From The Cornerstone’s “The Shift in American Education”

The Cornerstone, a publication for workforce development professionals, recently published an article called The Shift in American Education. The article expands on the research from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education published in their report called Pathways to Prosperity.

Harvard’s research claims that a national education policy designed to prepare students for post-secondary education is also responsible for our current Skills Gap–the term used to describe the curious fact that the U.S. has both high unemployment numbers as well as a high number of job vacancies.  The problem is not that workers don’t have skills and education. The problem is that their educations are not in fields with jobs available.

The Harvard publication offered a solution: a renewed focus on Career and Technical Education.  The Cornerstone article follows up on efforts to solve the skill gap including the push to renew the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act. The article also shows some exciting evidence that career and technical education is on the rise, and is a working solution to this looming shortage of skilled labor.