EDUCATING AMERICA: Lessons Learned in the Nation's Corporations

by Jack E. Bowsher ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 25, 1989

From IBM's former head of education, a call for the revamping of American education from primary grades through college along lines effectively used in corporate training programs. Bowsher advocates a reduction of the school dropout rate to less than 5%, establishment of job placement as a measure of a school's success, and, possibly, requiring mastery of all lessons before a student moves on to new studies. Individual ""tutoring"" via specially programmed computers would, he claims, assure lagging students of success. He also implies that innovative reading/writing computer programs can wipe out illiteracy by the year 2000. He calls for the establishment of five pilot public schools--distributed among primary and upper grades--which would apply maximum creativity in designing new education techniques, school layouts, use or nonuse of technologies, etc. These would be developed and operated under a partnership comprised of educators, book publishers, education development companies, and software purveyors. When the results are in, local school boards could phase in the most effective new education system or parts of it. At the university level, Bowsher calls for input from corporate America--the main ""consumers"" of graduates--on curricula and course content. He also suggests that the high costs of higher education can be reduced via a year of home-based studies employing a computer plus audio or video cassettes. Provocative.

Pub Date: April 25, 1989

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Wiley

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989

Categories: NONFICTION