Coming US challenge: a less literate workforce

The Christian Science Monitor ^ | February 06, 2007 | Amanda Paulson

[A. Pole]

US workers may be significantly less literate in 2030 than they are today.

The reason: Most baby boomers will be retiring and a large wave of less-educated immigrants will be moving into the workforce. This downward shift in reading and math skills suggests a huge challenge for educators and policymakers in the future, according to a new report from the Educational Testing Service (ETS).

If they can't reverse the trend, then it could spell trouble for a large swath of the labor force, widen an already large skill gap, and shrink the middle class.

"There is no time that I can tell you in the last hundred years" where literacy and numeracy have declined, says Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston and one of the report's authors. "But if you don't change outcomes for a wide variety of groups, this is the future we face."

The decline in literacy is one of the more startling projections in a report that examines what it calls a "perfect storm" of converging factors and how those trends are likely to play out if left unchecked.

The three factors identified are: a shifting labor market increasingly rewarding education and skills, a changing demographic that include a rapid-growing Hispanic population, and a yawning achievement gap, particularly along racial and socioeconomic lines, when it comes to reading and math.

The individual trends have been identified before, but this study makes an effort to examine their combined effects, and to project a disturbing future, including a sharply declining middle class in addition to the lost ground in literacy.

[...]

[pax_et_bonum]

You can say that again.

:-)

[Clemenza]

POI: I live withing walking distance of ETS's headquarters. They have a HUGE gym and a pool, I believe. Its good to be a monopoly! ;-)

[Clemenza]

My grandmother and grandfather attended a Polish-language parochial school in Newark, NJ. Oddly enough, they turned out better than their cousins who went to the local "American" public school.

[Clemenza]

Yep. For the same reasons that the ag and supermarket industries LOVE the federal food stamp program.

[DustyMoment]

But . . . . . . but . . . . . but, the schools are doing such a fabulous job!!! They salvage the esteem of failing students by not letting them know they're failing and passing them off as future problems for society to deal with. And, the ones who can pass the courseware on their own, aren't being taught squat.

However, when the students who don't require social promotion are also failing in life, we have to remember the first rule - the schools are doing a fabulous job!!!




At least, that's what the NEA keeps telling us.

[traumer]

[353FMG]

Read it and weep:

http://www.scottmcleod.org/didyouknow.wmv

[Tarheel]

My grandmother's parents came from what is now Slovakia--my great grandfather learned English on the job. My great grandmother had little opportunity to learn, until she devised her 'plan'. Every afternoon when the kids came home from school, Grandmother Gula sat them at the table with a snack and told them --'teach me the English you learned today'. She learned a little bit of English each day. The three older kids taught her to speak, read and write English.

[The Duke]

I have an equal number of employees in the US and in Latin America - all young professionals. The ones in Latin America have a notably higher literacy in US English than do those who were produced by our school system here in the US.

Being the parent of three young men who have gone through the public school system here in Florida I can tell you the reason too. It's because teachers in the US are able to get away with hitting play on "The Little Mermaid" and calling it education.

BTW, the young people here in the US become as upset as anyone when they come to realize exactly how they've been cheated during their developmental years.

[brytlea]

If they can't reverse the trend, then it could spell trouble for a large swath of the labor force, widen an already large skill gap, and shrink the middle class.

I thought that was the plan....

susie

[353FMG]

"If this were true, then America should have perished during the great immigration; but the opposite happened."

Don't compare the quality of immigrants entering the country during the early 20th century with what is coming in today. The people of the great immigration wanted to become Americans and assimilated quickly. Many of today's immigrants hate this country and demand privileged treatment under the guise of diversity.

[GOP_Raider]

Generally, people who post here come across as above-average in education and intelligence, tend to spell words properly (without the spell checker), and use proper grammar, etc.

But when our beebers are stuned, the consequences are hugh and series. :)

[ladyjane]

Monopoly? No.

ACT

[bannie]

Y?
I kn c it.

[brytlea]

I have an equal number of employees in the US and in Latin America - all young professionals. The ones in Latin America have a notably higher literacy in US English than do those who were produced by our school system here in the US.

Unfortunately the majority of our current wave of *immigrants* are not young professionals, and from what I saw when I was teaching public school in TX their level of education when they come in is nothing to write home about.

susie

[Aliska]

the consequences are hugh and series. :)

Well, at least I haven't read much about cheese or showers lately. Hugh and series are buzzwords around here :-). Beebers and stuned, sorry you lost me there.

[Texas_Jarhead]

And the left sings, "more money, more teachers, more schools, more power".

[backbencher]

[It isn't just the "newcomers" who are dragging things down]

It's the culture of "someone else will do it". Unfortunately, many parent think that the school system will magically make kids smart. Parent let their kids watch TV in their rooms, play video games, text message, browser the Internet, and do anything but read or do homework.

It's not the fault of Mexicans, it's the do nothing parents.

[Ramius]

Among other issues, the approaching conflict between America and China will ultimately resolve which nation's language will be the primary global language of trade and commerce.

Even the Chinese don't have any illusions that the rest of the world is going to learn Chinese in order to trade with them more easily.

The primary "foreign" language being learned in China now is English.

[BenLurkin]

Not to mention a less literate electorate.