The idea of a skills gap--a mismatch between skills learned in
school and those required in the jobs created by today's economy
--has received a lot of popular attention. The new workplace is
thought to require workers with higher, more generic skills,
such as problem-solving, decision-making, communication, and
teamwork; and schools are not perceived to be producing students
with these skills. The result, it is argued, is a skills gap
that threatens American productivity and competitiveness. The
following excerpts from NCRVE reports explore and examine this
idea from various perspectives. As usual, there's more going on
behind the popular conception of the skills gap than meets the
eye. It has become commonplace to argue that the workplace has
changed dramatically in response to a new competitive business
environment that is marked by flexibility, fast response time,
and managerial and technological innovations. Work organization
is now, the argument goes, increasingly characterized by the
integration of trad