P21 National Summit - The first panel today, hosted by PBS’s Ray Suarez, convenes representatives of American business–Verizon, US Chamber of Commerce, Nat’l Association of Manufacturers–along with Harvard ed prof Tony Wagner and Steve Paine from the West Virginia Dept of Ed (WV was one of P21′s first members). Business went first on the panel–pleading for employees “who can think,” “solve new problems,” “be efficient,” and “eliminate redundancies.” We were told by the representative from Verizon that “everyone [has] come together today to try to figure out how to make the workforce more efficient.” Some might be critical of the idea the the purpose of education is to achieve “workforce efficiency.” We go on… Suarez just said he’s concerned about students who might be trained in 21st century skills becoming victims of a corporate “bait and switch.” Suarez claims that most “high-end” thinking in the areas of computers is going on abroad in “India, Taiwan, where its cheaper.” He goes on: “If you want to be a high-end thinker they can underprice you in Bangalore.” So, he reasons, wouldn’t these new skilled workers in the US need to worry about whether companies will “ship their jobs to Bangalore?” It strikes us as perfectly reasonable to be concerned about the risks of turning education into training–particularly if it is largely to work in tech companies. By the way, here’s a list of the chief sponsors of this “cyber-summit:”
The Nellie Mae Education Foundation
AT&T
Dell
Intel
Apple
National Education Association
Sun Microsystems
Verizon
Lynne Munson