Education and Training in an Era of Creative Destruction

Revised: March 2001

WP 00-13/R – Over the course of the 20th century, the U.S. economy has moved from rote to creativity, from a mass production workforce to a white-collar workforce whose focus is developing new products for sale.

A previous version of this working paper was originally published in 2000.

In the process, economic change has been accelerated, so that our educational process and goals are increasingly inappropriate. As an example, even the intensive education of medical doctors is inadequate to the current pace of change. In this paper, the author delineates the impact of the electronic revolution that has automated routine and made creativity more profitable and therefore more powerful. The author examines the high school movement 1910–1940 and the college movement 1940–1970 as successful responses to technological challenges that increased equality. The author then attempts a tentative discussion of the electronic revolution's impact on the educational process.

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