Read on Twitter
1/So long-time followers know I'm a bit of an obsessive about the "future of work" conversations and myths in education. Gonna elaborate a little on why, beyond this piece https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/11/06/xq-new-york-city-schools-future-of-work/
2/First these "future of work" discussions and claims are absolutely ubiquitous in education. It's impossible to miss.
3/Some of the claims are "crazy, wild-ass guesses" as I've documented https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/11/06/xq-new-york-city-schools-future-of-work/ (Note: XQ did remove a YouTube video with the made-up 65% stat when I alerted them to it.)
4/But holding aside the more outlandish predictions, what about the simple idea that the economy is changing at a rapid clip? Well let's look at the evidence...
5/Isn't there more technological innovation? Not as far as economists can tell — productivity growth, which should capture that, has slowed since 2000, rather than increased https://brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/04/30/irrational-exuberance-aside-growth-is-slowing/
6/Aren't people changing jobs more frequently? Nope. The opposite. https://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Dynamism-in-Retreat-A.pdf
7/Well at the least, aren't millennials changing jobs more? Nope. The opposite. (People often confuse an age effect with a generational effect.) https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/11/06/xq-new-york-city-schools-future-of-work/
8/Aren't there more tech start up? Actually there are fewer start ups. https://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Dynamism-in-Retreat-A.pdf
9/Aren't the types of jobs that people have changing at a rapid rate? Sure, it's changing, but at a *slower* rater than previous decades. https://www.clevelandfed.org/en/newsroom-and-events/publications/economic-commentary/2019-economic-commentaries/ec-201909-changes-in-us-occupational-structure.aspx
10/Ok, but there's definitely been a rapid rise in the gig economy ... right? Nope. There may (or may not) have been a small rise, but previous estimates were likely over-stated. https://www.epi.org/publication/nonstandard-work-arrangements-and-older-americans-2005-2017/ + https://www.nber.org/papers/w25425
11/So why does all of this matter? To be clear I'm not saying the economy isn't changing (it certainly is in some ways), or that we should be confident that innovation and automation won't increase in the future or that schools shouldn't change.
12/But at the least we should have a fact-based discussion on this. Right now for instance, NYC teachers interested in starting news schools are still being led to a resource that offers a demonstrably misleading claim https://newyork.xqsuperschool.org ---> https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d8cfd6e2626e64bdc70c85d/t/5d93a559a6347f3e8cfcb7b9/1569957239598/XQ_KnowledgeModules_Students%2Bin%2Bthe%2B21st%2BCentury.pdf
13/13 And I think some reflection is in order for education futurists: Why do a number of these misleading claims continue to crop up over and over again? And what about all of the countervailing evidence? For more: https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/11/06/xq-new-york-city-schools-future-of-work/
14/13 A correction on this Tweet (flagged to me by XQ's communications director): XQ removed a YouTube video claiming that 85% of the jobs of 2030 had not been invented yet (not 65%) https://twitter.com/matt_barnum/status/1192848075733241858
15/13 Check out these screenshots to follow the citation trail (and see this valuable piece https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2018/12/28/the-myth-of-jobs-that-dont-exist-yet/#f320ac370ec0). I contend that this figure was for all intents and purposes made up — but it is important to note that XQ did a cite source for this, just not a credible one.
