Blog Juice for Educational Technology

[Live Blogged — so please forgive misspellings and awkward writing]

Getting ready to hear from Marc Tucker, President of the National Center on Education and the Economy, author of the Tough Choices or Tough Times report.  I will be adding notes and resubmitting this blog over the next few minutes…

There is now a global labor market. There is no place to hide. We thought we could hide by highly educating our children, because only the richest countries could do that. It’s not true. For every job today that is being off shored, there are ten jobs that are being lost to automation. As people become more expensive, and machines become less expensive, business has no choice but to change — move toward automation.

The employed will make less money and fewer will be employed. Will complanies continue to pay high wages. The answer is, “Yes!” Companies who produce higly demanded products and are the only companys who offer those products will pay high wages. That requires constant new and desirable products. He’s talking about Apple as an example. This requires not only talented technicians, but a company culture that promotes and provokes creativity.

Without at least a 2-yr college degree, it is almost impossible to maintain a family and stay above the poverty line.

We are in worse shape now than we were 30 years ago.

Marc’s presentation slides are available at the NCEE site.