Federal Policy

Anthony Carnevale on PIAAC: Economic Mobility Hindered By Skills Gap

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(Updated Below)

The New York Times relied on just a single source for their article on the PIAAC survey results (other than quoting from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s press release), Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce:

In the most highly educated population, people with graduate and professional degrees, Americans lagged slightly behind the international averages in skills. But the gap was widest at the bottom; among those who did not finish high school, Americans had significantly worse skills than their counterparts abroad.

“These kinds of differences in skill sets matter a lot more than they used to, at every level of the economy,” Dr. Carnevale said. “Americans were always willing to accept a much higher level of inequality than other developed countries because there was upward mobility, but we’ve lost a lot of ground to other countries on mobility because people don’t have these skills.” (my emphasis)

UPDATE 10/10/13: The Times followed up their initial report with a more in-depth piece by Eduardo Porter, “Stubborn Skills Gap in America’s Work Force,” that looks at the study in the the context of the ongoing skills gap debate:

The O.E.C.D. study lands in the midst of a contentious debate over whether the United States faces a skills shortage. Over the last couple of years, employers have been saying that they can’t find enough skilled workers. Economists and other commentators have pointed out that employers would probably find them if they offered higher wages.

The report suggests that the sluggish employment growth since the nation emerged from recession probably has little to do with a skills deficit that has been a generation in the making. But it pretty forcefully supports the case that this deficit is an albatross around the economy’s neck.

“The recession did not fundamentally change the structure of the economy in terms of the supply and demand for skills or education,” argues Jonathan Rothwell of the Brookings Institution, who produced a study last year about the education gap afflicting the job markets of America’s largest cities. “Before the recession, inadequate education was a major problem. It continues to be.”  (my emphasis)

Secretary Duncan: Adults With Very Low Basic Skills “Overlooked and Underserved”

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Secretary Duncan’s statement on PIAAC, as quoted in the Washington Post:

“These findings should concern us all,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a written statement. “They show our education system hasn’t done enough to help Americans compete — or position our country to lead — in a global economy that demands increasingly higher skills.”

Duncan said the study highlights a group that has been “overlooked and underserved: the large number of adults with very low basic skills, most of whom are working.”

“Adults who have trouble reading, doing math, solving problems and using technology will find the doors of the 21st century workforce closed to them,” Duncan said. “We need to find ways to challenge and reach more adults to upgrade their skills.”

PIAAC Survey Results Released

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Results from the World Cup of Literacy were released early this morning by the OECD. Interestingly, OECD’s news release focuses on income inequality in the lede, noting that [c]ountries with greater inequality in skills proficiency also have higher income inequality.” Perhaps this will grab the attention of economists and other commentators who are concerned about growing income inequality in the U.S.

Megan Rogers, writing for Inside Higher Ed, notes that the while the U.S. comes out higher than average in terms of educational attainment, it ranks below average in basic literacy and numeracy skills. She writes that the report also found that socioeconomic background has a stronger impact on proficiency levels in the U.S. than in other countries.

Another difference: according to Rogers, the survey found that participation in adult education and training is more common in the United States than in other countries.

Nonetheless, Joanne Kantner, dean of adult education and transition programs at Kishwaukee College in Illinois tells Rogers that “this isn’t an adult education problem, a math education problem, a developmental education problem or a work place issue. The math adults need is not determined by adult education. It’s determined by the work place.” I have no idea what this means. But it’s early.

Rogers also cites at least one critic of the study: Grover Whitehurst, director at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute. Well, not a critic exactly—he just doesn’t think the results are all that much to get worked up about, pointing to the small number of participating countries and the small U.S. sample size (5,000 adults were surveyed). He acknowledges, however, that the results are consistent with previous findings on adult literacy.

Finally, Rogers quotes David S. Baime, senior vice president for government relations and research at the American Association of Community Colleges, who says that community colleges “have an essential role in redressing this situation,” but bemoans the lack of a “meaningful or effective national policy for adult education.” This goes to the point I was trying to make last night. Participation in the PIAAC study, which has been going on for several years now, presented an opportunity for the Obama administration to develop a stronger, more effective strategy for addressing adult literacy in anticipation of the release of the survey results today. The Secretary of Education is commenting on the study this morning at 10:35 during NBC’s fourth annual “Education Nation Summit.” His initial comments will tell us a lot about whether a more effective national policy for adult education is in the works. Will the Secretary present a new proposal to address adult education today, or merely use this as opportunity to restate the administration’s already existing education policy priorities?

Greetings from PIAAC-istan

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I haven’t written much about PIAAC (the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies)—the latest international survey of adult basic skills—because I don’t have much to say about it, at least until the first set of survey data is released by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) tomorrow. (A U.S.-specific report that was due to be released by NCES tomorrow as well is apparently going to be delayed due to the government shutdown.) There is plenty of information out there about the study itself, so it really doesn’t make sense for me to try to summarize it. If you’re interested, a good place to start is the OECD PIAAC site. Another resource is the AIR PIAAC Gateway.

The last survey/estimate of adult skills in the U.S., the NAAL (National Assessment of Adult Literacy), didn’t do that much, in my opinion, to move federal adult literacy policy forward. Not that it wasn’t helpful: for better or for worse, the NAAL provided us with a commonly accepted figure for the estimated number of American adults who struggle, to some degree, with literacy (93 million)—a figure that we’ve been using for about a decade.

But there were critics of the NAAL methodology at the time, and some confusion in the field about what exactly it measured. (I think the fact sheet we put out at D.C. LEARNs about the NAAL was pretty good, but others, not so much.) In addition, some argued that the 93 million number was so huge that it proved too overwhelming for policymakers to wrap their heads around. With a few exceptions (like the Affordable Care Act), our political system hasn’t had a particularly good track record in recent years of addressing 93-million-people-sized problems. The release of the NAAL certainly didn’t persuade Congress to make a substantial new investment in adult education. In fact, 2003, the year the national NAAL data was released, marked the beginning of what has actually been a gradual decline (in real dollars) in federal adult education funding via Title II of the Workforce Investment Act, the largest source of federal funding for adult education. I’d argue that most of the public policy successes since the last survey have been on a small scale—usually at the state and local level—often involving the creation of new models of service delivery, such as integrated career pathway models.

We’ll get new national numbers from the PIAAC study—and we’ll be able to compare those numbers with other countries that participated in the study. The NAAL also gave us state estimates (eventually), which was unquestionably helpful for state and local advocates, and probably does more to get the attention of  members of Congress than the national numbers. (On domestic issues, members want to know what the issue looks like at the state or district level.) My understanding is that it is hoped that credible state estimates based on the PIAAC data will be produced at some point, but it’s not yet known whether or when that will happen. If we don’t get them, then we will be facing an unfortunate situation where advocates (and the media, surely) will continue to use the old 2003 state estimates when reporting on adult literacy locally, even thought we’ll have an updated national estimate. Which will likely result in more confusion, unless (and even if) states and localities perform their own estimates.

The government shutdown may slightly dull the excitement over the release of this data. As I mentioned above, the NCES First Look Report with specific results for the U.S. population has been delayed indefinitely. In fact, right now you can’t get any information at all from NCES—if go to http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/, you’ll see that this page, like  most federal government Web sites, is down.

Thankfully, the OECD report—which will have some U.S. data—will be released and there are several events here in the U.S. where experts will discuss the findings, starting at 5:00AM EDT (!) when the OECD will officially release the PIAAC data in Brussels, along with two international PIAAC reports: OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills  and The Survey of Adult Skills: Reader’s Companion. A highlights report, Skilled for Life?, will also be available. These reports will be downloadable at http://skills.oecd.org/skillsoutlook.html. The PIAAC Data Explorer and data files will be available at http://www.oecd.org/site/piaac/publicdataandanalysis.htm. (I’m really pleased that you can access the raw data files—that should prove to be really useful.)

At 10:00AM EDT, a panel will discuss findings from PIAAC as part of the fourth annual NBC News Education Nation Summit. Panelists include Former Michigan Governor John Engler, (now President of the Business Roundtable); Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (and a cool guy); and Mary Isbister, President of GenMet Corporation and Vice Chair of the U.S. Manufacturing Council.  (NCES Commissioner Jack Buckley was also originally on the schedule, but he will not be attending, as he has been placed in cryogenic freeze due to the government shutdown, like most federal government employees.) Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will be interviewed.

At 2:30 PM EDT, Andreas Schleicher, OECD Deputy Director for Education and Skills, will present results from the first round of PIAAC via webcast. You can register for the webcast at: https://oecdwash.webex.com/oecdwash/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=662940785.

While the Obama administration’s response to PIAAC may be somewhat muted due to the shutdown, it will be worth watching how the findings are framed when administration folks do comment on it. Remember that they have several high-profile education priorities on the table right now—universal pre-K and a slew of higher education proposals. I suspect Secretary Duncan will want to use this opportunity to tie the PIAAC findings to these two administration priorities. What kind of message they will have about adult education and adult literacy (if any) remains to be seen.