Brent Parton was the deputy director of the Center on Education & Labor at New America. The Center is dedicated to building learning-based pathways to economic opportunity that can begin inside or outside of formal higher education. His work focused on federal and state policies to scale up those pathways and ensure their quality and relevance within an evolving economy.
Prior to New America, Parton served as a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Labor, where he advised leadership on a range of skills issues including the expansion of apprenticeship, the design of investments in regional industry-workforce partnerships, and the enhancement of federal interagency coordination on skills initiatives. Before joining the Department, Parton worked at the National Governors Association, where he led the development of a new portfolio focused on supporting state strategies to expand high-quality work-based learning, and provided technical assistance to state leaders to align workforce, post-secondary education, and economic development policy and strategy. Parton also worked in the education sector of the World Bank, co-authoring a book on entrepreneurship education and training, and supporting policy dialogue related to skills and youth employment. Before that he led a start-up, non-profit organization focused on engaging youth in health care policy, and taught English in Shenzhen, China.
Parton has a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in international education policy, both from Vanderbilt University, where he is also an adjunct professor.