What I’m Reading
Finally getting to some required reading…
I was in New York last week, visiting family and cosplaying as a real office professional instead of the remote worker I usually am down in Florida. The flights and downtime gave me the chance to dig into some deeper reading on apprenticeships and employer-led workforce development. So here’s a quick roundup of what I’ve been reading and thinking about.
First up: Apprentice Nation by Ryan Craig
This one’s been on my list for a while. It does sort of feel like required reading for someone who’s writing a Substack about apprenticeships. In my defense, I read one of Craig’s previous books (A New U: Faster + Cheaper Alternatives to College) and I subscribe to his newsletter, so I figured that I probably had a pretty good sense of what I’d find in Apprentice Nation. Still, I’m glad I finally got around to reading it for a deeper dive into Craig’s big points -
America should look to the UK as a model for apprenticeship scale
The government should fund apprenticeship intermediaries through a pay-per-apprentice funding model (and not via grants)
A staffing agency model (what he calls Hire-Train-Deploy) could be the key to expanding apprenticeships in industries outside the trades
I definitely think Craig is right on the money when it comes to funding models—paying intermediaries per apprentice makes a lot more sense than one-off grants. But I’m not as sold on the Hire-Train-Deploy approach as he is. It definitely lowers the friction to employer adoption, but I still have questions about whether these will end up actually looking like apprenticeships.
I’m also curious to dig deeper into the UK’s apprenticeship system, particularly the role of their Trailblazer groups—industry-led panels that develop apprenticeship standards and design the end-point assessments. There's a lot to learn from how they’ve structured employer leadership and quality assurance that’s missing from the American system.
Next: Apple in China by Patrick McGee
Growing up, I had a habit of annoying my sisters by reading whatever books they brought home from the library—sometimes even finishing them before they did. I got to keep that tradition alive this week with my husband’s plane book - Apple in China. I wasn’t planning to crack it open, but he hooked me with a line about Apple’s massive workforce investments in China. So now I’m in. I’m looking forward to learning more of the story behind Apple’s contribution to China’s development into an advanced manufacturing leader with a highly-skilled workforce. And I’m fascinated by the idea of a counterfactual America where Apple and other companies had invested in training at a similar scale back home.
And something short: The WPI Playbook
The Business Roundtable just released a playbook on business-education partnerships as part of its Workforce Partnerships Initiative (WPI), which launched back in 2018. I always appreciate resources aimed at an employer audience—they tend to be a lot shorter and clearer than policy papers! It also led me to a set of 2021 case studies on WPI-backed initiatives, including two that launched new apprenticeships.
WPI reminds me a lot of the U.S. Chamber Foundation’s Talent Pipeline Management model launched in 2016. Both frameworks are about helping employers clarify their shared talent needs and communicate them more effectively to education and training providers. But what really stands out to me is their emphasis on employer collaboration, not just leadership. These models recognize that individual companies can’t transform the system alone—it takes a coordinated, collective voice to shift education and workforce development systems.
I’m back in Florida now, the “office professional” dresses tucked away, the work-from-home joggers back in rotation. I called my time in the office cosplay—or playing dress-up—because in some ways, we’re all still learning as we go. That process starts early, shaped by the handful of professions we grow up hearing about. (My three-year-old is fond of her doctor, firefighter, and chef costumes so far.)
Apprenticeships expand that world. They let young people try on new professional identities—and give industries a chance to showcase careers most students don’t even know exist. What I’ve been reading lately makes me optimistic that more employers are starting to understand the power of that.