Building Bridges, Networks & Knowledge in Skilled Trades Education

Since 2020, New America’s Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA) has engaged public and private sector stakeholders to unpack what’s behind the slow growth of youth apprenticeship and work-based learning (WBL) opportunities for youth in the skilled trades. In 2022, following a series of focus groups that surfaced several factors and opportunities, New America launched a Work Group on Youth Apprenticeship & WBL in the Skilled Trades to engage educators, employers, labor representatives, and non-profit leaders in continued discussions about barriers to creating high-quality work-based learning opportunities for youth interested in careers in the skilled trades.  

Over the course of two years, New America convened the 13-member work group in virtual discussions and workshops to support the exchange of ideas, strategies, and resources for expanding and improving high-quality WBL opportunities for young people interested in the skilled trades. 

Year 1

In its first year, group members nominated and debated key challenges that impede their efforts to expand work-based learning at the state and local level. Stigma against the trades, inequitable access to CTE educators and transportation, a lack of consistent funding, and liability and insurance concerns were all named as impediment. But group members agreed that the single biggest shared challenge is the lack of a common language to describe program types, components, requirements, and benefits of WBL, which prevents effective cooperation and ultimately makes it difficult to establish and grow high-quality WBL opportunities. 

The group discussed the gap between their sense that WBL is not well-defined and the fact that nearly every state maintains definitions and policies related to WBL. Group members agreed that states’ detailed and stratified definitions are overly complex for partners operating outside of the formal education system, especially business and employer partners. Drawing heavily on input from employer members, the group identified eight priorities that skilled trades employers have when considering WBL--many of which are not addressed in states’ official definitions or guides. Together, the group developed a customizable resource to help program leaders address these priorities head-on. 

Year 2 

In 2023, the group expressed interest in digging into more of the topics identified in year one and in hearing from guest speakers with expertise on those issues, rather than focusing deeply on one particular challenge. We revisited the members’ original nominations and settled on three popular topics: union leadership, federal funding opportunities, and CTE educator shortages. 

Work group members heard from Zach Boren and Andrew Campbell from the Urban Institute, who presented their findings from Union-Based Apprenticeships for Young People, a research report that looked at programs in Maryland, New Jersey, and Michigan to better understand opportunities for growing opportunities for youth to access more union-affiliated jobs nationwide. The group agreed more engagement across education, work-based learning partners and unions--especially those operating successful apprenticeships--would be beneficial for the field.

The group also met with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s CHIPS Program Office, created following the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. During our conversation, our work group learned how they can blend pre-existing funding opportunities with new and emerging CHIPS opportunities. Group members explored  how the CHIPS Act, directly and indirectly, could support their efforts to increase WBL and employment skilled trades opportunities, and provided feedback on how local program leaders locate partners and access information about funding opportunities. 

During the group’s second year, we also discussed persistent CTE teacher shortages that can make it difficult to provide rigorous coursework to prepare students to succeed in WBL opportunities. CTE educator shortages also impact school systems’ ability to develop and manage WBL programs. While these challenges are not confined to the trades, group members noted that trades fields face unique obstacles in recruiting CTE teachers--for example, group members noted that many skilled trades people are unprepared to transition to teaching because they lack pedagogical training or required credentials. One group member noted that retirees are often cited as an untapped pool of talent for CTE instructors, but skilled trades professionals may be too exhausted for second careers after their physically and mentally demanding first act. And wage differentials were a factor for early- and mid-career trades professionals: Most would have to take a pay cut to move into education. Despite these barriers, the group discussed and exchanged solutions from their states and communities, including flexibility in teaching hours, additional financial incentives, and efforts to simplify CTE educator training models and certification processes (see, for example, New Jersey’s Bridge and Industry Fellows programs, detailed here).

Looking Back, Looking Forward 

Over two years together, the Work Group on Youth Apprenticeship & WBL in the Skilled Trades covered a lot of ground. Individually and as a group, their priorities and perspectives shifted, too. As the two-year initiative wound to a close, we asked members to reflect on these shifts--not only in their own lives, but in the landscape of skilled trades WBL more generally, too. Despite representing a wide range of viewpoints across education and industry, our members shared remarkably consistent perspectives on the field, its progress, and the ongoing challenges facing it. For example: 

What’s improved? 

• More funding: Funding for CTE and WBL has grown since 2020, and group members see and appreciate the new support in their daily work. 
• More, better programs: Additional state and federal funding has allowed CTE programs in some parts of the country to upgrade their learning environments, expand program cohort sizes, and create innovative student learning opportunities--including internships and youth apprenticeship opportunities in the skilled trades and other fields. 
• Increasing interest from students: For some group members, new, stronger programming in a tight labor market is contributing to an uptick in student interest in the skilled trades and WBL in general.
• More support from intermediaries: Intermediaries are playing a larger role in facilitating apprenticeship and WBL, for both youth and adult learners. The new expertise and capacity they bring to education and workforce ecosystems has allowed work-based learning programs to better meet the needs of the skilled trades industry--especially in cases where intermediaries proactively convene employers to identify shared workforce needs and to develop programs that improve training and increase meaningful WBL opportunities. 

What continues to be a challenge?  

• Stigma & talent shortages: Despite encouraging growth, youth WBL is still a long way from offering a meaningful solution to the talent shortages in parts of the skilled trades workforce, particularly in manufacturing and skilled trades, according to group members. And though student interest is growing in some occupations--especially those with links to the green economy--stigmas against careers in the trades persist in many regions. 
• Oversaturation & matching: Skilled trades WBL programs has continued to multiply across the United States; however, group members expressed a concern that competing programs can confuse employers and students, making it difficult to understand which program is the best fit for their respective needs. 
• Unwelcoming work environments: Group members noted that culture change in the industry remains an impediment to equitable, high-quality youth WBL programs. They emphasized the need for resources to help employers learn to create more positive, inclusive work environments and opportunities for continuous on-the-job learning skill development for skilled tradespeople, including early career workers.
• Navigating new investment:  State and federal funding opportunities (i.e. the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal and the CHIPS Act) have provided significant new funds to strengthen workforce pipelines into key industries. Some of this funding can be used to support training programs, apprenticeship, and other forms of work-based learning, but group members confessed it can be difficult to figure out how to access them. And even in cases where it’s clear how an organization might tap into the funds, group members noted raised concerns about increased data reporting requirements and sustainability.

What’s Next for the Group

To celebrate two years of productive discussion and collaboration through the Work Group on Youth Apprenticeship & WBL in the Skilled Trades, members from the group convened in Phoenix, Arizona to attend the ACTE Vision Conference and visit Western Maricopa Education Center (West MEC), a state-of-the-art regional career and technical education campus with a growing set of WBL offerings. It was a chance to connect with one another (after 11 consecutive virtual meetings) and to learn from CTE practitioners from across the U.S., who are equally interested in youth apprenticeship, co-op experiences, and other forms of WBL, if the conference agenda was any indication.

With more than half of U.S. states prioritizing WBL in their Perkins accountability measures, demand for resources to support program development and peer-to-peer learning networks will continue to grow. And with significant public investment in infrastructure projects that will rely on a wide range of skilled tradespeople, the need for new, stronger, more equitable pathways into careers in these fields has never been greater. 

While New America’s Work Group on Youth Apprenticeship & WBL in the Skilled Trades has come to a close, we look forward to continuing to tackle these issues through PAYA and other projects within New America's Center on Education and Labor. Most of all we are grateful for the opportunity to remain connected to our work group members through the PAYA Network, and to continue learning from their experiences and expertise in issues affecting skilled trades education.