Enterprising paths for new economy
High-quality career and technical education not only helps address the jobs crisis and the cost of college, it also can improve student engagement in high school. After all, the No. 1 reason for dropouts leaving school is not academic challenges or real life events but not seeing connections between school and career. In California, high schools that have adopted Linked Learning programs — bringing together strong academics, demanding technical education and real-world experiences — are showing improvements in attendance, test scores and graduation rates.Continue Reading
Policymakers have a unique opportunity to transform career and technical education in America from a system that fails to adequately serve low-performing students into a prestigious, enterprising pathway available and attractive to many students.
Congress should prioritize the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. Reforms should include strengthening the link among secondary schools, post-secondary institutions and employers to ensure students are gaining the skills needed for our changing economy and making connections to local employers. Reforms should also support and replicate state efforts to link student transcripts with data on employment and earnings to evaluate the effectiveness of programs in educating and training students for the workforce. Investing in programs that are evidence-based and have a record of success would ensure that limited federal resources support the most effective career and technical programs. Congress must also guarantee that the Department of Education has the necessary resources to evaluate programs.
Enterprising pathways can help boost high school and college graduation rates, close the skills gap, reduce remediation and training costs for employers and prepare a generation for the demands of the new economy.
John Bridgeland and Melody Barnes were former directors of the White House Domestic Policy Council under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, respectively. Both serve on the advisory board of Results for America, an initiative of America Achieves.