The testimony presented in this document outlines the productivity lag between the needs of companies and the students who will enter the work force that is evident today within the United States. Manufacturing companies are having difficulty as they try to introduce flexible manufacturing technology. A lack of skill in communication, mathematics, and reasoning, as well as inadequate knowledge of American history and culture are related to student apathy and lack of motivation. Several reasons are given to explain the discrepancy between earnings and productivity on the job. A comparison is made between the American model and the Japanese model of schooling, which reflects American lack of immediate rewards for excellence in high school, no real consequences for poor academic performance during the high school years, the introduction of competition that is not based upon achieving a fixed standard of performance; and a situation where the teachers blame the students and parents for problems, while the students and parents are blaming the teachers. Suggestions are made to improve education: by rewarding learning with individualized learning goals, by restructuring of schoolwide and classroom recognition of that achievement, and by improving the measures of academic achievement with statewide examinations and reforms of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Footnotes, charts, and two pages of references are appended. (LMS)