K‐12 education for empowerment: beyond the mental/manual divide to a US technician class?

Abstract

Empowering the American economy requires creating a world‐class K‐12 (primary and secondary) education system, because K‐12 is where youth learn the skills essential to empowered work. However, the USA must not just equal the K‐12 standards set by Germany and Japan. Because 70 percent of future jobs will not require a four‐year college degree, the USA must remake its economic‐occupational structure to create a “technician class” offering high‐skill, high‐wage, socially esteemed jobs that operate in close conjunction with college‐educated professional‐managerial workers. A technician class will provide a focus for K‐12 reform that does not presently exist in the USA.

Citation

Hanson, L. (1995), "K‐12 education for empowerment: beyond the mental/manual divide to a US technician class?", Empowerment in Organizations, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 26-35. https://doi.org/10.1108/09684899510100343