Steve Kangas

In the following viewpoint, Steve Kangas argues that American workers are graduating from public high schools with more than enough fundamental education to perform their jobs. According to Kangas, a glut of college graduates on the labor market has led to a displacement effect in which high school graduates must compete against overqualified workers for employment. What is needed, in the author’s opinion, is not more basic skills education, but apprenticeship programs that teach specialized job skills to the four-fifths of Americans who do not attend college. Before his death in 1999, Kangas maintained a website responding to conservative critics of liberalism on a number of social policy issues.

As you read, consider the following questions:
1. In 1990, what percentage of all college graduates were unemployed or in jobs that did not...