Blog

As the labor market tightens and the pace of technological change continues to accelerate, it’s becoming an increasingly common theme that the traditional “one-and-done” model of education is over. As a result, employers, policymakers, and analysts alike are increasingly calling for new approaches to lifelong learning that will help upskill and re-skill individuals to compete and succeed in a fast-changing economy. In this shifting landscape education and workforce organizations are joining forces to experiment with new models with the potential to create pathways to opportunity and economic mobility. 

Finding the right childcare provider for your family is a personal choice, and not one that can be outsourced very easily. Child Care Aware® of America Executive Director Lynette Fraga, PhD, spoke with Scott MacFarlane of NBC Washington about some specific questions parents can ask, ways to assess your unique family needs, and how to understand and develop an ongoing relationship with your childcare provider.

In his 2008 book “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell wrote that “ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.” The meaning behind this, in theory, is simple. To be considered elite and truly experienced within a certain craft, you must practice it for ten thousand hours. For many looking to join the American workforce today, the chance to start working towards “the magic number of greatness” is out there, it’s just a matter of finding that opportunity. And as Chamber Foundation vice president Jason Tyszko recently wrote, those pathways to opportunity should be co-designed. 

We are in an economy that competes on talent. The business community succeeds or fails based on its ability to find and develop a consistent and reliable pipeline of high-quality talent. Thus the business community is very interested in what is taught in our nation’s postsecondary institutions. Rather than an intrusion on postsecondary education’s mission, it is a realization that what postsecondary education does and does not do has a real impact on the success of the business community and the competitiveness of the United States.