Instead, like business, I believe our education system is in the midst of a revolutionary change that eventually will result in a monumental transformation. Peter Joyce American schools now serve more students than ever before, and student performance as measured by most outcomes remains basically the same or improved slightly. In 1960, for example, only 40 percent of students graduated from high school and 8 percent graduated from college. Our schools have shown improvement. Unfortunately, school progress has been incremental in a period of exponential change.
Schools are unable to keep up with the rapid pace of change.
This is precluding them from properly serving all students. Consequently, the number of highly skilled graduates falls short of the number of highly skilled workers our companies need. This situation is most evident in the informational technology industry. According to the Information Technology Association of America, more than 1.6 million private-sector IT jobs were created during the past year. More than half remain unfilled, twice the previous year's figure.