Workforce Education Research Paper

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Employment in the 21st century will be less about knowledge and more about what one can learn, unlearn and relearn. I believe workforce education in the United States is on the verge is a major paradigm change or a total collapse with the current financial crisis in education causing programs to close and stakeholders to question the return on investment at the high school level of workforce education. The main issue with the paradigm shift is that the quality of instruction within the workforce education program and the preparation of workforce educators do not meet the needs of the 21st Century employee. I am calling for an upgrade to the teacher preparation program that will require all workforce educators to pursue a bachelors degree or higher within ten…show more content…
This first has been well known throughout education and is based on gaps in achievement between the middle class and those from poverty. The second gap exists from what schools are currently teaching and what all students will need to succeed in a global economy (p. 8) Wagner also defines a core set of survival skills that are neither taught nor tested in our best school systems (p. 14). In addition, Wagner states that in order to earn a decent wage in today’s economy, most students will need at least some postsecondary education, training, and skills (p. xx) How do we as workforce education professionals provide the means to attain these survival skills? The first step is to know and understand what these survival skills are and how they are relevant to the global economy in which we now operate. The first survival skill, critical thinking and problem solving, is not taught nor tested within the scope of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act that drives the education system of accountability today. “Yesterday’s solution does not solve tomorrow’s problem” (Wagner, p. 17). A company’s biggest issue will be to determine how we think about problems and how we can work together to think critically to

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