Louis J.

Prosperi
BGS 390
Research Project
November 12, 1997

The American Education System vs.

The Modern Workplace?

Does the current educational system in the United States adequately

prepare students to enter and thrive in the modern workplace? A look at the
disparity between the educational system in the United States and the needs of the
modern workplace.
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 2

The world of the 1990s is not the same as the world of the 1950s, 60s, 70s, or even the

1980s. Our modern world is one in which change occurs more rapidly than ever before, and the

modern workplace is a place of constant change and new ideas, new technology, and new tools.

Given this reality, two of the keys to success in this modern world are the ability to adapt to

change and the ability to learn new things quickly.

It is my belief that the current public educational system in the United States fails to

prepare students for this new world and the modern workplace in two ways. First, despite the

constant change in the world of the 1990s, the school system in this nation is one which has

resisted and fought change since it was designed more than 100 years ago, and is a product of a

time that has passed. Second, the educational system fails to empower students to be able to

learn new things. Rather than teaching students how to adapt to change and to learn new things,

our schools’ employ outdated methods of instruction and assessment that produce questionable

results, and a workforce whose education is of questionable use and value in the modern

workplace.

The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the ways in which our current

educational system fails to prepare students for the workplace of the late 1990s, by illustrating

that the level of preparation our educational system provide students does not adequately meet

the needs of the modern workplace, specifically the types of skills and education required to

thrive in that environment.

To examine the disparity between the needs put upon workers in the modern workplace

and the level of preparation offered in the educational system, I shall first outline some of the

characteristics of the modern workplace, with a focus on the ways in which it has changed, and

the demands of those changes on workers, both present and future.

Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 3

Following this description of the modern workplace and its needs, I next provide an

overview of the public educational system in the United States, including a discussion of its

outdated design and its resistance to change, a look at how methods of teaching fail to instruct

students in that which they need to know, how methods of assessing learning fail in their mission

of judging true understanding, and a look at the results of our educational system and the price of

those results.

Using these two discussions as a basis, I conclude with a brief look at some suggested

changes to our educational system, and how those changes might help meet the demands of the

modern workplace.

A Note on the Scope of this Paper

Due to limits on page count and research time, I have chosen to use a rather broad

approach in examining both the educational system and the modern workplace. In specific,

where I refer to the public educational system, I refer to the overall educational system in public

schools in the United States, and am not focusing on any particular subsection of the public

educational system. Similarly, where I refer to the modern workplace, I refer to trends occurring

throughout much of working America. Certainly there are exceptions to the situations and

conditions I describe in this paper, but my goal is to provide a broad-based view of the disparity

between our educational system and the needs facing workers in the late 1990s.

THE MODERN WORKPLACE

The workplace of the late 1990s, what I refer to as the modern workplace, is very

different than that of past generations. The workplace has undergone a massive paradigm shift.
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 4

In metaphorical terms, for many people trying to hold on to their old jobs, and those trying to

enter the workplace, it’s as if they are trying to play old vinyl records on a digital compact disk

player. It just won’t work. The rules of the game in the modern workplace have changed, leaving

many people stranded, without a clue as to where their jobs, industries, and livelihoods have

gone.

In his book God Wants You To Be Rich, author Paul Pilzer describes the workplace of

past generations in this way: “It seemed so simple in the past. The recipe for success was to go to

school, choose an occupation or a company, and work in that field or for that company for the

rest of your life.”1 This is not the case today. The ‘unwritten contract’ that once existed between

corporations and workers is a thing of the past, as companies find that they can no longer afford

to take care of the employees who helped build their corporations.2 What’s more, many of the

past generations’ corporations and industries themselves no longer even exist. As Pilzer explains,

“Looking back on just the last 10 years, it seems as if this former recipe for success has become

a recipe for disaster.” 3

So, what has transformed this former recipe for success into one for disaster? The

answers lies in the changes that have occurred in the modern workplace in the last ten to twenty

years, and the challenges those changes have created for both existing workers and for those just

entering the workforce.

CHARACTERISTICS AND CHALLENGES OF THE MODERN WORKPLACE

The modern workplace is best characterized not by any sort of lasting or consistent

conditions, but rather by the term change; specifically the number and types of changes that have

occurred in our society in recent years. As Paul Pilzer describes it, changes in business and the
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 5

speed at which they occur have become such a critical factor that in the 1980s “dealing with the

changes in business, rather than with the business itself, became the key to success for the

individual and the organization.”4. Most of these changes have their source in technological

changes; that is new, more effective and efficient methods of producing a given result, whether

these changes be machines which allow dozens of workers to do what used to require hundreds,

or simply new ways for us to process and share information. These technological changes and

the rate at which they occur have led to changes in the types of industries that survive and

develop, which have in turn led to a significant change in how people pursue their careers.

The Increased Rate of Changes in Industries

One of the most significant factors of technological change, and why it is so crucial in

understanding the changes in the modern workplace, is the increase in the rate of change in

technology. As author Paul Pilzer writes in his book Unlimited Wealth, “For most of recorded

history, the general level of technology was fairly low. Technology thus advanced slowly,

puttering along in barely perceptible fits and starts….”5 In recent years, the rate at which

technology changes has increased dramatically, causing waves of change that have destroyed

old, outdated industries, and have left new, innovative ones in their place. Contrasting the rate of

technological change in the past with that of the present, Pilzer writes:

“Today, technology is advancing so rapidly that people cannot afford to allow

their plans to be limited by what is currently possible. Those who do will not

remain in business very long. The key to survival… is to keep looking down the
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 6

road, to anticipate what is likely to come next week, next month, next year - to

base your plans on what you think will be, not what already is.”6

Changes in Industries

Two examples of industries destroyed by this technological wave of change are the

mechanical carburetor and vinyl records industries. In 1980, each of these industries employed

hundreds of thousands of workers, and accounted for billions of dollars of business. However, by

1985, just five year later, both were virtually gone, replaced by new, innovative technologies,

namely electronic fuel injectors and digital compact disk players.7 Pilzer describes the

disappearance of the vinyl record industry in these words: “In 1980… virtually every American

had at least one record player and a vinyl record collection. No one would have believed that all

those jobs would be virtually overnight as consumers abandoned their life-long record

collections in favor of a new technology. But that’s exactly what happened when the digital

compact disk took hold in 1985 and captured virtually the entire vinyl record industry by 1990.”8

This change, like that in the carburetor industry, was unexpected, and came swiftly and

brutally, causing the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs for workers who believed they’d

spend the rest of their lives manufacturing vinyl records and mechanical carburetors.

Another aspect of the changes in industries wrought by technological change is the

creation of new industries, such as the personal computer and pre-recorded video tape industries.

These industries employ hundreds of thousands of people, and generate nearly $170 billion in

sales, yet the personal computer industry is only 17 years old, and the pre-recorded video tape

industry is just under 20 years old.9 These are just two simple examples of new industries. As
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 7

Pilzer writes: “Most of the economic growth about to happen in the next two decades will be in

sectors of our economy that may not even exist today.”10

Career Changes

Another area of change in the modern workplace is in the way we think about careers.

Gone are the days when you entered a career and remained there for the rest of your life. As

Faith Popcorn notes in her book Clicking, “According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics,

most Americans will probably have three careers in their lifetime.”11 Quoting Popcorn further on

this issue, “we need to erase any old mindsets about careers-for-life.”12 “Today, traditional career

planning is just about useless.”13

Again, the rate at which change in business occurs is a key factor in the changes in how

we think of careers. Referring to these types of changes in business, Paul Pilzer writes: “These

types of changes used to take place so slowly that the rules of the game remained constant over

an entire working career. Now these [technological] changes seemed to redefine that career itself

every five or ten years. In fact, by the end of the 1980s, more than 50 percent of Americans were

changing their entire career every 6.5 years!”14

THE NEEDS OF THE MODERN WORKPLACE

With the types of changes described above taking place in the modern workplace, it

becomes evident that workers must be able to adapt to change, both changes in what they do for

a living, and how they do it. Today, workers faced with the disappearance of their industries and
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 8

a median career length of 6.5 years must be able to learn new skills quickly if they are to survive

and thrive in this modern workplace. This need to adapt to change and learn new things is

illustrated in the following excerpt from Paul Pilzer’s God Wants You To Be Rich:

“In order to work with computerized manufacturing equipment, you had to

have the basic reading and math skills required to learn how to use it - as well as

an employer will to teach you. …the best mechanic went from being the one with

the most experience repairing carburetors to the one most experienced at reading

electronic fuel injector repair manuals. In the office, the focus shifted from the

person who knew how to accomplish an existing task the fastest to the person

who knew how to learn new things the fastest.”15

Compounding this need is another trend in the modern workplace, that of people holding

multiple jobs. In just under five years, the number of people who had multiple jobs increased

twenty-six percent, from 5.7 million in 1985 to 7.2 million in 1989.16 With such a dramatic

increase in multiple-job workers, it seems likely that many of these people are holding jobs in

different industries, thus requiring different skills and knowledge. If this is indeed the case, it

seems evident that this is yet another situation which heightens the need of workers to be able to

adapt to change and learn new things.

Learning To Learn

Having established the need for people in the modern workplace to be able to adapt to

change learn new things quickly, the obvious question becomes how and where do people learn
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 9

how to learn? One possible solution to this question is for workers to take responsibility for

educating themselves, creating a workplace in which “individuals will take the responsibility

and receive the rewards for their own professional education.”17 However, this solution of self-

education assumes that workers have already learned how to learn new things and how to adapt

to change. Thus we arrive at a paradox, where the key to solving the problem is based on the

assumption that the problem doesn’t exist. I would suggest that this is not the case, and that most

workers have not learned how to learn new things or how to adapt to change.

Thus we arrive again at the question, ‘how and where do people learn how to learn?’ For

many people, the answer to this question, I believe, lies in the public educational system of our

country. More specifically, the answer lies in the failure of our public educational system to

provide students with an education that enables them to learn new things quickly and to adapt to

change. In the following section we’ll examine the causes for this failure.

THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

“The United States educational system has failed all but its upper-class citizens, and the

exception for the upper class is only because they have abandoned it.”18 This statement, taken

from Paul Pilzer’s Unlimited Wealth, is a serious accusation, and one to which many people in

our country, particularly those in the middle and upper classes, might object. I, on the other

hand, agree with this statement. Specifically, I believe that the United States educational system

has failed its citizens in not adequately preparing students for the modern workplace. I believe

this failure has its roots in the educational system’s failure to adapt to changes in our society and

in the methods by which the system teaches students and assesses their progress.
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 10

A PRODUCT OF A TIME THAT’S PASSED

In the opening paragraphs of the “Education” chapter of his book Trend Tracking, Gerald

Celente writes:

“Our school system was designed to meet the needs of a growing industrial

society. It taught people how to read, write, and do some arithmetic. More

important, it taught them how to follow instructions and be good employees. It

didn’t teach them how to think. It didn’t teach them how to ask questions, how to

analyze problems, or how to find solutions. It didn’t have to, since management

did all the thinking.

“As long as working for a business was like being in the army, this system

worked. But the needs of our society have changed, and our school system no

longer meets them. It doesn’t even meet the needs of our army, let alone our

economy. While we’re living in a high-tech society that requires knowledge,

adaptability, and creativity, our school system is still doing what it did 50 years

ago, though not as well. At least back then, it taught people how to read, write,

and do some arithmetic.”19

Though these comments may seem alarmist and subjective, they are nonetheless true. Our

schools have not undergone any significant amount of reform for many, many years, and the

changes that have been attempted have been little more than fads, such as ‘new math’ and

‘relevance courses,’ and even these have failed to produce their intended results.20 And yet while

our society has changed over the last 50 years, at a fundamental level, our schools have not. One
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 11

rather obvious and simple example of this resistance to change is found in the school calendar

year.

The present day school year of 180 days, with classes ending in mid-afternoon and a long

summer recess, was designed for a agrarian economy, during a time when children were needed

to help with chores and harvesting. This is no longer the case. Today, more than 50 years later,

our agrarian civilization has given way to an urban one, but yet we still haven’t changed the

school calendar to meet the requirements of our modern society.21 Should we expect any

significant changes in our schools if something as basic as the school calendar hasn’t changed?

As Paul Pilzer writes in Unlimited Wealth, “If something as obvious as the calendar itself hasn’t

changed for over a hundred years, think what our classrooms, teaching methods, and textbooks

must be like.”22

Pilzer blames this resistance to change on “a lack of innovation. In this age of the

computer and the automobile, we are still attempting to teach our children using educational

methods that were mostly developed in, and little removed from, the age of the quill pen and the

horsedrawn carriage.”23 Pilzer attributes this lack of innovation to a lack of competition to

stimulate and reward innovation in the educational system, and notes that “This is not readily

apparent, because in the absence of competition it is often difficult to perceive that there is a way

of doing something better than the way in which it is already being done.”24

But this lack of change has lead to an even greater and greater disparity between the

needs of society and the results of the educational system. Beyond the obvious implications of

this disparity, there are also economic consequences to consider. As Celente points out,

“Manufacturing jobs require a higher level of technical skills, while service jobs require higher

levels of reading, writing, speaking, and computing. If our schools don’t produce graduates who
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 12

have such skills, we’ll face labor shortages… The widening gap between the products of our

school system and the needs of our society has become a constraint on economic growth.”25

WHAT SCHOOLS TEACH AND HOW THEY TEACH IT

Beyond the lack of innovation in the educational system, the manner in which

information is taught in the schools and the methods by which learning is assessed in our schools

have also each played a part in the system’s failure to meet the needs of the modern workplace.

In The Unschooled Mind, Howard Gardner offers the following definition of a school:

“an institution in which a group of young people… assemble on a regular basis in the company

of a competent older individual, for the explicit purpose of acquiring one or more skills valued

by the wider community.”26 One question that arises from this definition is ‘Which skills are

valued by the wider community?’ Gardner answers this question by stating that “The mission of

the early years of school is to introduce all students to the basic literacies.”27

Expanding upon this, Gardner explains that the modern secular school seeks to present

three kinds of knowledge across the disciplines: notational sophistication, concepts within the

discipline, and forms of exposition and reasoning within the discipline.28

The goals of notational sophistication are for the student to “master the major written

codes of the culture and learn to use them effectively.”29 However, when discussing the methods

of teaching of symbolic or notational systems, Gardner points out that “Regular drill, rote

memorization, and recitation are featured. The ultimate utility of these skills is not an important

concern of day-to-day schooling, and indeed, in contrast to apprenticeships, the school

experience is marked by an extreme dissociation from important events or palpable products in

the life of the community.”30

Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 13

Similarly, in an explanation of the teaching of concepts within a given discipline,

Gardner states that “Ideally, these concepts are presented so that students will be able to apply

them in contexts; all too frequently, however, they are treated simply as lists of words to be

memorized—instances of inert knowledge.”31

In a pair of statements discussing the effects and goals of schools, Howard Gardner casts

doubt on the true effectiveness of our educational system and on the motivations behind these

goals. “The effects of schools are most likely to be pronounced in those instances where the

graduate actually continues to use the knowledge, skills, and understandings acquired in schools.

On the other hand,… where the graduates go on to pursue vocations unrelated to the curriculum

of the school, one may question whether the knowledge and skills attained will prove of value to

the students or to the society that has entrusted them to the institution called school.”32

“Even though educational systems may pay lip service to goals like “understanding” or

“deep knowledge,” they in fact prove inimical to the pursuit of these goals. Sometimes these

goals are considered to be hopelessly idealistic or unrealistic; at most, in the view of educational

bureaucrats, schools ought to produce citizens who exhibit basic literacies and can hold a job.”33

Assessing Learning

Another factor that contributes to the failure of our educational system is the methods by

which we assess the learning of students within the system. The method by which schools have

measured the success of students in learning has traditionally been the test. But as Gardner points

out, the tests our educational system uses often do not effectively evaluate whether a student has

indeed learned anything, nor do they evaluate the student’s ability to apply the skills or
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 14

knowledge they’ve ‘learned’ outside of the classroom. He writes “The test is the ultimate

scholastic invention, a “decontextualized measure” to be employed in a setting that is itself

decontextualized. Students learn about scientific principles or distant lands while sitting at their

desks or listening to a lecture; then at the end of the week, the month, the year, or their school

careers, the same students enter a room, and, without the benefit of texts or notes, answer

questions about the material that they are supposed to have mastered.”34

Continuing his commentary on testing, Gardner then goes on to describe the evolution of

“standardized tests,” developed in an effort to ensure fairness among all those students being

tested, by noting that “The “subjective” element of testing is virtually eliminated, leading to the

honorific epithet “objective testing.” Whether these instruments also provide a good sampling of

the skills and understandings that one wants students to acquire is much less clear. As

psychologist Ulric Neisser suggests, academic knowledge is typically assessed with arbitrary

problems that a student has little intrinsic interest in or motivation to answer, and performances

on such instruments have little predictive power for performances outside of a scholastic

environment.”35

Gardner concludes that “formal testing has moved much too far in the direction of

assessing knowledge of questionable importance in ways that show little transportability. The

understanding that schools ought to inculcate is virtually invisible on such instruments; quite

different forms of assessment need to be implemented if we are to document student

understandings.”36

RESULTS
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 15

But while we may question the methods of teaching and assessing learning, the true

measure of the educational system should be in the results it generates. Unfortunately, this is yet

one more area where the facts point to a disturbing truth, namely that our educational system is

failing a great many of its students.

Evidence pointing to the ineffectiveness of our educational system can be found in

statistics gathered by the Department of Education and the National Assessment of Educational

Progress. According to these sources, more than 27 million Americans over the age of 17 are

illiterate, and another 45 million are barely competent in basic skills. This means there are more

than 72 million Americans who lack the reading and writing skills they need to find work.37

Similarly, almost one-half of the 17-year old students tested in 1985 and 1986 were incapable of

handling eighth grade math, while only 20 percent of students could write an organized job

application letter, and only 4 percent could read a bus schedule.38

ATTEMPTED SOLUTIONS

It is not as if there have not been attempts at improving our educational system.

Unfortunately, these attempts have for the most part been as ineffective as the schools

themselves. Citing one such ineffective solution, Paul Pilzer writes that “We have responded by

increasing the amount paid to already-failing teachers and administrators, effectively saying

“Let’s pay more money to the same people to continue to do the same thing.” As a result of this

response… today there is little correlation between the amount of money spent on public

education and quantity and quality of the results.”39

As a consequence of the poor results of our schools and the ineffectiveness of past

attempts made by school administrators, the role of education has largely fallen on corporate
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 16

America, which has found itself with little choice but to take up the reins of education. As Phillip

J. Riese, Executive Vice President & General Manager of the Personal Card Division of the

American Express Company writes; “I don't think it is inherently up to the corporation to

educate, but any corporation which is cognizant of the alternative will inevitably take on the

responsibility. In the absence of anything else, corporations will pick up the education reins.”40

In a similar vein, Gerald Celente writes: “The Committee for Economic Development

reported that one-half of our high school graduates couldn’t read well enough to handle

moderately complicated tasks. Xerox Chairman David Kearns, a member of the Committee, said

that businesses must hire workers who “can’t read, write, or count,” and then spend billions of

dollars to train them. “One-fourth of the graduates,” he said, “are barely able to read their

diplomas.”41

WHAT SCHOOLS SHOULD TEACH

Though the above discussion may paint a rather depressing portrait of our public

educational system, there are signs of change in the future, change which addresses the real

causes of the educational system’s failures; changes which may prove to be instrumental in the

reinvention of public education in the United States.

In the Illinois Learning Standards, adopted in July 1997, the Illinois State Board of

Education acknowledged both the significance of change in our modern society, and the need for

students to learn new ways to learn with the following statement:

“Technological breakthroughs, an explosion of information and global

economies are just a few of the conditions which have changed dramatically in

the past decade. To be successful in a world characterized by change, students

Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 17

will need to learn the basics, but the basics of the 1990s and the new century to

come go far beyond the basics of the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s. In addition to basic

knowledge and skills, students will need to acquire new ways to learn that will

serve them throughout their lives.”42

Noting the importance of skills in addition to knowledge and information, the State

Board notes that “The [Illinois Learning] Standards and Benchmarks should include an

appropriate combination of knowledge and skills, not just facts alone or skills alone.”43

Recognizing the significance in preparing students to enter the modern workplace, the

Illinois Learning Standards note that “Workplace preparation is an important purpose of

schooling. The standards incorporate knowledge and skills that will help enable students to be

successful in the workplace of their choice, as well as in their role as citizens, family members

and participants in our society. The standards also create opportunities to integrate the academic

and workplace knowledge and skills and learning opportunities to enhance students’ ability to

see connections between what is learned and practical applications of that learning.”44

These statements demonstrate not only an acknowledgment of some of the challenges of

our current public educational system, but also indicate efforts on the part of at least one state to

bring the educational system in line with the needs of our modern society and modern

workplace.

Notes
1
Paul Zane Pilzer, God Wants You To Be Rich (New York, Simon & Schuster Inc., 1995), 110
2
Ibid., 111
3
Ibid., 110
4
Ibid., 68
Research Project BGS390 Louis J. Prosperi Page 18

5
Paul Zane Pilzer, Unlimited Wealth (New York, Crown Publishers, Inc., 1990), 76
6
Ibid., 77
7
Pilzer, God Wants You To Be Rich, 19
8
Ibid., 19
9
Ibid., 21
10
Ibid., 21
11
Faith Popcorn, Clicking (New York, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1996), 14
12
Ibid., 14
13
Ibid., 366
14
Pilzer, God Wants You To Be Rich, 68
15
Ibid., 68
16
Faith Popcorn, The Popcorn Report (New York, Doubleday, 1991), 79
17
Pilzer, God Wants You To Be Rich, 146
18
Pilzer, Unlimited Wealth, 109
19
Gerald Celente, Trend Tracking (New York, Warner Books, 1990), 85
20
Ibid., 86
21
Pilzer, Unlimited Wealth, 114-115
22
Ibid., 115
23
Ibid., 114
24
Ibid., 114
25
Celente, 93
26
Howard Gardner, The Unschooled Mind (Basic Books, 1991), 127
27
Ibid., 131
28
Ibid., 131-132
29
Ibid., 131
30
Ibid., 129
31
Ibid., 132
32
Ibid., 137
33
Ibid., 140
34
Ibid., 132-133
35
Ibid., 133
36
Ibid., 134
37
Celente, 90
38
Ibid., 92
39
Pilzer, Unlimited Wealth, 112-113
40
Popcorn, The Popcorn Report, 206
41
Celente, 92
42
Illinois State Board of Education, Illinois Learning Standards (Illinois State Board of
Education, 1997), 6
43
Ibid., 8
44
Ibid., 8