Thinking For A Living: Education And The Wealth Of Nations

by Ray Marshall, Marc Tucker

Why should employers pay American workers much more to work far fewer hours a year than the competition? They won't—unless Americans know more and can do more than the workers with whom they compete. Thinking for a Living is the first book to address head-on the issue of the appalling mismatch between what our economy needs and what our educational institutions actually provide. A massive imbalance between the resources available for the education of our managerial, technical, and professional workers on the one hand, and our line workers on the other, threatens our economic survival, according to Marshall and Tucker. The book provides a blueprint for the radical reconstruction of our schools, following much the same principles that allowed some of America's leading industrial organizations to rescue themselves from the brink of ruin by greatly raising productivity without increasing costs. But education, the authors point out, is far more than schooling. All the major functions of our society must function as integrated learning systems. This book spells out how families, communities, and, most of all, businesses can contribute to the effectiveness of our most valuable people. The American educational system is designed to meet the manpower needs of a bygone era. If America is to survive in the infinitely more demanding economic environment of the next century, we must maximize the skills of our work force. Our economic policies will fail—and our standard of living will fall—unless they are linked to an aggressive education policy that results in unprecedented levels of performance.

Genres: Education

304 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 1992

Reviews

[Mark Valentine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I deeply appreciate the marketplace viewpoints about education expressed in Marshall & Tucker's book and believe that it is an important analysis for anyone concerned with the state and direction of education today and tomorrow. Not only do the authors express their frustration with the outmoded Taylor model of classroom structure (tidy rows, teacher in front, stand and deliver--all prep for assembly line work), but also they express their concern for students to be prepared to perform in an international market.
Best of all, they spend extra time relating the influence of the Quality movement in business (TQM) and how it can and should relate to American schools in restructuring them for the 21st Century. I remain skeptical about what they say regarding the importance of standards (simply because I believe that too many teachers and community members brow beat students with high stakes testing, false incentives--A's for rewards and F's for threats, and micromanaged, ridiculous objectified norm-referenced tests), but I appreciate their call for international standards to be the only real "norm" by which we should be measuring our students.

All in all, this is an excellent study in the background motives for education, the marketplace. Imagine an education course in a major university using this book in a required reading list!

(Well, it's that good, but I hope it's not that rare.)

[Osborneinri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superbly written. A sad indictment of how America in recent decades has moved away from the kinds of wise investment in education and infrastructure that built our economy and workforce into the best in the world. We're doing our level best to become a second- or third-rate nation if we don't get smarter about how we educate our kids and workers.