Giving Compass' Take:

· Beth Hawkins explains the need for education to reconsider how it prepares students for the workforce in the 'Age of Agility' and the potential benefits of apprenticeships in place of traditional college. 

· What are the costs of apprenticeships? How have they been shown to affect career readiness? How can donors support the incorporation of apprenticeship programs into high schools across the nation? 

· Here's how apprenticeships are helping students prepare for careers and college.

You might think of Suzi LeVine as the Johnny Appleseed of the workforce of tomorrow. A former Microsoft executive, she was appointed U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein in 2014. Upon arrival, she was blown away by the Swiss model of student apprenticeships, in which young people acquire cutting-edge skills while they are still in what we think of as their high school years.

As ambassador, LeVine persuaded 30 Swiss companies with U.S. facilities to extend those opportunities to students here. Now commissioner of the Washington state Employment Security Department, she continues to seed the idea that the traditional “four by four” model — four years of high school followed by four years of college — is old news.

LeVine was one of a number of speakers who convened to mark the 25th anniversary of the Center on Reinventing Public Education by considering what leaps, conceptual and practical, will be required to provide all students with the skills to both keep up with automation, robotics and artificial intelligence, and ensure a healthy democracy.

Read the full article about reconsidering workforce training in the 'Age of Agility' by Beth Hawkins at The 74.