Education
Quality education is essential to a skilled and competitive workforce. Access to education, coupled with reliable, quality childcare is key for improving economic opportunities for all Americans.
Our education system is failing many students as shown by data that reveals two-thirds of our fourth and eighth graders are unable to read or do math at their grade level. And the United States ranks below a number of other countries in reading and math proficiency. Recognizing the importance of childcare as a key component of the education system is crucial to addressing the current challenges and ensuring that every child has the support they need to thrive.
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6th in Reading
Global Ranking for U.S. Students
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10th in Science
Global Ranking for U.S. Students
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26th in Math
Global Ranking for U.S. Students
Pathways with Purpose Through Career-Connected Learning
The U.S. Chamber Foundation is awarding up to $365K to employer‑led consortia driving stronger K–12 and workforce alignment. This initiative fuels industry‑designed career pathways and high‑quality work‑based learning.
Commerce Meets Classroom
Introducing Commerce Meets Classroom, a series from our K-12 education Senior Manager, Kyle Butler, featuring the business perspective on pressing education issues.
Across our nation’s talent pipeline, we explore the stories of employers investing in the workforce of today and tomorrow to close the skills gap.
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Programs and Initiatives
Latest Content
- The Metro Atlanta Chamber has created a model to convene and unite local businesses, childcare providers, school administrators, and other community leaders to identify what works for their community, increase the state's focus on early childhood education as an economic issue, and advocate with one voice for the right solutions.On Wednesday, April 17, the U.S. Chamber Foundation co-hosted a Twitter chat with Save the Children Action Network (SCAN) to engage a broad audience in a conversation about early childhood education as a critical workforce issue. The goal of the chat was to engage individuals, advocates, and employers across the country in a focused discussion where we could all collectively share the data, stories, and research behind this two-generation challenge. We were thrilled with the turnout.Increasingly human resource professionals are applying supply chain theory to the growing misalignment of talent available to meet 21st century workforce needs. There are a number of drivers at the root cause of this trend, one notable driver being the technological evolution that has dramatically changed the skillset required for workforce demand.Whether new and changing roles are due to modernizing technologies, transformations in how work is organized and carried out within a company, or retraining workers to transition into new jobs because their current jobs are being eliminated, employers must demonstrate leadership in identifying these transitional moments as an opportunity to establish an upskilling strategy to build on existing investments and skill sets.The “Learner Revolution” represents an exhilarating, yet daunting deconstruction of the degree as we know it: a world where a learner will not be tethered to one institution for their degree, where in fact, earning a whole degree will be only one option on a success-focused learner’s menu.The triple bottom line promise of workforce development is clear—good for the worker, good for the employer, good for the community—but to meet that potential, it’s essential to invest in stabilizing the workers we need to upskill, giving them the foundation they need to persist and succeed.In both prosperous and challenging times, there is an ongoing gap that stands in the way of opportunity for many. Maybe we need to stop calling it the skills gap, or we need to collectively redefine what the gap is. No matter what we call it, we can all agree that the time for solving it is now.Although many businesses recognize the economic and human development impacts of investment in early childhood education, there are many that don’t. And those that have chosen to take action can find it difficult to navigate their options and choose a path forward with confidence. The truth is that there are multiple options and you can let your workforce help you narrow down the choices.To close the opportunity divide, cities like Boston are looking to strategic partnerships between employers and workforce and talent development programs to connect underserved youth with the work-based learning experiences that exist in their own community and help equip them with the skills and real-world experience they need to succeed in them.Keeping up with the pace of change in today’s economy is getting harder and harder to do. So instead of trying desperately to keep up, we’re helping change the face of the landscape in which we work entirely. We are partnering with the Chamber Foundation to build demand-driven talent supply chains and design the future of real-time labor market data.
