Many Jobs, Children's Physical Brains Develop More Fully, Etc. | A case for "jobs stimulus" that subsidizes consumers and producers of customized education, and operators of associated online markets

A guest post of mine on popular blog Zero Hedge

By Frank Ruscica | Published: February 6, 2010

Part one of a two- or three-part series. Written in the ZH style…

To learn about Zero Hedge, see this feature story from the September 27, 2009 issue of New York magazine.

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Kind reviewers

By Frank Ruscica | Published: February 7, 2010

A Google employee blogs:

A fantastic post about disrupting education.

From After the Frat, a blog:

A brilliant idea by Frank Ruscica about how to finally get out of this economic quagmire.

A fusion of the internet and higher education, arguably America’s two greatest assets, to create affordable, customized, and high quality education for everybody. This would accelerate the growth of a young and extremely profitable industry while teaching the skills required to aggressively compete in the data driven global economy.

WOW.

Check it out, http://www.opportunitv.com/

This was not a public service announcement. I am not getting paid for this. I actually think its a great idea.

Whew!

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Obama education adviser: “21st-century schools should integrate new technologies for learning and create personalized structures for supporting students.”

By Frank Ruscica | Published: February 7, 2010

From The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment To Equity Will Determine Our Future, a forthcoming 2010 book by Stanford professor and Obama education adviser Linda Darling-Hammond:

21st-century schools should integrate new technologies for learning and create personalized structures for supporting students.

…Also key is the creation of networks that allow teachers, leaders, schools and districts to learn from one another.

…Although it would be romantic to assume that massive change can come exclusively from school-to-school networking, the power of learning systems has proven to be stronger than the power of mandates to transform schools.

In no small part, the markets described on this site are designed to expedite the build-out of such networks. For details, see the Jobs Quickly page.

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Education pays

By Frank Ruscica | Published: February 7, 2010

Education level correlates inversely with unemployment

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2005 OECD report: Increasing the average schooling level of the population by one year increases long-term economic growth by 3.7%

By Frank Ruscica | Published: February 6, 2010

From The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment To Equity Will Determine Our Future, a forthcoming 2010 book by Stanford professor and Obama education adviser Linda Darling-Hammond:

A recent OECD report found that for every year the average schooling level of the population is raised, there is a corresponding increase of 3.7% in long-term economic growth.

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Two of Obama’s main education advisors: “By 2012, America will have 7 million un- or under-filled jobs in science and technology, ‘green’ industries, and elsewhere due to a lack of skilled workers with post-secondary education.”

By Frank Ruscica | Published: February 3, 2010

From a November 4, 2008 article on Huffingtonpost.com:

Stanford University’s Linda Darling Hammond and New Leaders for New Schools’ Jon Schnur, two of Barack Obama’s main education advisors, wanted me to share their view on the importance of Obama’s education plan for America’s economic future. Here it is.

…At a time when three-quarters of the fastest growing occupations require postsecondary education, our college participation rates have declined from first in the world to fifteenth. Our high school graduation rates – stuck at 70 percent – have dropped from first in the world to the bottom half of industrialized nations. Our students rank 35th out of the top 40 countries in math and 31st in science achievement. If these trends continue, by 2012 America will have 7 million un- or under-filled jobs in science and technology, “green” industries, and elsewhere due to a lack of skilled workers with post-secondary education.

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Senior lecturer in psychology and the director of the teaching program at Williams College: “Research has shown unequivocally that children learn best when they are interested in the material or activity they are learning.”

By Frank Ruscica | Published: February 2, 2010

From a February 2, 2010 editorial in the New York Times:

It’s great that the [Obama] administration is trying to undertake reforms, but if we want to make sure all children learn, we will need to overhaul the curriculum itself. Our current educational approach — and the testing that is driving it — is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike.
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U. Michigan economist: “At age 22, there are 185.5 women holding a Bachelor’s degree (or more) for every 100 men who have graduated from college.”

By Frank Ruscica | Published: February 1, 2010

grad rates at 22 y.o., by gender

In a January 29, 2010 blog entry, Mark Perry writes:

According to a report released yesterday by the BLS:

“At age 22, women were more likely than men to be enrolled in college and were more likely to have received a bachelor’s degree. Twenty-nine percent of women were attending college during the October when they were age 22, compared with 25.2% of men. Moreover, 12.8% of women had earned a bachelor’s degree, compared with 6.9% of men.”

Now, if you will excuse me, I must resume reading Eat, Pray, Love…

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Boston College professor of develop- mental psychology, on standardized education: “The cost…as measured by the happiness and mental health of our children, is enormous. It is time to re-think education.”

By Frank Ruscica | Published: January 31, 2010

From a January 26, 2010 blog entry on PsychologyToday.com:

Rates of depression and anxiety among young people in America have been increasing steadily for the past fifty to seventy years. Today five to eight times as many high school and college students meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depression and/or an anxiety disorder as was true half a century or more ago. This increased psychopathology is not the result of changed diagnostic criteria; it holds even when the measures and criteria are constant.

…How Coercive Schooling Deprives Young People of Personal Control, Directs Them Toward Extrinsic Goals, and Promotes Anxiety and Depression
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The New Yorker: Dems and GOP-ers in Washington, D.C. share enthusiasm for market-centered education reforms

By Frank Ruscica | Published: January 30, 2010

From a profile of Arne Duncan (subscription required), Obama’s Secretary of Education, in the February 1, 2010 issue of The New Yorker magazine:

Republicans who otherwise have little use for the Obama Administration’s policies…approve of Duncan’s commitment to market-based reforms. Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, told me that Duncan is Obama’s “one real bipartisan appointment.”

…David Axelrod, who serves as the President’s senior advisor…told me that Obama and Duncan are “in lockstep on education issues.”

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Wired mag: manufacturing jobs will be found/created via workflow markets

By Frank Ruscica | Published: January 29, 2010

From the cover story of the January 2010 issue of Wired magazine:

Thus the new industrial organizational model. It’s built around small pieces, loosely joined. Companies are small, virtual, and informal. Most participants are not employees. They form and re-form on the fly, driven by ability and need rather than affiliation and obligation. It doesn’t matter who the best people work for; if the project is interesting enough, the best people will find it.

…Although it’s shrinking, America’s manufacturing economy is still the world’s largest. But China’s growing production sector is predicted to take the number one spot in 2015, according to IHS Global Insight, an economic-forecasting firm. Not all US manufacturing is shrinking, however — just the large part. A Pease Group survey of small manufacturers (less than $25 million in annual sales) shows that most expect to grow this year, many by double digits. Indeed, analysts expect almost all new manufacturing jobs in the US will come from small companies.
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NY Times: “Many of the jobs slashed during this recession are not coming back.”

By Frank Ruscica | Published: January 29, 2010

Graph

From a January 28, 2010 entry on the Economix blog of the NY Times:

The big ocean of blue represents the portion of the unemployed who have lost their jobs, with the lighter blue section showing those whose jobs are gone permanently.

There are multiple ways to explain why permanent job-losers represent a higher share of the unemployed this time around. Maybe, as others have suggested, many of the jobs gained in the boom years were built on phantom wealth. Or maybe the culprit is a corollary of Moore’s Law, the idea of exponential advances in technology over time. That might suggest that innovation and automation displace more and more workers by the time each recession rolls around.

Whatever the underlying cause, the result is disconcerting: compared with previous recessions, many more of the employment gains in this recovery will have to come from new jobs.
Read More »

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