ABSTRACT
The trouble is that if the fi rst proposition-the needs of The Economy-is shaky enough, the second argument, whether true or not, is a questionable public need. The assumption is that more schooling leads to better jobs for individuals; but if a lot of young people get better educated it does not follow that the number of them with better jobs will change, nor that the demographics of who has those better jobs will change. The notion of “closing the gap” even in test scores, much less the gap in who is where on the ladder of success, is suffi ciently absurd, above all at a time of increasing inequalities in all the other indicators of life success.
