ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 14, 1996 TAG: 9608140057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE GEARED to the top 20 percent of students even though non-college graduates make up 70 percent of the work force, expert says.
America must do a better job of teaching "average students" - the 70 percent who don't graduate from a four-year college - if the country is going to remain competitive, a prize-winning author said Tuesday in Roanoke.
U.S. public schools are geared to the college-bound students with counselors, advanced placement courses, honors programs and a college-admissions testing system, said Hederick Smith, a former New York Times correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner.
"As a nation, we don't have an educational strategy for the non-college bound," Smith told a conference of educators."Our educational system is focused on the top 20 to 25 percent of students."
The United States is economically threatened by Germany, Japan and other countries because they do a better job of preparing their students for work, Smith said.
By the year 2000, he said, 70 percent of the jobs in this country won't require a four-year college degree. That matches the percent of students who don't attend college or get a four-year degree.
Smith's latest book, "Rethinking America," compares the economic cultures of America, Germany and Japan. He visited companies in the countries and talked with chief executives about business, educational and management policies.
American companies spend billions of dollars on remedial education so workers can do their jobs, Smith said. Companies also are losing billions in potential sales because they don't have enough qualified workers.
In Japan, Germany and many other European countries, there is a much closer partnership between schools and businesses than in America, he said. Businesses in those countries help fund education and have more say in shaping the curriculum, he said.
Two-thirds of students in Germany learn the latest technology through a dual-education system that links the classroom and workplace, he said.
That kind of relationship motivated students to take tougher academic courses, he said at the conference sponsored by the state Department of Education and community college system.
Only 6 percent of American high school students take calculus, compared with 40 percent in Germany and 90 percent in Japan.
Japanese and German companies outperform American businesses because they have switched from a "mass production" approach to a "flexible production" system that relies more heavily on the knowledge and skills of individual workers, he said.
The most successful companies concentrate on customers' wishes and production speed instead of volume alone, he said. They also make workers responsible for quality and efficiency, he said.
Managers become coaches, not sergeants, Smith said. "These companies are tapping the minds of workers at all levels."
Workers must have the skills to make decisions that affect a company's efficiency and product quality, he said. "You need workers with team skills, with the ability to work with others, with the ability to contribute ideas."
LENGTH: Medium: 62 linesby CNB