A More Certain Future:

A report issued by the Education Testing Service (ETS) in January predicted that in the United States over the next 25 years “nearly half of the projected job growth will be concentrated in occupations associated with higher education and skill levels.” In America’s Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation’s Future, ETS warns that current social and economic trends have the ultimate potential of further dividing our nation by wealth, education and, by extension, political power. The ETS administers standardized academic entrance exams such as the SAT (Scholastic Achievement Test) and GRE (Graduate Record Examination).

The report details what none of us want to hear, yet we all seem to know: America’s educational system is doing a poor job of preparing students to take over the technology dominated workforce of the future; unequal distribution of education and skills has created an economically, socially and politically marginalized underclass; the majority of immigrants fall into the above categories or, worse, are even further behind.

The report examines current levels of educational achievement that contribute to the widening gap between the upper and lower economic classes. Literacy and numeracy skills directly related to high school graduation rates have not wavered significantly over the past ten years. Any changes have been slight increases across the board, but this means that minorities have not closed in on an existing large gap between themselves and Whites.
Further, ETS reports that American adult levels of functional literacy do not meet the demands of “an increasingly competitive work environment” or prepare [adults] to fully participate in “our complex society, with its large bureaucratic institutions and its complex legal, health care and retirement systems.”

Adding to the crisis is the unequal distribution of advanced skills among racial, ethnic, and economic levels. For example, according to the report, the percentage of all Americans with advanced literacy skills is 13%. The advanced literacy level among Whites is 17%, among Asians, 9 percent, and among Blacks and Hispanics, 3 %. That distribution leaves a difference of 14% between the communities with the highest and lowest literacy skills.

Anticipating the types of jobs available in the future, the report states, “Put crudely, over the next 25 years or so as better educated individuals leave the workforce, they will be replaced by those who, on average, have lower levels of education and skill.”

As more and more of America’s job growth comes from areas requiring workers with a higher level of skills, American workers will find it difficult to vie for jobs that employers are willing to send overseas to better qualified and less expensive laborers. The out sourcing of technology jobs overseas is already occurring, even as Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, calls for less strict immigration laws allowing high tech workers to enter the United States in order to fulfill positions few Americans are qualified to take.

However, it is not only skills and training that is the concern of the future labor market. The report stresses “both education and skills contribute to individual opportunities.” According to ETS, those with college training in management, technical fields and high-level sales will generate “about 46% of all job growth between 2004 and 2014.” Employers will be drawn to workers who will build on those skills acquired in higher education and continue to learn. The benefit, ETS explains, is that for Americans who are responding to the higher education demands of a more demanding marketplace there is “increasing economic return to schooling and skills.” For example, males with a bachelor degree can expect to earn 96% more than those with only a high school diploma.

Finally, America’s Perfect Storm asserts that “sweeping demographic changes” will increase population growth but not contribute to a more educated workforce. A majority of foreign-born Hispanics, the report says, lack a high school diploma, and most without a high school diploma have little or no English language skills. The result is a further economically marginalized population unprepared to fulfill jobs requiring advanced skills.

The solution to these downward trends seems to be political. “If we maintain our present policies,” the report says, “it is very likely that we will continue grow apart with greater inequity in wages and wealth, and increasing social and political polarization.” However, if changes are made, the report suggests, “then we have and opportunity to reclaim the American dream in which each of us has fair chance at sharing in any future prosperity.