To the Editor,

On Page 30 of “The Work Ahead Machines, Skills and U.S. Leadership in the Twenty-First Century,” published by the Council of Foreign Relations, it states “For most Americans, their educational choices will be the most economically consequential decision they make in their lives.”

Local high Schools need to offer the 10 digital skills that can make students instantly employable in 2024. What are digital skills? They include social media, search engine marketing, data analytics, content marketing, e-mail marketing, mobile marketing, strategy and planning, social selling, pay-per-click marketing and video.

From 1910 to 1940, just as modern techniques of mass production were being spread across the country, the number of 14- to 17-year-old Americans attending high school rose from 18 to 73 percent, and high school completion rose from 9 to 51 percent.

Andrew Carnegie ordered a community of a library, a church and a school system that educated of young people enough to work in the factories and mills to make the owners richer and richer with each passing generation, only to now face a setting sun.

A public unionized teaching force with one of the last pensions sends graduating students to a private sector work world where 95 percent-plus enjoy no such benefit. How many who receive their diplomas can explain how a 401(k) plan works or the Rule of 72 — how long it takes a person to double their money? How about how to open a bank account and get a student, car or house loan?

In Brooke County, the media reports that only 40 percent of the graduating class will go on to college, yet secretary and administer assistant jobs now have been listed that four-year college degree is required — but today, only 19 percent who hold those positions today have a college degree.

In “The Work Ahead,” on Page 37, it is reported “60 percent of retail workers are not proficient in reading and 70 percent have difficulty working with numbers.” We cannot educate them to stock the shelves because American corporations have machines to replace those jobs with new AI technology.

On Page 34, it reads, “A change in thinking is needed, from seeing education and work as distinct and separate activities to considering them as closely linked ”

To me, this publication is the window into the future the bible of the workplace of tomorrow. We change the way we teach, the way we learn and what we learn.

Economic history teaches that new jobs will replace the jobs that have been lost.

Michael Traubert

Wellsburg