A Call to Action for Our Schools

Ending high school at 16, paying teachers according to merit, turning schools over to independent contractors — a new report on U.S. education envisions radical change
By CLAUDIA WALLIS


Posted Friday, Dec. 15, 2006
If Americans want to maintain their customary high standard of living in today's global economy, we've got to rethink almost every aspect of our education system, including when kids finish high school and who runs our schools.

That was the conclusion of a blistering report from a blue-ribbon panel called the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce, released Thursday in an all-day event in Washington, D.C. The commission of heavyweights included four former cabinet secretaries, the president of the American Manufacturers Association, the chancellor of the California State University system, executives from Viacom Inc. and Lucent Technologies, and other government and education leaders.

Its call-to-action report, entitled Tough Choices or Tough Times, cites studies showing that the U.S. share of the world's college-educated workers has shrunk from 30% to 15% in recent decades and that, even after all the outsourcing of the past decade, some 20% of U.S. jobs remain vulnerable to automation or offshoring to educated workers overseas.more