Most policy makers agree that workforce training is essential to America’s competitiveness. Job training is especially important for workers without a college education, for whom it is often the key to a better job or any job at all.
Apprenticeship and other models that integrate classroom and workplace learning are more effective than years of classroom education followed by work without structured support for learning. But apprenticeships remain infrequently used in the United States—a reality that hasn’t changed despite three decades of policymakers’ professed affection for the model.