The biggest "infrastructure" challenge for the United States in the next decade is not the billions needed for railroads, highways and energy. It is the American school system, from kindergarten through the Ph.D. program and the postgraduate education of adults. And it requires something far scarcer than money - thinking and risk-taking.
The challenge is not one of expansion. On the contrary, the rapid growth in enrollment over the last 40 years has come to an end. By 1978, more than 93 percent of young people entering the labor force had at least an eighth-grade education. So even if the birthrate should rise somewhat, little expansion is possible for elementary and secondary school enrollments.
The last 30 years social upheaval are also over. Busing will continue to be highly emotional issue in a good many large cities. And there will still be efforts to use schools to bring women into fields such as engineering that have traditionally been considered "male." But this shift has already been accomplished in many fields: half or more of the accounting students in graduate schools of business, for example, are now women. As for most other social issues, the country will no longer try to use schools to bring about social reform. It's becoming increasingly clear to policy makers that schools cannot solve all the problems of the larger community.
Instead, the battle cry for the '90s will be the demand for performance and accountability. For 30 years, employers have been hiring graduates for their degrees rather than their abilities; employment, pay and often even promotion have depended on one's diploma. Now many major employers are beginning to demand more than the completion of school. Some of the major banks, for example, are studying the possibility of entrance examinations that would test the knowledge and abilities of graduates applying for jobs.
Students and parents, too, will demand greater accountability from schools, on all levels. It will be increasingly common to go to law against school districts and colleges for awarding degrees without imparting the skills that are supposed to go along with them. And many young people are already switching to practical "hard" subjects. Caring little about the so-called "youth culture" and the media, they have been shifting from psychology into medicine, from sociology into accounting and from black studies into computer programming.
Demand for education is actually going up, not down. What is going down, and fairly fast, is demand for traditional education in traditional schools.
Indeed, the fastest growing industry in America today may be the continuing professional education of highly schooled adults. Much of it takes place outside the education establishment - through companies, hospitals and government departments that run courses for managerial and professional employees; or through management associations and trade associations. In the meantime, any number of private enterprises are organizing courses, producing training films and tapes and otherwise taking advantage of growth opportunities that universities shy away from.
The demand for continuing education does not take the from that most observers, including this writer, originally expected - namely, "Great Books" classes for adults wanting to learn about the humanities, the arts, the "life of the mind." We face instead a growing demand for advanced professional education: in engineering and medicine, in accounting and journalism, in law and in administration and management.
Yet the adults who come back for such studies also demand what teachers of professional subjects are so rarely able to supply: a humanistic perspective that can integrate advanced professional and technical knowledge into a broader universe of experience and learning. Since these new students also need unconventional hours - evenings, weekends or high-intensity courses that stuff a term's work into two weeks - their demands for learning bring a vague but real threat to the school establishment.
The greatest challenge to education is likely to come from our new opportunities for diversity. We now have the chance to apply the basic findings of psychological, developmental and educational research over the last 100 years: namely, that no one educational method fits all children.
Almost all children are capable of attaining the same standards within a reasonable period of time. All but a few babies, for instance, learn to walk by the age of two and to talk by the age of three, but no two get there quite the same way.
So too at higher levels. Some children learn best by rote, in structured environments with high certainty and strict discipline. Others gain success in the less structured "permissive" atmosphere of a "progressive" school. Some adults learn out of books, some learn by doing, some learn best by listening. Some students need prescribed daily doses of information; others need challenge and a high degree of responsibility for the design of their own work. But for too long, teachers have insisted that there is one best way to teach and learn, even though they have disagreed about what that way is.
A century ago, the greatest majority of Americans lived in communities so small that only one one-room schoolhouse was within walking distance of small children. Then there had to be "one right method" for everybody to learn.
Today the great majority of pupils in the United States (and all developed countries) live in big cities with such density that there can easily be three or four elementary schools - as well as secondary schools within each child's walking or bicycling distance. This enables students and their parents to choose between alternative routes to learning offered by competing schools.
Indeed, competition and choice are already beginning to infiltrate the school system. Private schools and colleges have shown an unusual ability to survive and develop during a period of rising costs and dropping enrollments elsewhere. All this presents, of course, a true threat to the public school establishment. But economics, student needs and our new understanding of how people learn are bound to break the traditional education monopoly just as trucks and airplanes broke the monopoly of the railroads, and computers and "chips" are breaking the telephone monopoly.
In the next 10 or 15 years we will almost certainly see strong pressures to make schools responsible for thinking through what kind of learning methods are appropriate for each child. We sill almost certainly see great pressure, from parents and students alike, for result-focused education and for accountability in meeting objectives set for individual students. The continuing professional education of highly educated adults will become a third tier in addition to undergraduate and professional or graduate work. Above all, attention will shift back to schools and education as the central capital investment and infrastructure of a "knowledge society."
下一个十年美国所面临的最大的"基础设施"的挑战并不是铁路、公路和能源所需的几十亿美元，而是美国的教育体制，从幼儿园到哲学博士的培养项目，到成人的研究教育。而且它需要的是比金钱更难得的东西--思考和冒险。
这种挑战并不在于推广。相反，近40年来，招生人数的迅速增长已经结束。到1978年，加入劳动大军的93%以上的年轻人至少受过8年教育。因此，即使出生率有所上升，中小学入学人数不可能有大的增长。
过去30年的社会动荡也要结束了。在许多大城市校车接送学生仍将是个极富感情色彩的问题。还需要继续作努力，利用学校让妇女们进入一些传统上被认为是"男性"的领域，诸如工程之类。但这种转换在许多领域已经完成了。例如，现在在商业研究生院半数或半数以上的会计专业的学生都是女性。至于大多数其他的社会问题，国家将不同志利用学校引起社会变革。决策者们越来越清楚地认识到学校不可能解决较大社会范围内的全部问题。
相反，90年代的强烈呼声将是要求工作表现和能够承担责任。30年来，雇主们雇佣毕业生是因为其学历而不是看其能力；职业、薪水、甚至提升一直依赖文凭。现在许多大的雇主已经开始不仅仅注重学历了。例如，一些大银行正在研究进行入行考试的可能性，以此来测试求职者的毕业生的知识和能力。
学生和家长们也将在各个层次对学校的责任提出更高的要求。因为学区和学院只授予学位而不传授必要技术而诉诸于法律的事将越来越普遍。许多年轻人已经开始转向具有实用性的、"过硬的"学科。他们不大关心所谓的"青年文化"和媒介，已经在从心理学转向医学，从社会学转向会计学，从黑人研究转向计算机程序设计，
对教育的要求实际上正在提高，而不是下降。正在下降，而且争剧下降的是传统学校中对传统教育的要求。
实际上，当今美国增长最快的行业可能是对受过不少教育的成年人的继续职业教育。很多这类教育是在教育机构之外进行的--通过公司、医院和政府部门，这些单位为其雇佣的管理人员和专业人员开设课程，或者通过管理协会或行业协会进行。与此同时，或多或少的私人企业也在组织课程，制作用于培训的影片和磁带并且以其他方式利用各种大学避而不用的增长机会。
对继续教育的要求不采用包括本文作者在内的大多数观察者原先所想象的形式--即给想了解的人文学科、艺术以及心智活动的成年人用"大部头书"上课。我们面临的而是对高级职业教育日益增长的要求：在工程与医疗、会计与新闻、法律与行管方面。
然而回来进行这类学习的成年人所要求的东西却是专业课程的老师很少能提供的：一种能把先进的专业技术知识融汇到经验和常识的更广阔的普遍体系中的人文主义的观点。由于这些新学生还需要非常规的时间--晚上、周末或者说把一个学期的任务挤到两周的高强度课程--他们的学习要求给学校的体制带来一种不明确的但又是真正的威胁。
对教育的巨大挑战可能来自于我们在多样性中选择的新机会中。现在我们有机会利用过去100年来心理学、发展和教育等方面研究的基本成果。即没有一种教育方式适合所有的孩子。
在一段合理的时间内，几乎所有的孩子都能达到同样的标准。例如，除了极小数婴儿外，所有的孩子都能在两岁时学会走路，三岁时学会说话，但是没有两个孩子是以同样的方式达到这一标准的。
在较高的层次上也是如此。在非常稳定和严格的纪律构成的环境里，有的孩子是靠死记硬背学习的。有的孩子是在"进步"学校规则不甚严格的"随意"气氛中取得成绩的。有的成年人从书本中学习，有的从实践中学习，有的则靠听就能学得最好。有的学生需要规定每天要获取的一些信息；有的需要挑战，为他们的工作设计出高标准的要求。但是很久以来，教师们一致认为，教与学有一种最佳的方式，尽管他们对那种方式产生了分歧。
一个世纪前，绝大多数美国人所居住的社区是如此之小，以至于小孩步行的范围内只有一间房的校舍。那时只有"一种好方式"供大家学习。
今天，美国绝大多数的孩子生活在人口稠密的大城市里，每个孩子步行或骑车所能到达的范围内不难找到三、四所小学和中学。这使学生以及家长们能够在竞争中的各个学校所提供的不同的学习机会中进行选择。
实际上，竞争和选择已经开始渗透到学校的体制中。私立中学和大学在其他地方学费上涨，入学人数下降的时候展示出了非凡的生存和发展能力。当然所有这一切对公立教育体制构成了真正的威胁。但是经济情况、学生的需要以及我们对人们如何学习的理解肯定会打破传统的教育垄断，就像火车和飞机打破铁路的垄断、计算机和芯片正在打破电话的垄断一样。
在下一个10年或15年里，我们几乎会肯定地看到强大的压力迫使学校负责思考什么样的学习方法适合每一个学生这个问题。我们几乎肯定地看到同样来看学生的和家长们的压力，要求提供注重结果的教育，要求负责让每个学生达到所制定的目标，对受过高层次教育的成年人的继续职业教育将是除本科生以及职业或研究生教育之后的第三种教育。更重要的是，注意力将转回到学校和教育上，把它们看作是"知识社会"的重要的基本投资和基础结构。
