Twenty-first century challenges

Tom Friedman's column in today's New York Times argues that the indispensable workers of the near future will be those with the imagination and problem-solving skills to take on the structural changes in the economy.

This argument melds well with the presentation I discussed a couple posts ago, by Dr. Yong Zhao of Michigan State University. Friedman says "our schools have a doubly hard task now — not just improving reading, writing and arithmetic but entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity."

We're not going to get there by over-reliance on assessments and just going back to basics. Education has to be in front of this imagination and creativity curve--and that's no small task, particularly in an environment of shrinking school budgets.