Friday, January 18, 2013
As AME refocused its vision for 2013, one of the key initiatives created is “Manufacturing as a desirable career path.” Part of that initiative includes advocating for educated candidates to fill the shortage of skilled workers that manufacturing is currently experiencing.
Glenn Marshall, AME Regional Director, from Newport News Shipbuilding has been chosen to guide AME’s role in contributing to facilitating progress in finding and educating tomorrow’s manufacturing leaders.
The following are key points that Marshall has shared that have been created to drive manufacturing in the right direction. We look to cover this initiative more thoroughly inTarget magazine in upcoming issues.
Educational & Economic Challenges
- The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, Partnership for 21st Century Skills and the Society for Human Resource Management, which looks at the readiness of new entrants to the workforce.
- The future workforce is here—and it is woefully ill-prepared for the demands of today’s (and tomorrow’s) workplace.
- Only 71 percent of secondary school students graduate on time with a diploma, meaning that every year 1,230,000 students fail to graduate from secondary school.
- At the height of the recession, 32 percent of manufacturers reported that they had jobs going unfilled for lack of skilled workers.
- And 84 percent of manufacturers reported the K-12 school systems were doing an inadequate job of preparing students for the workplace. In the next five years, college graduates will continue to increase in number among new hires.
- About 40 percent of secondary school graduates lack the literacy skills employers seek.
- The 25 fastest growing professions have far greater than average literacy demands, while the fastest declining professions have lower than average literacy demands.
- Some 70 to 80 percent of the prison population cannot read and write properly has a significant cost on the individuals and society.
Solution
- The Literacy Education for All, Results for the Nation (LEARN) Act can help address the need for schools to produce literate career ready citizens.
- The LEARN Act will benefit students who are at risk for literacy failure: struggling readers, English language learners, economically disadvantaged youth, dyslexia students and students with specific learning disabilities (SEEDS) students. The LEARN Act can address reading proficiency by ensuring students have the skills demanded in the 21st century: the ability to read for knowledge, to write for understanding, and to think critically about what is read. Reading is the foundational skill without which math, science and all education and economic attainment becomes unattainable.
- The Roadmap to Education Reform for Manufacturing released by the Manufacturing Institute is a comprehensive blueprint for education reform designed to develop and help recruit the 21st century talent critical for manufacturers to sustain and grow global competitiveness.
- The report lays out six principles for innovative reform, including moving to competency-based education; establishing and expanding industry-education partnerships; infusing technology in education; creating excitement for manufacturing careers; applying manufacturing principles like “lean” to reduce education costs; and, expanding successful youth development programs.
Return on Investment
- High-quality preschool programs have a high returned on every dollar invested —from $3 to as many as $17. The 1,230,000 nongraduates each year cost the Nation more than $319,000,000,000 in lost wages and taxes over the lifetime for nongraduates.
- More than 2.2 million people are in state and federal prisons and local jails, many in facilities funded by states at year ending 2010 — and a another 4.9 million adults at year-end 2009 were on probation or on parole, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
Deployment Plan
- Increase the awareness of the shortage of “literate career ready citizens” and the burden on society, taxpayers, and global competiveness.
- Producing literate career ready citizens is offset by not subsidizing dropouts/ prisoners
- Engage a consortium of leaders and policymakers to pass the LEARN Act
- Manufacturers actively engage with the educational system to drive curriculums
- Career Pathways and STEM Skills become part of the regular curriculums
- Teachers of Reading and Math will be certified and reward for those credentials
