Strong American Schools's Open Salon Blog

Education is Key to New York’s Economic Competitiveness

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:09:14 -0400

In today’s high-tech global economy, New York students will not just compete for jobs with their neighbors—they will compete with students across the world. America’s outdated schools threaten our economic future. If the next President truly wants to boost New York’s economy, he or she must focus on reforming our schools.

Americans are facing more competition for jobs than ever before.

Geography matters less. Americans used to have an advantage—skilled jobs had to be done in the United States. However, with the massive investment in fiber-optic telecommunications cables across the globe, work can now easily be digitized (like music) and shipped anywhere in the world.
“The world is flat.” Now, the best opportunities go to the best educated, no matter where they live. According to the National Center on Education and the Economy, “American workers at every skill level are in direct competition with workers in every corner of the globe.”
America is losing ground. As recently as 1998, the U.S. ranked first in percentage of 25-34 year olds with at least a bachelor’s degree, but by 2005 it had dropped to 7th. Between 2000 and 2005, out of 23 countries, the U.S. was the only country that showed no increase in its postsecondary graduation rate. And while America once had the best high school graduation rate in the world, it has now slipped to 20th out of 26 countries.

America is not preparing today’s students to be skilled workers for tomorrow’ s economy.

Our standards are too low. By the end of 8th grade, what passes for the U.S. math curriculum is two years behind the math being studied by 8th graders in other countries.
Our skills are too low. American 15-year-olds are significantly below average in math and science. Out of 30 countries participating in a 2006 assessment, America’s 15-year-olds ranked 25th in math and 21st in science. Specifically, less than one-third of 8th graders are proficient in math and science in New York.
New York’s students are not prepared. Two-thirds of new jobs being created in today’s economy require higher education or advanced training, but one-third of New York students who enroll in 4- year colleges after high school do not manage to earn a bachelor’s degree within six years.

Improving our educational performance will pay huge economic dividends to Americans.

If America could increase the cognitive skills of its students to the level of the highest performing nations over the next decade, our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would grow by an additional 4.5 percent over 25 years—an amount that is equal to what the U.S. currently spends on K-12 public education.

Increasing our economic competitiveness requires strengthening K-12 schools.

Higher Standards: In a recent report, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) pegged America’s low education standards as one of the biggest threats to the U.S. economy. “A country’s ability to compete in an ever more integrated world economy depends on a highly educated workforce. However, with many countries making more progress in this respect, the United States has lost its leading position.”
Effective Teachers: The British education expert Michael Barber recently told the New York Times that top-performing education systems around the world “all select their teachers from the top third of their college graduates, whereas the U.S. selects its teachers from the bottom third of graduates. This is one of the big challenges for the U.S. education system: What are you going to do over the next 15 to 20 years to recruit ever better people into teaching?” The likelihood that a highly talented female in the top ten percent of high school graduates will go into teaching declined by nearly half from 1964 to 2000.
Time and Support for Learning: According to the Center for American Progress, “Many of the countries that outperform the United States on international comparisons of student performance keep their students in school longer […] There is little doubt that the extra time students in other countries devote to education contributes to the differences in academic achievement." On average, students in nations participating in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) spent 193 days annually in school, compared with only 180 in the U.S. Over 12 years, this deficit translates into a gap of nearly one full school year.

Strong American Schools, a project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, is a nonpartisan campaign supported by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation promoting sound education policies for all Americans. SAS does not support or oppose any candidate for public office and does not take positions on legislation.

Education: The Engine for Jobs

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:08:48 -0400

A long term strategy for job creation must include a plan to strengthen K-12 education. Economists have long recognized the positive relationship between an investment in education and a strong economy. An educated citizenry leads to increased productivity, economic growth,
and good jobs.

Globalization Strikes Michigan
• A High Stakes Car Race. The United Auto Workers’ strike focused attention on the decline in sales of American-made automobiles in the Unites States. Since 1996, both General Motors’ (GM) and Ford’s market share of U.S. sales have fallen about 10 percent. These decreases have been accompanied by a double in market share by Toyota and Honda (non-American car manufacturers).

• Low Skills. The Japanese are surpassing Americans in auto sales and in education. Toyota has just recently passed GM as the number one car maker in the world, while Japanese 15-year-olds outperformed their American counterparts in math and science in a 2003 assessment.

• Graduation Struggle. As other industrialized countries increase their numbers of college-educated workers, America is falling behind. As recently as 1998, the U.S. ranked first in percentage of 25-34 year olds with a bachelor’s degree, but by 2004 it had dropped to 5th. According to one analysis, “If recent trends continue, the United States will rank 9th by
2007, 13th by 2009, and 18th by 2019. In another 12 years most of the world’s industrialized democracies will have surpassed the United States in bachelor’s degree attainment.“

• Changing Economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that through 2014 over half of all new jobs will require at least some college. Of the 30 fastest growing jobs through 2014, four out of five will require some postsecondary education or training. 6 By 2020, the nation may face a shortage of more than 14 million workers with these skills.

Education Pays Huge Economic Dividends
• Personal Income. Simply put, the longer you stay in school and the more you learn, the more money you will make as an adult. Individuals with less than a high school diploma earn an average income of $17,299; whereas individuals with a bachelor’s degree earn an average income that is more than three times as high ($52,671). Higher scores on standardized achievement tests also contribute to higher earnings:
• Several recent studies suggest that boosting student achievement scores by a standard deviation increases future earnings by 12 percent.

• One recent study found that students who made substantial test score gains in mathematics during high school had higher earnings than their peers seven years later. “The high correlation between test scores and socioeconomic status suggests that one way to improve the skills and productivity of those at the bottomof the socioeconomic ladder is to improve their test scores.”

• Greater Output. If America could raise t he skills of it s student s t o t he middle of the pack of European nations over the next decade, our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would grow by an additional five percent over 30 years. That would mean an extra $1.5 trillion in 2037 alone—more than triple what we currently spend on K-12 public education. Over a 50-year period, this increase in skills would yield incomes that are an additional 64 percent higher.

• Greater Productivity. Increasing the education level of workers by one year increases national economic growth by five to 15 percent and increases productivity by 8.5 percent in manufacturing and 12.7 percent in non-manufacturing industries.

• Greater Savings. If one third of all Americans without a high school education were to get more education, the savings would range from $3.8 billion to $6.7 billion in family assistance, $3.7 billion in Food Stamps, and $400 million in housing assistance.

Improving Education Leads to Savings for Taxpayers
• Cost of Drop Outs. The poverty rate for families headed by dropouts is more than twice that of families headed by high school graduates. Each cohort of dropout s costs the U.S. $192 billion in lost income and taxes. Adding just one additional year of schooling for those students would recoup nearly half those losses.

• Cost of Remediation. Just at the community college level, families spend $283 million annually to pay for remedial courses every year, and taxpayers foot an additional $978 million. Counting lost productivity because students who take remedial courses are much less likely to earn a degree, poor preparation costs $2.3 billion annually.

Greenspan and Bernanke Agree
• In a September 24, 2007 speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve spoke about the economic necessity of investing in education:
“ Education fundamentally supports advances in productivity, upon which our ability to generate continuing improvement in our standard of living depends. If we are to successfully navigate such challenges as the retirement of he baby-boom generation, advancing technology, and increasing globalization, we must work diligently to maintain the quality of our educational system where it is strong and strive to improve it where it is not.”

• In his new book, The Age of Turbulence, Alan Greenspan writes about the economic consequences of a weak education system:
“ A dysfunctional U. S. elementary and secondary education system has failed to prepare our students sufficiently rapidly to prevent a shortage of skilled workers and a surfeit of lesser-skilled ones, expanding the pay gap between the two groups. Unless America’s education system can raise skill levels as quickly as technology requires, skilled workers will continue to earn greater wage increases, leading to ever more disturbing extremes of income concentration.”