Harvard Business Publishing

Several years ago I heard Lester Thurow ask an audience to name the greatest invention in U.S. history. The lightbulb? Telegraph? Cotton gin? Polio vaccine? Frozen food? Sliced bread?

None of these. Thurow argued that the most significant achievement in U.S. history was the public education system, "invented" in Lowell, Mass., in the early days of the industrial revolution. When U.S. textile owners recognized the need for an educated workforce and forced through legislation requiring young people to attend school, the United States created, he argues, its single greatest asset. Massachusetts passed the first compulsory school attendance laws in 1852. By 1918, all states had passed laws requiring children to attend at least elementary school.

From his perspective as an economist, Thurow argued that this educational system--unique in the world at the time--produced a workforce that was perfectly matched--in skills and behavior--to the burgeoning needs of the new industrial economy. Students emerging from this system had both the right knowledge (reading, math) to perform the industrial jobs and the right behaviors (punctuality, focus on specific linear tasks) to form an efficient workforce. It was the match between the U.S. workforce and the needs of business at that time that allowed the United States to rocket ahead in industrial productivity throughout the twentieth century.

Today, we don't come close. The gap between the output of our educational system and the job demands of the current century is enormous--and growing wider.

This month, a lucky percent of our high school seniors, mine included, are weighing their options for college. In some communities, it seems like every child is headed in this direction. But on an overall basis, this is far from true.

Currently only 26 percent of the U.S. population receives a college degree before they turn 30. This is expected to increase slowly over the next decade--to about 30 percent--but this is a time when a significant majority of the jobs being created are ones for which employers would prefer candidates with a college degree.

Did you notice that I used the word "prefer" rather than "require?" As employers, you will not be able to hire people with the academic credentials you'd like. You will need to hire people with lower levels of formal education and be prepared to fill the gap internally--through company-sponsored educational programs, apprenticeships, or other ways.

We face two imperatives. As citizens, we must work to shift the capabilities of our educational systems--to insure the skills and behaviors taught are relevant to current business needs. As corporate leaders, we have to accept the inevitable: Corporations will bear a significant proportion of the burden of educating our population over the next several decades.

You're in the education business now. What are you going to do about it?

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