Skills Gap, Ad Nauseam

Warriors Against CCSS/Fed Ed, how many times have we heard that the education reform we’re seeing (and have been seeing), will ‘close the skills gap’?! I do not know about you, but I’ve seen it and heard it so much in researching HOW CTE (Career Tech Education, an arm of Common Core) will be our ‘saving grace’, that I could throw up.

It doesn’t matter that CTE wasn’t included in the original ESEA (Elementary and Seconday Education Act of 1965), by the time ESSA was made into law (Every Student Succeeds Act), CTE had been thrown in.

Not only does CTE show up in ESSA, but, you can find it in the HEA (Higher Education Act) of 2008, WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act) of 2014, American Apprenticeship Initiative, the STEM Act of 2015, and a host of other initiatives, Acts, or proposed bills.

To date, countless proposed bills have been and are being considered to use CTE as the ‘savior’ for….the economy.

It’s pretty simple, Warriors, align the education to jobs, make more jobs available, and BINGO..the economy is stable.

However, reality shows that those who need jobs aren’t getting them. Aligned education, or not! So, where are all these ‘jobs’?

Why is the economy more precious than education?! Because the CTE is a global mindset, not an American one!

Think about it, Warriors, CTE was thrust upon us just as much as Common Core BECAUSE it IS Common Core! Where are the roots of Common Core? In Agenda 21 from the UN (United Nations). CTE breeds CBE (Competency Based Education). CBE is not new, nor is it American made.

If you missed my last article, then you didn’t see this graphic:

The Millennial Report:

Released in 2015 was the ETS (Educational Testing Service) Report on “America’s Skills Challange: Milliennials and the Future”.

So why is a 2015 Report relevant in 2017? The DC legislative push to increase CTE for the 21st Century learner is why. Part of the ‘sales pitch’ from Congress is that CTE closes the ‘skills gap’ quite nicely.

If you do not know what ETS does, the company is in the assessment business. It’s also a CCSS Machine member organization. In one of my January 2017 articles, I tied ETS to the Education Commission of the States (ECS). ECS has ties to the Gates Foundation, National Association of Charter School Authorizers, College Board, and a host of others.

Other ETS articles I’ve written will show you plenty about their ties to:

A) DLC (Digital Learning Council) and the 10 Key education reform points woven into WIOA, ESSA, and, HEA.
B) The NSGT (National Society for the Gifted and Talented). Students who are gifted will also be aligned to the same type of education as everyone else, thanks to ESSA.
C) IMS Global (a consortium for digital learning). Thanks to ESSA, digital ‘upgrades’ and ‘implementation’ of technology, every student will be aligned 24/7, 365 days.
D) Lastly, the shift for lifelong learning to include adult charter schools.

With ties like these, you certainly cannot escape the agenda behind the CCSS Machine.

So, what does the 2015 ETS Report reveal?
1) It is the first in a series, so watch out for more.

2) An excerpt, “The subject of this report is our nation’s millennials, those young adults born after 1980 who were 16–34 years of age at the time of the assessment. The authors chose to center attention on this cohort for several key reasons. First, these young adults include the most recent products of our educational systems. Second, according to recent reports, they have attained the most years of schooling of any cohort in American history. And, finally, millennials will shape the economic and social landscape of our country for many years to come.”

3) Our American students are, one more time, being compared to their international peers. The Report is choosing to focus on our 16-34 year old young adults because they are still showing weak signs in literacy, numeracy, and problem solving. The goal of targeting this special group? They are the biggest part of the workforce.

Warriors, let’s pause here for a minute and consider that not all the 16-34 year olds will have had a CCSS aligned education in their K-12th grades, BUT they will have had a CCSS/CTE aligned education when they attended post-secondary educational facilities. If any of these people had dual enrollment, they’ve had a CCSS/CTE aligned education. IF any of these people have taken hybrid or on-line classes, they’ve more than likely met the CCSS/CTE alignment without realizing it.

4) An excerpt from a cited source in the Report states, “That the twentieth century was both the American Century and the Human Capital Century is no historical accident. Economic growth in the more modern period requires educated workers, managers, entrepreneurs, and citizens. Modern technology must be invented, innovated, put in place, and maintained. They must have capable workers at the helm…”

5) Data used in the Report is from the PIACC (Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies). The roots of the PIACC are tied to the OECD, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). OECD is also where you’ll find the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). PISA is relied on by the CCSS Machine extensively.

Enter the U.S. Dept. of Education:

Here in the USA, the data mining arms of the U.S. Dept. of Education, (NCES and IES) National Center for Educational Statistics and Institute of Education Sciences, began back in 2010 and will conduct a third round of data collection in 2017.

Here’s the excerpt, “Data collection for the PIAAC Field Test was conducted in 2010, and the first round of international data collection, including the United States, began in August 2011 and finished in April 2012. NCES’s “First Look” report of the PIAAC data and the OECD’s international PIAAC reports were released in October 2013. The United States first round, officially known as the U.S. PIAAC Main Study, was supplemented by a second round of national data collection in 2013-14, officially known as the U.S. National Supplement. NCES will conduct a third round of national collection in 2017.”

 

(If you’d like to learn about the American PIAAC  partner information from the NCES/IES website.) Be sure to look at the NCES/IES  PIAAC Sample assessment items. Then, consider the age group being tested. (*Note: Look on the left hand menu to find all the sample items.)

Other ‘tidbits’ of PIAAC information from the NCES/IES:
A) The next PIAAC Report is due Winter 2017. (*Note: ESSA will be in its first few months of complete implementation by then.)

B) The USA is locked into the data mining for PIAAC until 2021, per the NCES/IES website.

C) To access PIAAC directly: http://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/
If you’d like to see the short OECD video as to WHY PIAAC is so ‘important’.

Also available from the PIAAC website, is a 2016 resource about “Why Skills Matter”.
It’s about an hour and a half, but is very much worth listening to. You’ll hear about what skills are measured/tracked, and so much more.  Skills Matter Video  .

Related Resources:
1) The CBE Network’s website: http://www.cbenetwork.org/resource-library/?category=141245
(*Note: Be sure to read the 8 elements of CBE)
2) U.S. Government Accountability Office’s website shares that closing the skills gap is a government-wide effort. In fact, it appears to be among the “High Risk” alert category the GAO has.
3) Congress even soliticed the help of a celebrity to pump up the volume on the ‘Skills Gap’ being solved by CTE.

Closing:

Warriors, in case you need a visual to cement in your mind how Congress is approaching American education, let Rep. Foxx’s statement be clincher.