The basic skills of reading, writing, and performing simple mathematical operations are not adequate for the non-college bound high school graduates to be fully prepared to enter the job market. Businesses today require employees who can communicate effectively, solve complex and unanticipated problems, and exercise tact and judgment. If the workplace requires that the majority of high school graduates be creative, intellectually flexible, team players, strong communicators, and steeped in a core of common knowledge, then schooling will have to change radically. The old literacy has a mechanistic quality; it can be broken down into little parts and taught one part at a time. The new literacy or thoughtfulness is organic and can only be acquired in social contexts and through social interaction. From the perspective of current educational practice, this new literacy appears to be very difficult to manage or measure and impossible to individualize or standardize. Restructuring of the current school system offers little hope, if society does not believe that the characteristics of the new literacy are essential to education. (DJC)