Harnessing America's Wasted Talent: A New Ecology of Learning (review)

Following the publication of his 2004 book, The Quiet Crisis: How Higher Education Is Failing America (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass), Peter Smith felt a growing concern that his appeals for higher education reforms would not meet the needs of today's adult learners. As a result, he developed Harnessing America's Wasted Talent as a "fundamental rethinking of the enterprise" (p. xiv).

In the book's preface, as the central theme underlying his proposals, Smith pulls from NECS-IPEDS data and describes the Law of Thirds. Ten years after entering ninth grade, roughly one-third of students have not graduated from high school, another third have graduated from high school but have not entered college, and the remaining third enter college, with approximately 60% attaining at least an associate's degree. Smith charges that traditional higher education institutions should focus on the population that enters college, working to improve the retention and graduation rates of these students.

He argues that the "middle third," those who obtain a high school diploma but have no college experience, will not be served by our current higher education institutions, as the traditional model of higher education is not structured to meet that population's educational or workforce training needs. Lastly, Smith claims that the final third of these students—those who do not graduate from high school—must be significantly reduced by our K-12 system. Appropriately, Smith's concept of thirds extends to the book's organization, which is divided into three parts: (a) the status of our workforce and the reasons why our current approach to higher education cannot help us solve the current shortage of skilled workers; (b) academic conventions that frustrate and prevent students—particularly adult students—from achieving a college degree; and (c) a new "ecology" of learning.

In Part 1, "The Law of Thirds," Smith argues that our society ignores current workforce talent. He outlines the related costs during a period in which we are creating more high-skilled jobs than people educated to fill them. Based on his experiences as a political leader and as president of the Community College of Vermont and California State University, Monterey Bay, Smith claims that the solution to this dilemma is a focus on the more than 40 million American adults with high school diplomas, some college-level experience, and a wealth of "personal learning" (p. 36) and skills that should be acknowledged, certified, and put to use. These adult learners find higher education inaccessible from multiple perspectives—psychologically, experientially, physically, academically, and financially—and they hit a personal and professional "success ceiling" as a result (pp. 14-15).

However, Smith asserts that colleges and universities are ill equipped to serve adult and other learners who have been shut out of the educational system. A lack of trained faculty, limited facilities, and stakeholder resistance are all obstacles that prevent existing higher education institutions from responding to change and meeting these learners' needs.

The third chapter seems to take a hard turn from the others in this section by assessing "The Paradox of Personal Learning." Drawing on Allen Tough's approach to personal learning and Howard Gardner's research on multiple intelligences, Smith states that we must recognize and sanction individual learning experiences that build talent and contribute to our personal and career development. In this chapter and throughout the book, Smith uses personal stories or quotations from bloggers as illustrations of his ideas, proof of a national problem, and justification for a nationwide solution to recognize personal learning. Although these anecdotes can be instructive, taken alone they fail to provide the compelling support his arguments require.

Part 2, "Dangerous Conceits," contains three chapters that analyze "die-hard generational practices in higher education that block the pathway to opportunity for today's adult learners" (p. 48). Smith makes a case for developing personalized learning and curricular experiences...