Education and the Auto Industry: No Exemptions from Productivity Revolutions

The following excerpt from Jim Manzi's recent article in the National Review entitled "Factory Man" brings forward an interesting question. Manzi, an old school manufacturing aficionado reflects upon the decline of agricultural employment as the Industrial age was ushered in as inevitable. Similar market driven changes are obviously being thrust upon the automotive sector. Given that our educational system is also poised for failure, what can be learned from history that will create the demand pull needed to change? More importantly, can it be done fast enough given the fact that there is significant lag time between the output of the eduction system and the real-time impact in the economic markets - can we do it fast enough?

Factory Man
By Jim Manzi
National Review

We need a new vision for schools that looks a lot
more like Silicon Valley than like Detroit: decentralized,
entrepreneurial, and flexible. This will not mean
abandoning traditional, disciplined learning, but rather
incorporating it as a baseline and doing other things as
well. The traditional response is that there are only so
many hours in the day. True, but getting more done per
hour of labor is just another way of saying “increasing
productivity,” and we can’t let education exempt itself
from the ongoing productivity revolution any more
than we can the auto industry.