Learning Our Lesson - Why School Is Out (The Futurist Mar-Apr 1986)

7/30/2019 Learning Our Lesson - Why School Is Out (The Futurist Mar-Apr 1986)

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THE FUTURIST,March-April1986 13

"The nation that is firstto adopt a high-technology, consumer-basedlearning system willenjoy a permanentcompetitive advantagein the global economyof the information age."

tion was more than offset bygreater earnings. Since the 1960s,real incomes of American workershave declined even as the averagelevel of schooling has grownenormously.Though the utility of much formal education is declining, theneeds for learning are increasinglyurgent. Learning is as strategicallycritical to a knowledge-based, postindustrial economy as steel was toa materials-based, industrial economy.Despite the frenzied political attention given to childhood education in the past three years, themost crucial unmet learning needsare those of adults. More thanthree-fourths ofAmerica's workersin 2001will be people who are already adults today. A fifth of thecurrent adult population is functionally illiterate and another fifthis only marginally literate. On theother hand, 15% ormore oftoday'sworkers are overeducated or overqualified in that their knowledgeand skills no longer fit the requirements of a changing economy. Themajority of workers at all levelsneed substantial retraining everyfive to eight years, regardless ofwhether they change careers orstay in existing jobs.The Looming Cost CrisisTotal spending for education andtraining in the United Statesmore than $300 billion a year-is

rivaled in size and growth only byhealth care. Just as in the healthcare system, the immensity of the

The Declining Value of EducationThe quality, value, and relevanceof most educational services havebeen declining for at least two dec

ades. Weno longer canassume thatmore education necessarily benefits either the individual or the nation.More education has not led tostronger basic skills. For instance,the U.S. Defense Department hashad to increase spending on training inbasic skillsbymore than 40%in the past five years, despite thefact that the current crop ofmilitaryrecruits is the most educated in history.Nor does more education guaran

tee economic improvement. In the1950s,the cost of additional educa-

trenched educational establishment obstructs its application.The transition that these trendswill force-away from a socializededucational bureaucracy and towarda competitive learning enterprisewilloccureventuallyworldwide. Butdelay willbe costly. The nation thatis first to adopt a high-technology,consumer-based learning systemwill enjoy a permanent competitiveadvantage in the global economyof the information age.

The age of schooling is over. Anew, post-industrial "learning enterprise" isabout to replace the outworn infrastructure of industrialage education. The technology wecall "school" will have as muchplace in the twenty-first century'slearning system as the horse andbuggy have in today's transportation system.The economic, social, and technological trends pushing criticalchoices about learning to the topof the public-policy agenda include: The quality, value, and relevance of IIlOSteducational servicesare declining, but the development

of a post-industrial economy meansthat the population has growing,unmet needs for learning. The costs of education andtraining have become the biggestsingle item of spendig in the U.S.economy and are rising severaltimes faster than personal income. The demand for governmentsubsidies to education is exploding, but the deficit crisis is goingto require fiscal austerity. Modern information technol

ogy can be used to increase theproductivity of learning, but an en-

The same technologies that are displacing workersin the post-industrial age could be used to improvethe efficiency of learning and adult retraining.

L RN INGOURLESSONWhy School Is Out

Lewis J. Perelman


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UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. UNIVERSITY COLLEGEAdult retrainingprogramattheUniversityofMaryland.Employersarenowspendingalmostas much in employee training andeducation-some $80 billion a year-as is spent for allof formal higher education.

The Learning TechnologyRevolutionOut of sheer necessity, the demand for cost-effective instructional technology is about toexplode. The same rapidly advancing computer and communicationtechnology that is creating much ofthe need for lifelong training andeducation is also providing thetechnological means to meet theselearning needs with vastly improved efficiency and effective

ness.A study at MIT showed that traditional classroom instruction wasthe only one of nearly 20communications media studied whose productivity actually declined duringthe past two decades-all othersgrew either steadily or explosively.A recent study by EducationTURNKEYSystems Inc. found thatthe average cost of classroom instruction in elementary and secondary schools is $1.25/student/hour;equivalent computer-based instruction costs $1.10/student/hour. Andthe cost gap is steadily wideningas schools grow more expensivewhile computer technology rapidlygets cheaper. Education delivered

pay half the costs ofpublic primaryand secondary schools. In the1950s,half the higher education inAmerica was provided by privatecolleges and universities; today,the great majority is provided bygovernment-subsidized public(chiefly state) institutions.Education expenditures now represent nearly one-third of stategovernment budgets on average,and in some states account formore than half the budget. Without

drastic changes in technologies andinstitutions, simply maintainingthe current mediocre level of education for a growing population ofchildren would require tax increases of 10-30%. Meeting theneglected learning needs of adultsthrough conventional schoolingwould impose a comparable increase.In the impending era offiscalausterity, increased taxing and spending for education will be virtuallyimpossible; reduced appropriationsare more likely. Under these circumstances, cost containment andproductivity are destined to become central concerns of publicpolicies on education and training.

14 THE FUTURIST,March-April 1986

education and training market hasJed to a crisis of productivity andcost containment.Per-pupil spending on publicelementary and secondary schoolsgrew by 22.5% during the past decade; at the same time, real incomeper capita increased only 6.5%. Experts estimate that the cost ofbringing teaching staffs and schoolsup to the standards called for bynumerous national commissionswould add $100 billion a year tothe $150billion now spent annuallyon schools.In the past 20years, collegecostsfor students grew 13-23% at various types of institutions. The costof a bachelor's degree at a top IvyLeague college is now about$100,OOO--andthe cost in the nextdecade easily could be double that.The investment by employers inemployee training and educationsome $80 billion a year-is nowcomparable in scope to al1offormalhigher education and is projectedto grow 25-30% by 1990. Expertsguess that a fifth or more of thisexpenditure is required simply tocompensate for the failures ofschooling.The Government CrunchThe federal deficit crisis will finally become tangible to the American public in fiscalyear 1987as theprovisions of the Gramm-RudmanHollings law begin to take effect.The impact of the fiscal crisis willaffect state and local governments,too, and will endure through theend of this century. One consequence will be to halt and then reverse the long-term growth of thegovernment role in providing,funding, and regulating educationin the United States.The main immediate effect offederal cutbacks will be on highereducation. Nearly half ofAmerica'scollege students now receive financial aid from federal programs.State governments will be the

focus of the impending revolutionin education policy. The states now

The u.s . Defense Department has had toincrease spending on training in basic skills bymore than 40% in the past five years, despite thefact that the current crop of military recruits isthe most educated in history."


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THE FUTURIST, March-April 1986 15

-Lewis J. Perelman

to heroic lengths to mask theirtrue status-they will live off aspouse's or relative's incomerather than accept "welfare";they will call themselves "selfemployed" or a "consultant"rather than "unemployed";many will cling to unproductivejobs with apparent social statusrather than shift to better-payingvocations of much lesser esteem.The disappointment and frustration of this group ofovereducated, overqualified, and underemployed workers will affectother strata of society besidestheir own. Their failure at upward mobility threatens faith inan "American dream" subscribed to by their parents, bytheir children, and by a host ofother working people with lessesteemed vocations and credentials.

TERRY GRAVES

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of the staff and middle-management jobs that used to soak upMBAs.One consequence of thischanging economic tide will bea political watershed. In the firsthalf of this decade, politicalcampaigners were infatuated with"Yuppies"-Young, Upwardlymobile Professionals. In the second half, politicians increasinglywill be besieged by a growing,angry mass of MADMUPsMiddle-Aged, Downwardly Mobile, Underemployed Professionals.MADMUPpolitics will be lessconcerned with simply thequantity ofjobs generated by theeconomy and ever more concerned with social status andquality of work. The MADMUPphenomenon will begrossly understated or entirely missed byconventional econometric statistics because MADMUPs will go

Thumb 'tWidQli'lq-M . . . .DMU P: s aerob;cellerc.js~

The next wave of unemployment and displacement of theU.S. work force will focus moreon older, middle-class, whitecollar and managerial/professional workers. Why? The agingbaby-boom generation, thelargest population group, is nowpast "entry-level" age. Also, theU.S. economy has shed so manyproduction jobs that future employment problems willincreasingly affectthe predominant services sector.Despite a higher level of education, most baby boomers already are worse off economically than their parents or eventheir counterparts of just 10years earlier. Median income inconstant dollars of men 25-34years old declined 2 6 'Y o between1973 and 1983. Average familyincome in this age group fell14%, despite the increasednumber of two-career couples.The typical cost of home ownership for a couple in their early30s has gone from about 20% ofgross pay a decade ago toaround 45% today.The most educated babyboomers are becoming the mostdisillusioned by the growinggap between the rising cost ofadvanced education and its declining economic payoff. Only53% of today's physicians in private practice are working at fullcapacity, and a surplus of100,000 physicians is projectedin the 1990s.Many lawyers are now underemployed or unemployed; yetthe number of law schoolgraduates may double within adecade. Technology is expectedto make most dentistry obsoleteby the turn of the century.American corporations aresteadily cutting out thousands

Displaced, /Iovereducated" workers may bepolitical time bomb

MADMUPPolitics


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AbouttheAuthorLewis J . Perelman is presidentof StrategiCPerformanceServices, P.O. Box5500,McLean,Virginia22103. HeisauthorofTheLearningEnterprise:Adult Learning,HumanCapital, andEconomicDevelopment (Council of State PlanningAgencies, ~984).An audiocassette of his speech on theLearningEnterprise,presentedattheWorldFuture Society's 1985conference on theGlobal Economy,is availablefor$18.50fromthe FuturistBookstore ($16for Societymembers). Postpaid.

Policy ImpactThe technology exists to greatlyincrease the productivity of thelearning process. But institutionsare technologies, too, and funda

mental technological innovationsinevitably require social and political transformation that establishedinstitutions instinctively resist.Where learning consumers areaccountable for costs and wherecompetition offers choice, the application of innovative systems toimprove the cost-effectiveness oflearning can be readily observed:in the military, in corporations, inproprietary schools, etc. Wheregovernment shields academic institutions from competition and dilutes or prevents consumer accountability for costs-notably inelementary and secondary schoolsand also to a growing extent in formal highereducation-educationa!productivity is poor and declining.America's hopes for futureeconomic and political leadershipwill depend on when public policycatches up with economic reality:In the information age, learning isin, school is out.

ture, a pretty conservative business, has managed to increase itsproductivity by an order of magnitude in the past hundred years,while schools have been technologically stuck or going backwards.

16 THEFUTURIST,March-April 1986

Source: Denford Machine Tools Ltd..Birds Boyd,Brighouse, West Yorkshire,HD6 lNB, England.

veyor, and software. In thephoto, an instructor shows howto program one of the robots.According to author LewisPerelman, the technologies thatare displacing many workerscan also be used to improvetraining programs, so that displaced workers can quickly learnnew skills.

A computerized training system designed in Britain helpsteach workers how to run an automated machine shop. Companies can thus avoid using expensive production equipmentfor instruction.The Denford FlexibleMachining System (FMS),said to be thefirst package designed exclusively for training purposes, includes two small industrialrobots, a computer-controlledlathe, a milling machine, a con-

BRITISH INFORMATION SERVICESomputer Tutor

successfully to industrial and military training. The new compactdisc data-storage systems promiseto vastly expand the market forcomputer-based instructional technology. One disk holds as muchinformation as 20 encyclopedias ora full set of textbooks required forfour years of college.Had the productivity of education increased during the last 40years as rapidly as the productivityof computation, a bachelor's degree from Harvard could be attained in 10 minutes at a cost ofabout 1 O _ . Perhaps the comparisonis too extreme, but even agricul-

via telecommunications can beeven more efficient. For instance,Sesame Street (one of the most expensive but also most successfuleducational T V programs) costs J _ /viewer/hour.Computers also can help cutcosts and improve effectiveness ineducation and training by beingapplied to the management of instruction. Much of the cost overhead in schools is bureaucraticpaperwork that can be vastly reduced by automation.The combination of computersand optical-storage dcviccs=-videodiscs-has already been applied

Had the productivity of education increasedduring the last 40 years as rapidly as theproductivity of computation, a bachelor's degreefrom Harvard could be attained in 10 minutes ata cost of about 10."

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Learning Our Lesson - Why School Is Out (The Futurist Mar-Apr 1986)