Rethinking the Mission of American Education

By Jeremy Rifkin

Education now ranks as the number-one priority among American voters, with 67 percent of those surveyed saying it is a major concern, according to a recent Gallup poll. Nearly every school system in the country is responding to the crisis in American education by scurrying to prepare the next generation for work in the emerging information-age economy. Computer literacy has become a sacred mantra as administrators and teachers search for new and inventive ways of bringing the tools and conceptual language of the digital revolution into the classroom. Underlying the new missionary zeal lies a kind of desperate frenzy, driven by the universally accepted assumption that competitive success in the cyberspace economy of the 21st century requires a new kind of mind able to traverse the virtual corridors of the information superhighway.

Unfortunately, American educators have not been told the whole story. While politicians and many mainstream economists continue to urge an upgrading of the technical skills and proficiency of the American workforce to meet the economic challenges of the information age and warn educators to "get the kids ready" for the new high-tech market, some business leaders privately worry that the jobs won't be there in numbers sufficient to employ the next generation.

The reality is that the global economy is undergoing a fundamental transformation in the nature of work brought on by the new technologies of the information-age revolution. These profound technological and economic changes are going to force every country to rethink its long-held assumptions about the nature of education if it is to adjust to the radical...