower retirement benefits. This of course will be a tough sell at either the national or state level. Even Arizona, my home for 25 years, and an open-shop state, has schools taught by unionized teachers. Another major change is to make adult education more responsive to the needs of employers, specifically high-paying employers. This is a key point, and one that the book should have supported by citing the high rate of employee turnover and business failures in many industries. The book correctly states that English education for new immigrants is a key part of adult education. The last major change suggested by this book is for states to fund schools, either via teacher salaries or contracts with schools, instead of local districts. This is touted as a way to equalize funding between rich and poor districts, and presumably equalize performance. This is a laudable, and probably doable proposal. The book concludes by saying that the implementation of these changes will fix our nation's education system. The book also comments on several other topics, such as the mixed performance of charter schools, the need to not ignore the social sciences, fine arts, and humanities in standardized testing, etc....

The reforms suggested by the book are good and laudable and on the whole, beneficial. However, none of them address the key reasons for failures in the US education system, which I will now elucidate. For beginners, the primary key to success in children's education is parental involvement. This is true regardless of income level, race, religion, nationality, language, etc... And here is where America fails. First of, America has some of the longest working hours in the world, which by definition takes parents' time away from their families. Add this to the fact that most households in America that do contain children usually do not have multiple generations of adults to compensate for long work hours by the parents. Contrast this with the rest of the world where households often have grandparents, parents, and children within one house. Throw in the high divorce rates and high percentage of out-of-wedlock births in America, and one can see why so many children fail in American schools; there just is not enough adult attention being paid to children in many households. One fact ignored by this book is that the children of recent immigrants, when raised in nice suburbs with good schools, often do great and go on to win scholarships, go to graduate school and have great careers. Apparently the school system did not fail them. In fact, the range of success (or failure) within the student population of any given school is probably as wide as that seen between schools. The latter might be fixed by the proposals of this book. The former, however, is due to issues not mentioned in this book. Proposed fixes include a strengthening of the 40-hour work week, more holidays, raising the minimum vacation employers must provide their employees, more rigorous enforcement of child support decrees, etc...

Another key point missing from this book is the prevalence of cheating. As standardized testing has become all the rage in the US, more and more reports surface in the print, online and TV media about cheating, often enabled by or allowed by teachers and principals. This book does not mention anything about cheating, or how to reduce it. And if America were to go a Board exam system for college entrance, as proposed by this book, then cheating is only going to get worse. How to reduce cheating? Maybe the first step is to eliminate the use of textbooks in classes. Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the UK, and public schools in France, are notable in that many of their classes do not proscribe the same textbooks for all students. Instead, students choose reading material from lists handed out by their instructors. As the reading materials tend to come from the institution's libraries, each student often ends up with their own unique study material, which inherently eliminates the need for cheating. This in turn reveals poor-performing students quicker and earlier, thereby allowing instructors and parents to intervene.

A third key omission of this book is school schedules. The end of the book lists various institutions visited by the book's authors in research for this book. These spanned the globe from India to New Zealand, and covered both government and private organizations. Surely the authors should have noticed that in many countries, schools often have 2 schedules, one from early morning to noon, and one in the afternoon to early evening. Many people, me included, are not effective early in the morning, and prefer reading, working, studying and exercising later in the day. Why not accomodate this preference in American schools. Schools should offer both morning and afternoon classes and allow students to pick the schedules they prefer. I am sure many would pick classes later in the day. This by itself would increase attention in class as fewer students would be falling asleep. This would also reduce expenditures on school construction. Instead of having to build a school to house 1000 students simultaneously, a smaller building could be constructed, one to house 500 students at at time. Such practice is already common in many Asian countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, China, etc...

Maybe the last key ommission of this book is the need for competition among students. The book's authors correctly state that there needs to be competition between teachers and competition between schools. But what about competition between students? In just about every other country, and especially those with schools that outdo American schools, student test scores (good and bad) are published in public places for all to see and scrutinize. This generates competition among students, and hence focuses their efforts on their studies. This is almost unheard of in America, and as a result, failures are ignored and are not subject to the same amount of peer pressure as that seen in other countries. Other ways to increase competition include offering substantive rewards at the classroom level to the top performers. For example, a high school could reward 2 free tickets to any sporting event to the top student in each class at semester's end. This will encourage competition at the classroom level, which is key to getting more students interested and participating in school.

So in all, a letdown of a book. All of the book's contents have been presented before by other groups in multiple formats, and could have been presented in fewer pages. And the book omits many key issues. Overall, a waste of time to read this book.

This an excellent book that is thought provoking as our world and how we do business is becoming more global. I believe we need to re-think how we want to educate our children. Preparing them today so that they can survive tomorrow.

This is an interesting and important document from a group who have had considerable influence on education policy. My largest disagreement is the emphasis on external testing rather than classroom assessment. Good art and music teachers both teach and assess creativty. There is no external test for this ability; whose importance is emphasized in the report.

As far as I can tell, this is a very intersting book filled with very good, concrete, and implementable suggestions on how to revamp our public schools.

But those attempting to read this on the amazon kindle, don't. I only got partway through the first chapter before the chapter abruptly cut off (mid-sentence) only to begin (again) at the start of the same chapter. This edition is in need of some serious, serious editing.

Get the print edition. I certainly will.