Educate workers to compete in the global economy

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ON THE AGENDA

The High Stakes of Stakeholder Engagement: A Plea for Careful Planning from Public Agenda

Alison Kadlec
Feb 1, 2012

This post was written for the 20 community colleges participating in Completion by Design, a five-year Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation initiative that aims to significantly increase completion rates for low-income students under 26. As a “National Assistance partner” for Completion by Design, Public Agenda provides direct assistance to the colleges to help them build capacity for solutions-oriented dialogue among faculty, staff and administration. Here, Public Agenda's Alison Kadlec discusses best practices for authentic internal stakeholder engagement. While the post is geared toward Completion by Design planning teams, the principles are useful for any authentic engagement process.

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You Can't Do It Alone: A New Guide to Creating Sustainable Change in Education Reform

Allison Rizzolo
Jan 24, 2012

Far too often, throughout our work in the education field, we've seen even the most earnest and promising ideas from experts and reformers for improving schools and ramping up student learning met with confusion, anxiety or even anger from teachers, parents, students or community members.

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Educate workers to compete in the global economy

PERSPECTIVE IN BRIEF

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We cant stop the global economy from changing, nor should we globalization brings a lot of benefits. But we should better prepare workers to adapt to it. We need to educate workers so they can constantly be learning new skills, constantly coming up with new ideas. Any job might be lost because of technological changes, foreign competition, or a recession. Thats why so few Americans keep one career for a lifetime any more. But too many people dont have the chance to keep up. Millions of children from low-income families attend second-rate schools. And the soaring cost of higher education has kept adults from changing careers. Whats needed is an expanded effort to improve Americas schools and to provide opportunities for older workers to reinvent themselves.

PERSPECTIVE IN DETAIL

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What Should be Done?

Increase funding for public schools so all children acquire the skills they need to succeed.

Spend more money on college grants and loans, particularly for older students returning to college and for community colleges.Provide tax incentives to encourage companies to underwrite tuition for their employees.

Expand training and apprenticeship programs to propel more high schools graduates into skilled jobs.

Expand small-business loan programs, so that more people can strike out on their own and innovate rather than working for someone else.

Arguments For This Approach

The secret to American economic success has been innovation.We need to educate workers to help them come up with new ideas, and encourage them to start their own businesses to exploit them.

Because of the soaring cost of higher education, too many low income Americans cant go to college and are shut out of good careers.

As a nation, we waste a lot of talent by failing to train a large part of the workforce to its potential.

Skilled work always pays more than unskilled labor. And better-educated workers will have more options if their job disappears through no fault of their own.

Arguments Against This Approach

No matter how smart Americanw orkers are, there will probably be someone just as smart in another country who'll work for half the salary. We need to stem the loss of jobs overseas.

This choice accepts that corporations can do as they please and cut jobs. We need to make companies recognize the social costs of their decisions.

This allows real jobs to move overseas now while taking it on faith that new, better jobs will replace them here.

This does nothing for the people who do the necessary but unpleasant service jobs in our economy.We need to make sure that honest work pays a living wage.