Let’s Think Big Enough
By Larry Good, Founder and CEO, & Christopher King, Senior Fellow, Ray Marshal Center, University of Texas
Twenty years ago our organization, Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, challenged ourselves to “reimagine everything about work and learning” as a means to increasing economic mobility and prosperity. It has guided our work ever since. Today, as we and many others contemplate life after stay at home orders, the need to “reimagine everything about work and learning” is even more crucial and opportune.
We are living through a global event with no precedent in our lifetimes. We likely will be living with COVID-19 for at least 12–18 months, until a reliable vaccine can be identified from the intense research and development now going on. And no one can predict with any degree of accuracy the speed of economic recovery, the potential need for further tough measures to combat second or third waves of infection that could disrupt the economy again, and — most importantly — what big changes will emerge in our behavior and employment.
What we do know from the history of crises of this magnitude is that dramatic changes will surely follow. The Black Death brought an end to feudalism in the 14th Century, giving workers who survived new earning power and mobility. The Great Depression in the 1930s led to creation of the New Deal social infrastructure we still depend on today. World War II veterans, supported by the GI Bill, became a base for transforming colleges and universities from centers limited to elites into crucial learning venues for millions of people. Still, millions of people of color were not fully reached by New Deal initiatives nor by postwar GI Bill funding, contributing to challenges we continue to wrestle with today.
Right now, public and philanthropic funders are appropriately focused on addressing immediate effects of the pandemic, including bolstering public health protections, increasing health care system capacity, and helping businesses and workers to survive the shutdown of a large part of the economy.
When attention swings to restarting the economy, reemployment and adult learning needs will enter the viewscreens of funders and policymakers. When that happens, a big danger is that we’ll think too small, focusing on how to restore the status quo from a few months ago. The pressures to limit recovery funding for workforce development will be intense, given that the costs of pandemic survival are already in the trillions of dollars in the U.S. alone and the likelihood still more funding will be needed to meet a continuing need for income supports for unemployed workers and stabilization for businesses as states and industries phase in upon reopening.
This is an opportunity to reimagine everything about work and learning. Returning to the status quo would be a mistake, because:
· We’re not going to return to the economy we had entering 2020; nor should we. Some sectors and industries will change dramatically, and the pace at which various sectors of the economy rebound is likely to be uneven. Traditional retail stores were already struggling. In 2019, about a third of shopping malls were already facing bankruptcy as online sales supplanted in-person shopping. Moreover, many workers, particularly minorities and low-wage earners, were being left behind and lacked health care coverage even during the longest economic expansion in our history.
· As industries reopen, many will do so with fewer workers. The uses of automation will increase and fears of COVID-19 infection will force companies to increase the distance between workers. This will likely result in persistently higher unemployment than seen in recent years and will require many more workers to change industries and occupations than in past recessions.
· The economy we’ve just left was a two-tier reality that can’t be sustained. In the decade since the Great Recession, families with lower income have gotten poorer, while those at the high end got richer. Today we see this vividly as workers now recognized as “essential” are being paid $10/hour or less. And, during the pandemic, many of these workers have not had the luxury of sheltering in place or social distancing as they tended to the elderly in nursing home hot-spots, picked up our trash, bagged our groceries or delivered our food and drugs.
· The business models of many colleges and universities must change. Many schools were already feeling pressure for large-scale change as they faced a reduction of traditional 18–22 year old students and increasing criticism of the rising cost of obtaining a degree. Those pressures will multiply as the balance of potential postsecondary students accelerates a shift to adult learners, an increasing share of whom are also parents trying to balance schooling, work and family life.
So what does reimagine mean?
· Create an integrated adult work and learning ecosystem. We have a well-established ecosystem of postsecondary education targeted at young people leaving high school. However, adult-centered education and employment services are spread across a disparate array workforce boards, colleges, proprietary trainers, companies, community-based organizations and more. When these interweave well, it is usually a function of local relationships more than of coherent policy. Imagine taking a white board and designing a learner-centered ecosystem that would contain clear, robust opportunities for iterating work and learning throughout a worker’s full career. Doing this would make clear that the transitions many will be going through in the months ahead are likely to happen again, and that this highly visible, comprehensive set of services is there to support workers/learners whenever needed.
· End the digital divide. An estimated 40 million people in the United States lack broadband access; still more can’t afford broadband service and/or computers. The gaps are both in urban centers and rural regions. When K-12 schools, universities, and many jobs were forced to become home-based, this inequity between digital haves and have nots became acutely clear. This gap in access also is hampering public education across the nation with teachers in even relatively well-to-do districts unable to reach their students or make required assignments for equity reasons. Undertaking a campaign to end that gap can be a high impact workforce strategy — both the work in bringing high-speed internet to all and then using that infrastructure to strengthen learning.
· End the literacy/numeracy divide. Roughly 43 million working age adults in the U.S. lack reading comprehension skills essential to employment. Even more have gaps in fundamental math skills. Policymakers and practitioners have bemoaned those gaps for many years but very limited funding has been devoted to this thorny issue. Imagine if we commit the resources, use promising evidence-based models, and work at the scale required to eradicate this gap.
· Eliminate the gaps in African-American and Latino education attainment. Substantially fewer African-Americans and Hispanics attain high school diplomas and college degrees than whites, marking a major barrier to opportunities for good-paying jobs and career pathways. Imagine an unprecedented effort to meaningfully close those gaps.
Other strategies certainly are possible. Our test should be are we doing things that tackle major challenges at scale or are we simply tinkering with what we have always done. Our vote: let’s use this crisis as a moment to reimagine workforce development and lifelong learning and achieve the impact our country needs to navigate to an uncharted future.
