Work and Wisdom

It's time to unleash our natural drive to pass on what we've learned to the next generation

America has a peculiar blind spot when it comes to training young people. We've built an entire education system that carefully excludes employers from any meaningful role in preparing their future workforce. Then we wonder why we have a "skills gap."

This isn't normal. In Switzerland, two-thirds of teenagers start their careers through apprenticeships, learning directly from employers who are deeply invested in their success. In Germany, industry associations shape curriculum and training standards. Even Japan, famous for its academic rigor, has robust employer-led technical colleges that students can enter at age fifteen.

The conventional wisdom says this can't work here. American employers won't invest in training. Our labor market is too dynamic. Our culture values college too much.

But having spent years at a Chamber of Commerce watching employers practically beg to be involved in education, I'm convinced this conventional wisdom is exactly backwards. The problem isn't employer reluctance – it's that we've built systematic barriers between businesses and the education system.

This disconnect matters because we're approaching an inflection point. Youth apprenticeship programs are quietly expanding across America. States are building new frameworks. Schools are finally opening up to alternatives. But none of this will scale without solving the employer piece.

The irony is that most employers desperately want to be involved in preparing young talent. There's something fundamentally human about wanting to pass on your skills to the next generation. When we created structured programs at our Chamber to connect businesses with schools, employers didn't just participate – they invested significant time and resources.

But individual employers working alone can't transform the system. They can't get schools to update curriculum. They can't figure out which training programs actually work. They can't build the infrastructure needed to make youth apprenticeship systematic rather than ad hoc.

This is why the current wave of youth apprenticeship expansion is so intriguing. In places like Indiana, we're seeing the emergence of talent associations that coordinate employers to work together on talent. We're watching industries work together to define standards and build training capacity. This is exactly what’s necessary to see high school apprenticeships scale.

The question isn't whether American employers will invest in training young people. They're already trying. The question is whether we can finally build the systems and infrastructure to let them do it effectively.

This Substack will chronicle that effort – not just tracking the expansion of youth apprenticeship, but analyzing what's working, what isn't, and what it would take to achieve the kind of employer engagement we see in countries like Switzerland.

Because ultimately, this isn't just about workforce development. It's about reconnecting education with the real world in ways that benefit both young people and employers. It's about building bridges between schools and businesses that we never should have torn down in the first place.

The employers are ready. The young people are ready. The system just needs to catch up.