Alternative System for Registered Apprenticeships

Mary Alice McCarthy was quoted in Inside Higher Ed about President Trump's executive order concerning apprenticeships. 

While a broad range of experts and industry groups praised the administration’s focus on apprenticeships, some worried about opening up the federal process to outside players.

“What is the purpose of this alternative system? It’s not clear that they’re solving any problems with it,” said Mary Alice McCarthy, director of the Center on Education and Skills with the education policy program at New America and a former official at the U.S. Education and Labor Departments. “Apprenticeship has some very clear standards. That’s why it works so well.”

McCarthy said possible problems with relaxing and outsourcing federal standards for apprenticeships include confusion, fragmentation and potentially registering programs that are too short term or that fail to yield portable credentials. Likewise, U.S. Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia, who is the top Democrat on the House education committee, said in a written statement that the order fails to "maintain necessary quality controls and accountability requirements."