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The Center Joins 44 Workforce Development Leaders in Declaring Commitment to Career Pathways

Posted July 2014

The Transportation Learning Center joined with 44 other leading labor-management and union programs in declaring a commitment “to participate in the national engagement campaign organized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Administration to expand opportunities for adults to assess and strengthen their foundation skills.”  That commitment, set out in a letter to Assistant Secretary of Education Johan Uvin, responded to what the signers called “troubling findings” in the OECD’s Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies Fall 2013 Survey of Adult Skills.  According to the survey, approximately 36 million adults ages 16 to 65 in the United States have low skills in basic numeracy, reading and problem-solving; over a third of this population is looking for work, and many who already have work are in low-wage jobs that provide neither job security nor other benefits that make a job a “good job.”

The organizations emphasized their support of the campaign’s strategies, which aim to:
- Create joint ownership of solutions.
- Expand opportunities for adults to improve foundation skills.
•- Make career pathways available and accessible in every community.
•- Ensure all students have access to highly effective teachers, leaders and programs.
•- Align federal policies and programs to integrate services for adults.
•- Increase return on investment in skills training for business, industry and labor.
•- Commit to closing the equity gap for vulnerable subpopulations.

Noting their belief that the labor-management partnership approach to education and training is a best practice model to address these strategies,” the letter underscored the importance of combining foundational STEM skills with career pathways and job skills so workers can continue to advance in their careers once they are employed.  As unions and labor-management partnerships that “provide hundreds of thousands of unionized workers with access to excellent education and training opportunities as well as the supportive services so necessary for their success,” the programs emphasized their commitment to work with the Department of Education on the national engagement campaign.

For the full text of this letter and a list of all signers,visit the National Skills Coalition website