Ask any full-time educator teaching in one of our nation's public high schools what their primary objective for their students is and you are more likely than not going to hear some kind of reference to wanting their students to graduate "college and career ready". This mantra stems from the increasing failures rate of our country's high school graduation rate which nationally sits at about 70% but even that figure is misleading since the barely half of those high school graduates even attempt college and fewer still graduate from college. These rates are much, much lower for students of poverty.
But Harvard Professor, Disruptive Innovation Theory Founder Clayton Christensen predicts that in 15 years, half of our Universities will be bankrupt. Meanwhile, the recent US recession has eliminated many jobs while technology advancements are simultaneously increasing the labor productivity of the jobs that remain. So with potentially half the colleges and half the jobs in the near future potentially disappearing, what does it mean to be college and career ready when those colleges and careers may not exist when today's elementary schools graduate high school?
In the recent NYT Times article "How Technology Wrecks the Middle Class", David H. Autor and David Dorn provide an insightful look at the impact technology is having for the top, bottom and middle of the economic pyramid.
