This document is a guidebook for counselors making presentations on how the school community can prepare students for the economic changes of the future. The first section provides a national view of the key forces shaping classrooms and board rooms, stressing the importance of demography and the science of distribution in general. This presentation focuses on: inteerpreting census data to discover large forces to which everyone must adapt; examining obvious facts such as that most of the new jobs will be in the service sector; and the reality of the decline of the middle class in a service-based economy. The second section focuses on particular issues facing western Pennsylvania, including its industrial decline, reasons for optimism, and characteristics of its labor force. This section concludes that job market awareness will have to change to reflect businesses' changing needs. The third section focuses on the shifting role of the school and college counselor in view of the information presented in the previous two sections. Recommendations made include: a broader definition of what constitutes a "good school"; attentiveness to rising dropout and pushout rates and a recommitment to vocational and other non-college preparatory curricula. (ABL)