Pennsylvania has a fragmented, underfunded high school career-related education system. This undercuts success in college and careers for hundreds of thousands of students annually, while exacerbating skill shortages for businesses and throttling Pennsylvania's economy. Pennsylvania also has a legislature that supports career-related education on…

In the 21st century, education has become America's most significant marker of class privilege. People with bachelor's and advanced degrees have mostly prospered, while wages for those with less education have fallen. This divergence in economic fortunes lies at the heart of our country's present economic and political discontents. Federal and…

Youth apprenticeship has emerged as a potential strategy to recruit and train a new generation of early childhood educators. Many in the field hope it will help address teacher shortages, promote the recruitment and retention of diverse candidates, and provide the training and experience needed both to enter the profession and grow into…

Adults who are out of work typically have low levels of education and limited work experience. In response, there has been an increased interest among leaders from the higher education and business communities to expand "earn and learn" opportunities that connect people to both postsecondary education and a career. Apprenticeships are a…

The driving force of California's growing innovation economy is talent. However, there is also a growing mismatch between the type of talent in demand and the type of talent in supply. This paper describes why one of California's best options for closing this talent gap is to expand and modernize the State's apprenticeship system. [Additional…

This document records testimony from a hearing before the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development that was held to discuss expanding options for employers and workers through earn-and-learn opportunities. This hearing is part of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce's ongoing efforts to strengthen the nation's…

The Committee for Economic Development (CED) believes the nation must focus on effective pathways to help students from all backgrounds and educational attainments successfully transition to careers as members of a skilled US workforce. To further that goal, this report looks at three tools to better serve those students whose initial entry into…

Postsecondary workforce development is one of the major innovations of the modern community college. In a workforce approach, curriculum is driven by the needs of local industry, course delivery systems are sufficiently flexible to meet the diverse needs of students and industry, and students experience a mixture of work-based and classroom…

This brief article describes how Alamance Community College, a mid-sized community college sandwiched between two of North Carolina's largest metropolitan markets in Raleigh-Durham and Greensboro-Winston-Salem, has developed several new study programs and initiatives to better service business and industry. Among other things, Almanac has…

The context of this study was to examine factors contributing to significant workforce shortages in building trades in the United States. As it is, recruitment of qualified skilled trades workers is becoming increasingly difficult due to lack of a pipeline of prospective workers, and training programs. The study assumed a theoretical inquiry…

A significant workforce shortage exists in most skilled trades areas in the U.S., but this is especially true in building and construction trades. The number of jobs in the construction industry is expected to grow by almost 20% between 2008 to 2018, while only growing by 11% for all other industries. With the prospect of significant shortages in…

In Australia, like many western countries, there has been a convergence of education policy around a set of utilitarian and economistic approaches to vocational education and training in schools. Such approaches are based on the assumption that there is a direct relationship between national economic growth, productivity and human capital…

Youth transitions to rewarding careers remain a critical problem for America's current and future workforce. In Baltimore, where only one in five graduates of Baltimore City Public Schools matriculates to a four-year college and the unemployment rate for 16 to 19 year-olds is over 40 percent, opportunities to gain meaningful training and work…

Community colleges and businesses have a shared interest in preparing students and existing workers to be successful in their careers. Community colleges seek to educate and train individuals in their community to have the knowledge and skills for current jobs and long-term career opportunities. Employers seek employees with both job-specific…

The National Fund's Young Adult Initiatives aim to test and implement new strategies for targeting America's young adults and share this information so that employers and workforce development can join forces in investing in the millions of young adults across the nation. This case study focuses on promising findings from automotive and…