Reskilling America
Subtitle: learning to labor in the twenty-first century
By: Katherine S. Newman, Hella Winston
Contributors: Winston, Hella, author
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 257
ISBN-13: 9781627793285
Copyright date: 2016
Subjects: Occupational training; Vocational education; Skilled labor; Manpower policy
Description: "From Katherine Newman, award-winning author of No Shame in My Game, and sociologist Hella Winston, a sharp and irrefutable call to reenergize this nation's long-neglected system of vocational training. After decades of off-shoring and downsizing that have left blue collar workers obsolete and stranded, the United States is now on the verge of an industrial renaissance. But we don't have a skilled enough labor pool to fill the positions that will be created, which are in many cases technically demanding and require specialized skills. A decades-long series of idealistic educational policies with the expressed goal of getting every student to go to college has left a generation of potential workers out of the system. Touted as a progressive, egalitarian institution providing opportunity even to those with the greatest need, the American secondary school system has in fact deepened existing inequalities. We can do better, argue acclaimed sociologists Katherine Newman and Hella Winston. Taking a page from the successful experience of countries like Germany and Austria, where youth unemployment is a mere 7%, they call for a radical reevaluation of the idea of vocational training, long discredited as an instrument of tracking. The United States can prepare a new, high-performance labor force if we revamp our school system to value industry apprenticeship and rigorous technical education. By doing so, we will not only be able to meet the growing demand for skilled employees in dozens of sectors where employers decry the absence of well trained workers -- we will make the American Dream accessible to all"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-240) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: The limits of the "college solution"; title: A history of ambivalence; title: The new vocational turn in American high schools; title: What industry needs; title: The community college connection; title: What vocational education could be: the German model; title: The math puzzle; title: Bringing the dual system to the United States; title: Where do we go from here?; title: Appendix: What's growing?