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Seattle University is hosting a Graduate Open House Friday, October 18, 2013 from 4:30-6:30pm in the Student Center. The faculty from the Adult Education and Training program will be available at the open house to answer any questions about the program.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has released results of its recently completed international adult skills assessment survey, considered to be the most comprehensive such study ever.  The results are not pretty for the world’s richest country and only remaining superpower.

What follows are some “headline” results from the survey. Read ‘em and weep.

>The U.S. ranks 16th out of 23 countries in literacy proficiency …

>21st in numeracy proficiency

>14th in problem solving in technology-rich environments

Adding insult to injury, these below-average basic literacy and numeracy rankings come despite the fact American adults have higher-than-average levels of educational attainment compared to adults in other countries.

Wait, it gets even worse! Older Americans have better skills than our average young person between the ages of 16 and 24.  Journalist Amanda Ripley, author of "The Smartest Kids In The World" commented in the Huffington Post that this particular finding "perfectly encapsulates how the U.S. hasn't gotten much worse or much better, but that's not what's happened around the world. Other countries have changed a lot while we have stood still. That's the effect of more of these kids going to stronger education."

The results also show our country’s highest-skilled adults are on par with those in other leading nations.  It is our most disadvantaged citizens, particularly racial and ethnic minorities, who are lagging in the skills race.  Socioeconomic status determines one’s skill level more in the United States than in any other country included in the survey.  People born to well educated, affluent parents in the U.S. do better on the skills tests; those less fortunate do less well.  (See the complete study at the link by clicking here.)

In effect, these results are a repetition, or call it a continuation, of the situation with our K-12/16 educational system.  America’s best students can compete with top students the world over.  But the United States is failing to train a considerable portion of its citizens to world-class standards.

Are you really surprised? Are you motivated to do something?  Because this matters. Late this summer (August 15), there was an excellent op-ed in the New York Times about “What Ails Detroit”. The author, Stephan Richter, publisher of the online magazine The Globalist, says this about Detroit’s once legendary economic power:

“But that dominance [of the automotive industry] was, to a considerable degree, a momentary quirk of history: the absence, in the wake of World War II, of any real competition from other nations. Once foreign competition was re-established, in Europe and Asia, only the superior skills of a nation’s workers and a focus on long-term workers’ training would allow a country to stay ahead. …

“It is tragic to hear voices from Detroit declaring themselves ready for a resuscitation of the city. Revival is a question not just of will but also of the available skills base, which unfortunately has deteriorated as a result of a failure to invest in training.”

Today, the entire country runs the risk of becoming a Detroit writ large. It is time to stop deluding ourselves that as a society we are investing enough in adult training. We’re not.  Not enough to remedy the effects of past disadvantages, not enough to keep pace with the accelerating rates of technology that we have done so much to put into motion.

Quote of the Day: "Our younger population should be doing better than our older population. The older population is better educated. And the younger population is entering the workforce." -- Paul Peterson, Harvard University, commenting on the OECD study

A conference on “How Boosting Adult Educational Skills Can Grow the Middle Class” is scheduled for Thursday, October 10, 2013, 9 – 10:30 AM PT. You can watch the live webcast of the conference for free. Find out how at this link. 

Sponsored by the influential Washington, D.C.-based Center for American Progress (CAP), the conference’s intent is to showcase results from an important new study to be released at the conference on adult skills in the U.S compared to other highly developed countries. 

The study, “Survey of Adult Skills”, was conducted by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).  The Survey of Adult Skills is conducted in 33 countries as part of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC).  The U.S. Department of Education requested the special analysis of U.S. results from the survey that will be presented at the conference.

I believe this conference is important for a number of reasons, mostly obvious … except for one. Over the past several months, I have been in a number of meetings and attended several conferences related to education- and training-related public policy, which uniformly focused on improving education and training in our K-12/16 systems for children and young adults. 

I have said in previous posts and will repeat here, the recommendations and reforms proposed are all for the good.  I support them.  But where is the public policy focus on training adults?  As a society and as business people we can’t keep talking on the one hand about how technology and markets are changing at ever-greater speeds and then pretend that this doesn’t require more investment in adult learning. 

The skills gap needs to be taken seriously and addressed. This upcoming conference is one indicator that the policy elites are starting to wake up to this fact. I’ll be watching.  I hope you will too.

The ASTD Education Blended Learning Certificate Program is coming soon to Seattle. We are now offering a limited time savings opportunity:

When you enroll in the October 3-4 Blended Learning class you will receive 50 percent off your next ASTD Education program!*

The Blended Learning Certificate Program provides the roadmap for creating high-impact solutions by combining online learning and in person instruction formats to motivate learners and increase productivity. By attending this interactive program, you will learn how to:

• Apply practical tips, tools, and techniques for designing effective blended learning solutions using the exclusive ASTD Blended Instructional Design Process.
• Create an optimal blended learning approach with the latest trends and media.
• Identify the appropriate situations for using a blended approach.
• Make the business case for increased use of blended learning in your organization.

This is an exclusive limited time offer so register today!

• Call 1-800-628-2783 to enroll in the October 3-4, 2013 Blended Learning Certificate Program by October 2, 2013.
• Register a second person for this same program to receive the 50 percent off savings on the second enrollment.
• Refer to promotional code BLENDLEARN50 when you call in to register.

We look forward to seeing you in class!

Best Regards,

ASTD Customer Care
customercare@astd.org
703.683.8100 or 1.800.628.2783

 

*You must enroll in the October 3, 2013 Blended Learning Certificate Program by October 2, 2013 to qualify for the 50 percent off list/member price discount on a second registration for the October 3, 2013 Blended Learning Certificate Program. This offer cannot be combined with any other discount or promotion. This offer is valid for new registrations not made under a pre-existing contract. Promotion is valid on the October 3, 2013 Blended Learning Certificate Program purchase only and is non-transferrable. Prices are subject to change. You must use promotional code BLENDLEARN50 to qualify.

 

Be sure to use the ASTDps CHips Code 8020 when you register! 

I recently attended, in my role as the Chapter's Public Resource Information Manager, a conference put on by the Partnership for Learning (P4L) entitled "Real Learning for Real Life".

P4L is the educational foundation of the Washington Roundtable, an association representing our state's major employers. These days employers are very concerned about ensuring the jobs pipeline is filled with young people who are well-trained in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) subjects.

To explain how to better fill the pipeline, the conference featured two tracks. The first promoted the new Common Core State Educational Standards. The Core is designed to replace the current welter of 50 different state K-12 standards with a common set to promote consistent national excellence in education.

While the K-12 educational system is generally not the realm of the WLP profession, we do have to deal with the "products" -- the system's graduates and their newly acquired skill sets, adequate or not -- that emerge from it. So as professionals and concerned citizens, I believe we can collectively get behind a common sense reform like the Common Core.

The second track featured a summary of P4L's recent study on the skills gap in Washington state, presented by Dean Allen, president of the Seattle-based construction firm McKinstry, I reported on the study, entitled "Great Jobs Within Our Reach" in this space four months ago. Allen reiterated information from the report, the headline being that there are an estimated 25,000 unfilled jobs in Washington state, a number that is likely to grow unless substantial effort and resources are plowed into changing the picture.

The "Great Jobs" study was the reason I connected with P4L, because the skills gap is a critically important public policy issue for WLP practitioners, and for the American economy and society. National ASTD has been among the first and most effective voices in identifying the skills gap problem and providing the research and advocacy leadership in our country to address it. It is heartening to see research on this issue brought down to the state level. ASTDps and its members should be very much aligned with the Washington Roundtable on this as well.

And yet ...

People spotted some "elephants" in the room, or more apropos, the pipeline. First, in the conference's Q&A session a woman, whom I took to be a school board official, raised an important issue. She pushed back against several mentions of how poorly the United States does in international comparisons of educational achievement. The woman made reference to detailed studies, which dive beneath the widely-reported summary measures. These more granular analyses show U.S. students in fact do very well -- when the data are controlled for the levels of poverty by nation. (For example, see the Economic Policy Institute's January 28, 2013 report, "What do international tests really show about U.S. student performance?")

In short, America's educational shortcomings may be less a matter of "failing" schools or outdated standards than a problem of at-risk children who come to school from poor homes on empty stomachs.

It is always laudable and necessary to improve the educational system through initiatives like the Common Core. But WLP professionals, of all people, should know the importance of ensuring the real problem is being solved if we truly want to improve any outcome.

There is a second elephant that needs noticing. The conference focus was exclusively on students currently in the public K-12/16 educational systems. This may be explained largely, or even entirely, by P4L's purpose, which is concentrated entirely on representing the business community's views of how to improve the K-12/16 system.

But if our state's major employers are really serious about closing the skills gap, then they need to look at a comprehensive solution, not a partial solution predicated solely on educating young workers. It is hard to see, from even the most optimistic reading of the "Good Jobs" report, how sufficient numbers of workers can be trained to fill all of those 25,000 openings anytime soon relying solely on the state's school age population. Even if we converted every English major into an engineer (something that isn't likely to happen) or scored a significant improvement in the state's abysmal high school graduation rate (sad to say, I'm not sanguine about the chances for this either unless something is done about poverty), there would still likely be a yawning gap.

Yet there was no mention of retraining adults. No mention of any of the thousands of currently employed adults stuck in part-time or dead-end jobs. No mention of the legions of unemployed workers or those who have become so discouraged they have dropped out the labor force altogether and are no longer even counted as unemployed.

(Most of the observed decline in the unemployment rate is really due to more and more people giving up searching for work as a futile effort. Only a small amount of this drop in the labor force participation rate is accounted for by baby boomers retiring voluntarily. See ‘The Great Shift’: Americans Not Working" by David Leonhardt in the August 13, 2013 New York Times Economix blog.)

There is a huge opportunity here for the state's businesses -- and for the WLP profession. Many STEM jobs require, not a bachelor's degree, but rather the equivalent of an associate's degree or less (such as specialized vocational training, part or all of which can oftentimes be done on-the-job).But it will require imaginative plans to provide funding and support to make this happen.

By all means, let us support the adoption of new educational standards and find ways to place our young people on career ladders with the promise of a bright future. But let's work with P4L, the Washington Roundtable, our legislators, and others to build a economy that includes and serves everybody. In short, as the ASTDps mission states it, let's create a world that works better.

ICELW 2014, the seventh annual International Conference on E-Learning in the Workplace, will be held from June 11-13, 2014 at Columbia University in New York.

• Online training methodologies (simulations, case-based learning, and more)
• Performance support systems
• Just-in-time learning
• Mobile learning, including the use of iPads, smartphones, and other mobile devices
• Collaborative and social learning
• E-learning design
• E-learning usability studies
• Success stories and case studies
• E-learning experiences in large and small organizations
• Knowledge management
• MOOCs and their uses in professional and career development
• Strategies for implementing e-learning
• Authoring tools and Learning Content Management Systems (LCMSs)
• E-learning evaluation
• Studies of e-learning in practice
• E-learning project management
• The use of virtual worlds in e-learning
• Communities of practice
• Other pertinent topics from the ICELW community

There are still spaces available for the 9-month E-Learning certificate program starting September 30.

UW Certificate in E-Learning Design & Development

Explore approaches to e-learning, instructional designs, tools and procedures for e-learning environments.

Study how to effectively assess program content and usability.

Learn the best ways to launch and manage e-learning programs.

http://www.pce.uw.edu/certificates/elearning-design-development.html

E-Learning Instructional Design Certificate 9/19/2013 -9/20/2013

Mobile Learning Certificate 9/19/2013 -9/20/2013

Blended Learning Certificate 10/3/2013 -10/4/2013

Training Certificate 10/9/2013 -10/11/2013

http://www.astd.org/Education/Programs/All?filter=ed_locationItem%3aWashington

 

Use the chapter CHiP code 8020 and rebates come back to the chapter!

The Gallup Organization recently released "The State of the American Workplace: Employee Engagement Insights for U.S. Business Leaders" survey report.  This follow-up report covers 2010 through 2012; an earlier, similar study covered 2008 through 2010. The survey findings from both reports make for depressing reading. But they should serve as a call-to-action by the WLP profession. You can find the report at this link.

 The survey sample represent the 100 million full-time workers people in our country.  The results show that about 70 percent of American workers either hate going to work or are even actively undermining the workplace (“roaming the halls spreading discontent,” as the Gallup report puts it) to the point of causing economic loss to their organizations.  (The polling organization puts the loss as between $450 billion to $550 billion annually.)  This leaves only 30 percent of workers feeling “engaged and inspired” by their work.

These results are not much different from those of the earlier study.  Some had tried to explain away the dismal results from the 2008-10 survey as a consequence of the Great Recession, which left the workforce scarred, scared, and angry.  That explanation doesn’t wash anymore. 

 This year’s report squarely lays the blame for all this misery at the feet of American management. The problem isn’t wages (though there is plenty of discontent over growing inequality between the C-suite and everyone else). It isn’t benefits or hours. There are just too many bosses-from-hell running loose in the land, wreaking damage everywhere they go.

 The WLP profession knows how to fix this problem. There are good leadership models and programs out there that show how to identify and train good leaders and supervisors.  But it does take the will to change – and money, money most organizations are not willing to invest, to their own and society’s detriment. Which leads me to this …

 There is much support these days in the halls of Congress and state capitols for STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math – education.  When STEM was just getting off the ground a few years, National ASTD’s public policy group promoted the idea that leadership should be considered to be a STEM subject.  The reasoning was that more training resulting in better leadership would pay off handsomely in boosting productivity, a theory for which the Gallup results give added credence.  Unfortunately, the proposal went nowhere, and National ASTD is no longer actively pushing it. 

Things change.  It’s time to dust off this proposal and start advocating for leadership as a STEM subject.  As Seattle-based New York Times columnist Timothy Egan (from whom I learned about the Gallup study) writes, “Sad to say, there are two great tragedies in professional life: not having a job, and having a job you hate.”  As a society we can longer afford to continue this deplorable state of affairs.

Quote of the Day: “Even though worker capacity and motivation are destroyed when leaders choose power over productivity, it appears that bosses would rather be in control than have the organization work well.” --Margaret J. Wheatley