Coalition Hopes to ‘Accelerate' Career Training, Apprenticeships
Hoping to promote the growth of career training and apprenticeships, a coalition including five governors and major labor unions have come together to align career training and push for national policy change.
The American Federation of Teachers, the nation's second-largest teachers union, and CareerWise USA, which runs apprenticeship programs for high-schoolers in five states, announced the Education and Apprenticeship Accelerator late last month.
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The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades and the governors of California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania have also joined the coalition.
Its goal is to improve and expand Career Technical Education (CTE) both in high schools and community colleges and create more student internships and apprenticeships where students are paid to both work and go to school. Only about 5% of high school students nationally have a chance at an internship or apprenticeship, estimates available show.
AFT President Randi Weingarten said the union sees a need to shift away from the 'college for all' mindset of the last 20 years, and be a part of giving students other ways to prepare for work and life.
'Look how many kids we've seen in schools that feel totally at sea,' said Weingarten, who also called for changes in a May 6 New York Times opinion piece 'Stop Trying to Make Everyone Go to College.'
Instead of working independently and sometimes at cross-purposes, which has kept the number of opportunities for students low, CareerWise founder Noel Ginsburg said the new partnership will help government, business and schools work together in support of training efforts.
Challenges include aligning school and work schedules, finding transportation for students between work and school, giving students course credit for work-based learning and making sure students are working in fields that are hiring.
Both Ginsburg and Weingarten said the states can serve as laboratories to find the right formulas to succeed, then the partnership can promote them and find a common plan that covers all states.
'This is intended to truly create…examples for the country in multiple states that can show how this matters,' Ginsburg said.
'We'll bring resources to it, both financial, technical and consulting, to enable these states to accelerate faster, to make this happen,' Ginsburg said. '(We'll) bring these systems together so that our gears aren't grinding, that they are connected and, in fact, we're moving forward.'
Governors of the participating states echoed the call for improving training opportunities for students.
Apprenticeships are common in Europe, with more than half of students in countries like Switzerland participating. Apprenticeships In the U.S. usually start after high school, instead of the equivalent of junior year in Europe, and have traditionally been in construction trades.
But apprenticeships across the country have been growing in recent years and in other fields, particularly health care, information technology and advanced manufacturing. New U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has also voiced support of the Swiss apprenticeship system on social media, and has called for more CTE, apprenticeships and tuition assistance for career training.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April calling for a million more apprenticeships. But the administration also shut down a Department of Labor advisory panel on apprenticeships that Ginsburg had a major role on and put a 'pause' May 29 on Job Corps, a training program for 25,000 young people a year, a decision that is being challenged in court.
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