Indiana’s New Career Pathway: Preparing More Hoosiers For Success After High School
You don’t have to agree on everything to see an opportunity being presented. Sometimes there’s a good idea, and good ideas should be addressed and discussed and shared. This idea about apprenticeships in the state of Indiana, which goes back to a story in January. About this trip of business leaders who traveled to Switzerland to learn about best practices from a country that’s known for its apprentice A system. And I said I wanted to be on that flight. I want that is fundamental to things we talk about. This is important stuff. I wanted to be on that flight. Well, now we’re seeing what that flight brought. This idea of how to develop 50,000 high school apprenticeships. Claire Fiddian-Green joins me right now. She is the president of the Richard M Fairbanks Foundation, rmff.org. She has been leading up this cause. Claire, it’s good to have you on the show. This stuff is fascinating. This entire apprenticeship program that that that you’ve been working on, and others been working on about how we bring this to the state of Indiana. Start with the basics. Which one did you hear? About what Switzerland was doing and who did you amass for that trip?
Tony, first of all, good morning. Thank you so much for your interest in this and inviting me on your show to talk about this. I am super excited about this, and I couldn’t be more excited about the coalition called the ILAB Indiana that’s been working on this.
We total almost 200 Indiana business, education, government, nonprofit leaders from across the state trying to figure out how we take a bunch of pilot programs that are operating across our state right now and create a statewide system that’s going to serve 10s of thousands of students and hopefully hundreds of employers across our state. So first, learn about the Swiss system in 2016. They are considered the world’s gold standard for preparing young people and adult learners for careers. 65% of their 10th grade students choose to go into a three or a four-year paid apprenticeship starting in the 10th grade. So that’s pretty phenomenal. And then the great thing about it is you don’t just end with learning about a job, you’ve actually been trained broadly about the occupations. You can go on and get additional education training, get promotions. So, it’s really to start a great career.
Now the very idea of apprenticeships is something that has been overlooked in the US for a couple of decades in favor of the concept of you got to have a four-year degree. We have pushed away this. People like Mike Rowe have been front and center on this conversation about the ability to work with one’s hands… about the ability of the need for dirty jobs… are apprenticeships about dirty jobs solely and exclusively?
No, it is not. Great question and I think that is the concept that we have in the United States about what an apprenticeship is actually the way that I like to think about it, and the way they describe it in Switzerland is there’s different types of learners, some people do better when it’s more hands on learning versus more theoretical learning. So, the college pathway which exists in this country and in every country in the world, including in Switzerland, is incredibly important. We’re always going to need people to go to college, but it doesn’t serve 100% of students and it doesn’t meet the need of every employer. So, what they’ve done in Switzerland is build this very robust professional pathway that starts with an apprenticeship in the 10th grade, and it spans the entire economy. So, everything from you learn from how to be a banker, you learn how to do an insurance career, you go into manufacturing, you go into life sciences, construction, you name it. So, it spans the entire economy and that’s exactly what we’re trying to build. Here based off of what are the actual labor market needs in our state and how do we engage businesses in partnership with education to figure out how do we prepare more Hoosiers for our great careers that keep them here in Indiana and pay a great wage to them.
You can read about this story at the IBJ: Indiana coalition rolls out plan to develop up to 50,000 high school apprenticeships. But when I when I go through this and I’m hearing you discuss it there is an argument that certainly I have made repeatedly. That when it comes to how we do education, regardless of whether you’re a believer in the public system, whether you believe in vouchers or private schools, home schooling, etc, that conceptually we have the wrong view if our goal is a foreign language as a requirement versus Home Ec and being able to balance a checkbook. Look, as a requirement, my argument is we’re making a mistake about where the basic skills need to be and how to value those basic skills in order to create a citizenry that has value themselves. The idea that this starts in the 10th grade, nobody thinks that’s too early? What has been the response from the students in these places where it’s tried, Switzerland being the focal point for this conversation.
Yeah. And that’s actually a common belief. I think every time an American goes over to Switzerland, that’s one of the first questions they ask is a 10 grader, especially if you’ve got one at home, you’re raising a teenager. Do you think is it possible that they’re actually going to be professional in the workplace? And the great thing is students rise to the expectations and they do a little bit better when they’re not in their home with their families. And I think that’s the reality here in our country too. I mentioned that we already have pilot programs offer operating in Indiana. In fact, there are seven across our state and the way we’ve done it in Indiana. It started in the 11th grade, and we have 450 apprentices with 100 employers and 40 school partners right now in our state. And I will say I think all those students have risen to the occasion and so have those employers and school partners. So, it is possible, but you actually have to have a systemic approach where you’re helping employers say, “Here’s the appropriate occupation for somebody starting in the 11th grade and here’s what they need to learn, here’s how you need to support them.” Then you, the supervisor at the job place, need to get some training on how do you effectively coach somebody who’s still in high school. So, it is possible, but you can’t be kind of willy nilly, you have to be systemic and organized to make that successful for everybody, right?
I would never argue that a child is better off without his parents around or her parents around the parental involvement, but rather the implementation of responsibility does lead students young. That leads other people to realize that they are capable, and it creates that sense of value that matters. Is there pushback from the tried-and-true educational system, whether it be unions or others, that what you’re looking at here is a detriment to what they do in providing “Education” in the state of Indiana or beyond?
I think the thing that I love about Indiana is that everybody wants to work together to try to improve the lives of Hoosiers. And so, we’ve actually had fantastic partnership from our two- and four-year colleges involved in this initiative in addition to of course the high schools. And we have also had conversations with some of the union representations for some of the sectors we’re engaged in. I think everybody knows that we need to be creating an additional pathway to a college pathway every I already talked about to help train Hoosiers for great careers. So far, I think this has been a win, win. That’s how everyone views this is how do we ensure we’re helping more kids starting in high school. Before they leave high school, figure out what are the great careers available here and how do I get the education and training I need to go into those careers and stay here in Indiana and earn a livable wage versus maybe leave the state to try to find another opportunity.
So no pushback from from the unions themselves?
Everyone has been really up a part of our effort to try to learn about what how it works in Switzerland and how can we take the pilot programs already operating in our state and scale those statewide.
You’ve got 200 Hoosier leaders on board for the plan. Consider me #201 sometimes. It needs a megaphone. I I am down with the idea. Look forward to learning more about it.
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