We study inbound call centers in fourteen businesses, using interview-based case studies. Contrary to the notion that U.S. businesses are eliminating job security and internal career tracks, these firms still incorporate these features in their job structures, and in many cases businesses that...

Recent policy reports claim the United States is falling behind other nations in science and math education and graduating insufficient numbers of scientists and engineers. Review of the evidence and analysis of actual graduation rates and workforce needs does not find support for these claims....

Improving education should be a priority for the nation, but erroneous interpretations of international test scores may drive economic and competitiveness policy in the wrong direction. When we consider that education testing shows formidable US strength as the largest producer of top-scoring...

There is widespread and growing concern about the availability of good jobs in the U.S. economy. Inequality has been growing for thirty years and is now at levels not seen since the 1920s. Stable and remunerative employment has become harder for U.S. workers to find. With the widespread plant...

A rational decision is inherently paradoxical because its necessity goes hand-in-hand with its impossibility. Not only is our rationality bounded, as Herbert Simon has so convincingly shown, but we also must make decisions under conditions in which there are no rules by which we can make a...

The relationship between education policy and workforce policy has long been uneasy. It is widely believed in many quarters of American society that the U.S. education system is in decline and, what’s more, that it bears significant responsibility for a wide range of social ills, including...

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgment -- Introduction -- 1. The Engineering Labor Market -- Part I. Engineering Education -- 2. Career Plans of Undergraduate Engineering Students -- 3. Engineering Educational Opportunity -- 4. Bridging the Gaps between Engineering Education and Practice -- Part...