busyReport Says Education Gaps Create "Permanent Recession"
Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, The Christian Science Monitor: "Educational achievement gaps are typically measured in terms of test scores - across lines of race and income, or even across state and national borders. But what if they were measured in dollars?"
One way to improve matters would be to narrow or close the gaps in education. Another would be to put some serious effort into matching people's interests and abilities to suitable careers. Right now, we are wasting a tremendous amount of human potential; we should not be doing that.
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Thoughts
April 24 2009, 17:50:41 UTC 12 years ago
To some extent, yes. This is because a basic (2-year or 4-year, depending on field) college degree is now the equivalent of a high school diploma several decades ago. A college degree does not guarantee you a job, but it is a prerequisite for even applying to most non-menial jobs now, whether it is really needed or not; and many employers no longer allow for equivalent experience to count. They are more interested in the paper than in actual ability to do the job. (This is another factor in why the economy is tanking.)
>> Where is the skilled labor going to come from? <<
Much of the economy has crushed out the skilled labor layer, which I think is bad. Now the biggest employer is Wal-Mart and the majority of jobs are retail or service: not enough to support a household, and not work that suits a majority of the population.
But there are still some fields that teach by apprenticeship, and there are some enclaves of resourcefulness that will be there to pick the country off its ass if necessary. I'm very glad to live near a sizable Amish settlement.
>> and we have less money to go around, because so many of us are un- or underemployed. <<
Cash is only useful if there's enough of it for people to meet their needs. If there's too little, or it's too uneven, cash is outcompeted by earlier systems such as barter. People need to remember that cash isn't the only option: you always have your skills, and you often have goods. Barter, share, swap.
>>I wonder if there are many SF writers concerned about this scenario, or if it's too mundane -- plausible, and frightening.<<
Some are. I am, and I know a handful of others. I have scene sketches for a piece of Pagan SF along these lines, but there's not much market for such stories, alas.
You should see the appalling results of activists who aren't SF writers trying to extrapolate the future, though. It makes my fingers itch for a red pen.