That is _both_ a real question (I don't _know_ the answer) AND a rhetorical question: I'm going to assume that the answer is that the economy does _not_ need a more educated populace. It needs a more disciplined and subservient populace.
It is always worthwhile at least _to consider_ that the apparently unintended consequences of a policy are in fact its intended effects. I think, for example, that this is the case in reference to the War on Crime and the War on Drugs launched during the Nixon Administration, part of his 'Bismarckian' policy of concessions (OSHA) combined with heavier repression., Whether this is the case with No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top needs at least, as I say, to be considered.
The effects will be double: (1) the first is on the surface and intended: the breaking of the power of the teachers unions and the subjection of teachers to 'factory' discipline; (2) the elimination of what has traditionally been called a "liberal education" or "training of the mind" and its replacement with a single-minded focus on immediate results. Changes in college policies during the '70s were a result in part at least from the scare the ruling elites got from a relatively well educated population of young workers (for the so-called "youth rebellion" was a working class movement). And those changes were brought about under the banner of "higher standards."
Now, are those effects intended. Ravitch , clearly, was a dupe: she really believed that the policies would enhance the training of the mind, and when the real effects became clear she revolted. But were all the architects of the reforms dupes (or deluded)? Or were at least some in the Administration and in Congress conscious of what the effects would be and consciously intended them?
Carrol