Reskilling America: A New Plan for the 21st Century Economy
What can we do for self-motivated Americans?
Challenge: Our high schools (and many university programs) don’t teach students lessons directly applicable to the job market. This lack of relevant education for the working class degrades our corporate ability to drive world markets. It further undermines our economic competitiveness and social cohesion.
Around two-thirds of Americans don’t attend or don’t graduate from college. These two-thirds make up the approximately 100 million person working class.
Many in this group find work they love and earn a good living. Others struggle to make ends meet and never get their heads above water. Some of these working-class Americans have the desire to achieve their way to a better future, but their lives present challenges they can’t overcome.
I can see an America where we don’t have to give up on our pursuit of happiness if we fall short of our goals.
We don’t owe anyone the right to a brighter future. There is no government handout for success. But we owe ourselves the chance to earn a better future. Earning something is just that—hard work and diligence that, over time, turns the tide in our favor.
Only some people will take this opportunity. For those who would put in the time and effort, I look forward to seeing their profound success and impact on the nation.
Employee wages must be higher for working Americans to meet basic subsistence requirements, such as housing, food, clean water, and heat. American workers know that to earn more, they need to offer more.
Workers need to earn a better living than many can attain today. 74% of American workers can’t afford to buy a median-priced home. News to no one: home prices have exceeded inflation by a staggering amount.
Working Americans face this reality every day. They work hard but can’t afford to own a place they can call home. They struggle to pay their bills, feed their families, and save for the future.
How would workers earn a better living? Either from pay for their work or payments from the government. Pay for their work is the obvious choice here.
Working Americans share this aspiration every day. They want to earn their living. They want to be rewarded for their efforts and achievements and not depend on handouts or charity. They want to be self-sufficient and proud of their work.
What do workers need to increase their pay? They need to bring value to their job site. American workers know that to earn more, they need to offer more. They need the knowledge, skills, and experience employers demand and customers appreciate.
How would they bring value to their job site? By walking in with relevant education, training, and experience.
Where would they get this education, training, and experience? A fascinating question.
Companies need knowledgeable and experienced professionals to help them innovate.
Innovation is a change to something established. One way to innovate is to view the world through an entirely different lens. Innovators challenge assumptions and norms that limit our possibilities. They ask bold questions, seek novel answers, and explore new perspectives. Innovation is an attitude—a mindset.
One can also innovate by understanding a process and repeatedly improving it. The end process may no longer resemble the original. Innovators apply design thinking principles, lean management, and agile development to create value for customers and stakeholders. The key word here is iterative.
To illustrate how innovation might work in practice, here is a rudimentary example from the American manufacturing industry. American manufacturing needs workers who can program CNC machines and understand belts, dies, and proximity sensors. They also need workers who can problem solve in a cost-efficient manner. Scenario: a semi-truck is on the way to pick up today’s order. The driver is burning gas and hours, both of which cost money. The manufacturing facility has an equipment failure that will prevent today’s order from being ready when the driver arrives. Is it possible to fill some of the next day’s order instead (with different product) and send the remainder of today’s order on a future date when workers resolve the maintenance problem?
Not too hard a concept to understand, but not something we teach in any high school class. And if we aren’t teaching basic concepts, how do we expect to drive global innovation?
By giving students the opportunity to learn about real-world problems and develop potential solutions, we can help them develop the skills they need to innovate and succeed in the workforce.
Some background for context. All told, I have around ten years of education beyond high school. I believe in education as a means to improve how we think, and I believe in education as a means to open opportunities.
However, none of my education exceeds the value a different institution brought to my perspective. That institution is the Air Force Weapons School. I was both a student and later taught at the Weapons School.
The Weapons School intends to create weapon system experts, instructors, and leaders of their domains. It is a grueling 6-month instructor course in the Nevada desert. Graduates of the Weapons School return to their units and provide world-class instruction to the rest of their team members.
The Weapons School curriculum is straightforward. Instructors teach students an educational curriculum for around two to four days. At the end of these education days, the instructors present the students with a relevant problem. The students then develop potential solutions to this problem that they teach the instructors and often demonstrate in a weapons platform such as a fighter jet. This model repeats throughout the 6-month course.
In this process, the students have to learn the material (so they can teach it back) and think at a high level about today’s problems and different solutions. It’s relatively common at the Weapons School for a high-ranking official to visit for several days to help the students walk through a problem set.
Should we put high school kids through a Weapons School-like curriculum? Not exactly. The Weapons School is an intense course for professionals. However:
Suppose instructors teach students a couple of months of this iterative education. Following this period, would a business trying to find new hires visit an education and training center and teach students about their business? How about walking them through a problem set their company has and later listening to student proposals? How about offering these talented students jobs when they complete the program?
Let’s recap our situation, our “why”:
Our high schools (and many university programs) don’t teach students lessons directly applicable to the job market. This lack of relevant education for the working class degrades our corporate ability to drive world markets. It further undermines our economic competitiveness and social cohesion.
Employee wages must be higher for working Americans to meet basic subsistence requirements, such as housing, food, clean water, and heat. American workers know that to earn more, they need to offer more.
Companies need knowledgeable and experienced professionals to help them innovate.
By giving students the opportunity to learn about real-world problems and develop potential solutions, we can help them develop the skills they need to innovate and succeed in the workforce.
What are our goals now that we’re on the same page regarding the double gap in business and employee capability?
From previous articles, our objective and guidelines:
Objective: Achieve a strong, innovative American workforce that can drive world markets.
Guidelines:
Set conditions that enable Americans to provide for their own basic needs.
Consider what we can do for self-motivated Americans.
Focus on options that are not a significant burden on the American taxpayer.
How are we going to do this?
We need to:
Create a network of training and education innovation hubs. With support from local communities, we need to use the nation’s community college infrastructure as an initial base.
Partner with academia to enable students with no education beyond high school to acquire training and professional certifications upon completing the programs.
Partner with businesses to create relevant and engaging educational materials.
What are we going to do?
We must bridge the divide between high school and high-level job performance for working Americans of all ages. What if you need to transition jobs mid-career and need to build skills? We can’t focus on only graduating high school seniors.
We must establish baseline requirements, such as childcare at the training and education hubs. Would we exclude a mother who got pregnant in high school from being able to participate in the program? Or a father who works nights to be able to attend in the morning, even though his wife is at work herself? No.
We need to offer classes twice a day. Students focused on education and training might be able to attend during the day, but workers who have day jobs and want to expand their skills can’t. Not all these classes need live lectures; there could be course facilitators with recorded and guest lecturers. The course facilitators further need to proctor exams.
This education and training must bridge the gap between high school and the professional world. Subjects such as statistics which may be glanced over in high school may need further explanation for a program intended for topics such as data analysis.
The courses need laser-focused only on topics necessary for high job performance. Classes such as humanities, though arguably important, are optional to perform at a high level in many occupations.
Students need to be able to complete the education and training programs in six to nine months, with no summer or other breaks, depending on the desired job occupation.
Business sponsors could teach portions of the class as exercises. As a part of the education and training programs, these business sponsors could further sponsor career days during the programs.
As a test bed, we should start with two test programs: data analysis and manufacturing. These are two areas where there is a high demand for skilled workers, and they are also areas where there is a lot of potential for innovation. With the data analysis program, we could demonstrate the capability of distributed training to reach across rural America into remote community college classrooms nationwide. We could show manufacturing innovation with a program specific to large manufacturing hubs to expand job training in those areas.
We need to build American worker capability. Capability is infrastructure. We, the people, are responsible for funding infrastructure.
Our lack of relevant training for the working class degrades our corporate ability to drive world markets. Companies need knowledgeable and experienced professionals to help them innovate.
Our need for more relevant worker training is an infrastructure deficiency. We build roads and bridges to enable citizens and businesses to move goods and provide services. Businesses have a vested interest in the infrastructure that is having a skilled workforce.
We need to build American worker capability. Capability is infrastructure.
We could fund this initiative through a public-private partnership.
The federal government could provide seed funding, and then states or private businesses could contribute additional funding as the program grows.
What can we do for self-motivated Americans?
We can teach American workers with no formal education past high school lessons directly applicable to the job market. This relevant education will bolster our corporate ability to drive world markets and support economic competitiveness and social cohesion.
We can justify raising employee wages to meet basic subsistence requirements, such as housing, food, clean water, and heat. American workers will offer more to their employers and will be able to earn more.
We can help companies hire knowledgeable and experienced professionals to help them innovate.
We can enable students to earn the opportunity to develop the skills they need to innovate and succeed in the workforce.
We can build American worker capability. Capability is infrastructure. We, the people, are responsible for funding infrastructure.
Thanks for considering my perspective.
May God bless the United States of America.
