Good article, polytechnics instead of Discovery Math .... but:

" .. Add to this, new threats such as automation that have the potential to disrupt employment further..."
Having spent my entire career in high tech industry "automation" has been happening certainly since I was a still wet behind the ears graduate some 50 years ago. First there was machine tool automation based on mechanical logic built by highly skilled tool&die craftsmen. Later electronic logic and computer driven systems were implemented - ending with our current pervasive infrastructure of vast computational, data bank, and Internet based communications. All of this involved getting one's hands and brains "dirty" to get the stuff to actually work !

Thus a polytechnic education is the foundation of modern industry in whatever form. Sadly it would seem our education system is only now waking up to this fact.