Labor Department Panel Urges Teaching of New Skills for Jobs

The workplace is changing so drastically that schools should expand the three Rs to include teamwork, leadership, communication and a range of other skills prized by the global economy, or millions of young people face a dismal future, a Labor Department commission reported Tuesday.

“Today’s workplace puts a premium on reasoning skills and an ability and willingness to learn,” said Labor Secretary Lynn Martin. “We need to respond to workplace changes, not be whipsawed by them.”

More than half of Americans enter the working world without such abilities and will pay “a very high price” in their careers, according to the report released in Washington by the Labor Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills.

While various studies have pointed to failings in American education, the new report zeroes in on a less-explored area--how technology and global economic pressure are revolutionizing what people need to know at work. In contrast to previous critiques of education, the panel--composed of union, business and academic representatives--sought to identify the sorts of nontraditional skills that are increasingly demanded by the global economy.

“Both schools and business have to do a better job” of preparing young people for work, said William E. Brock, the commission’s chairman and former labor secretary. “We are failing our children and short-changing their future and ours.”

The findings, which the Labor Department will push for in the coming months, suggest a fundamental overhaul in the skills young people are taught, with broad implications for classroom and company training efforts.

Increasingly, workers must be competent in five areas that transcend the traditional basics of reading, writing and arithmetic, according to the commission: allocating time, money and other resources; working with colleagues in teams and other settings; using and evaluating information; understanding systems, such as how their job fits into a company’s broader scheme, and applying a range of modern technologies.

Just how such sweeping changes would be implemented remains unresolved, however, including the responsibilities of schools and private employers.

“There’s just a lot out on the table right now, and of course it’s messy,” said Sue E. Berryman, director of the Institute on Education and the Economy at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and a commission adviser.

The panel’s finding that certain untraditional skills are increasingly valued across industries and occupations “is an enormously important statement,” she added.

Nonetheless, the long-term impact of the proposals was not clear. For all the concern about the competitiveness of America’s work force, education policy is outside the traditional domain of the Labor Department, and the proposals challenge long-held approaches to teaching.

The skills commission described its new report as a follow-up to President Bush’s education proposals, which call for “world class” standards in the classical core subjects of English, mathematics, science, history and geography, as well as a system of voluntary exams at different grade levels.

But there are some reservations within policy circles about the commission’s emphasis on the link between learning and making a living.

“It would be helpful if the (Labor Department) report emphasized that education goes beyond employability,” declared a memo within the Department of Education last month. “We need to be sure that this report is not interpreted as a call to turn our schools into vocational and technical training centers.”

Commission members argue, however, that the skills they propose are of growing importance throughout U.S. industry, from lower level factory jobs to sophisticated jobs in the service economy.

“One of the points we’re trying to make is that even the kids who are college graduates frequently do not display the competencies the workplace demands,” said Gabriel Cortina, a commission member and an assistant superintendent in the L.A. Unified School District.

Various forces are bearing down on the workplace in today’s complex, global economy, creating new pressures--particularly for large, multinational corporations--on how things should be done, according to business experts.

To compete with foreign and domestic rivals, many U.S. companies have sought to trim costs by paring middle layers of management, and now encourage decisions to be made closer to the shop floor. In the auto and other industries, firms have experimented with teams, an approach that requires communication and cooperation.

In addition, a growing emphasis on quality, pressure to introduce products more quickly and demands to customize products all are changing what is expected of workers.

The commission concluded, however, that many U.S. firms are awakening only slowly to the new competitive requirements.

“Unless we’re willing to settle for declining living standards and the end of the American dream, we have to make some very fundamental changes in our classrooms and our workplaces,” Brock declared. “For one we have to start acting like we really believe people are America’s most important competitive resource.”

Based on interviews with employers and employees, the Labor panel’s report Tuesday called for a three-part “foundation” of skills and qualities designed to support the five workplace “competencies.”

This foundation includes such basic skills as reading, writing, arithmetic, listening and speaking; an array of thinking skills, including creative thinking, decision making and problem solving, and such personal qualities as responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management and integrity.

The panel also provided examples of the sorts of areas it contends people must be competent in. As an illustration of applying technology, it said a worker might need to know how to evaluate three new paint spray guns in terms of cost, health, safety and speed.

As an example of processing information, it said a worker might need to know how to develop with other team members, a plan to bring their production up to the standard of competing plants.

“There’s a danger this report won’t be perceived as broad and far-reaching,” Cortina said, referring to its emphasis on job tasks rather than the more cosmic meaning of education.

Workplace Skills The U.S. Labor Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills released a report Tuesday describing five learning areas of increasing importance in the workplace. Their development depends on a foundation of more basic abilities.

The foundation

Basic: Reading, writing, mathematics, speaking and listening.

Thinking: Creativity, making decisions, solving problems, seeing things in the mind’s eye, knowing how to learn, reasoning.

Personal qualities: Responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management and integrity.

Job skills

Resources: Allocating time, money, materials, space and staff.

Interpersonal: Working on teams, teaching, serving customers, leading, negotiating and working well with people from culturally diverse backgrounds.

Information: Acquiring and evaluating data, organizing and maintaining files, interpreting and communicating and using computers to process information.

Systems: Understanding social, organizational and technological systems, monitoring and correcting performance and designing or improving systems.

Technology: Selecting equipment and tools, applying technology to specific tasks and maintaining and trouble-shooting technologies.

Source: U.S. Labor Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills