Provided by the Pikes Peak Business & Education Alliance (PPBEA) through their Pathways Pulse newsletter.
PPBEA, in partnership with regional Career & Technical Education (CTE) leaders, and postsecondary and industry partners, hosted over 250 attendees at the inaugural Regional Career Pathways Summit on October 29th. The primary purpose of the Summit is to bring business and education stakeholders together into a meaningful and repeatable framework for action. The primary, intended impact of this twice-annual Summit event is to bring into balance the knowledge, skills and experience of students emerging from area high schools with a path for early employment into the high-demand occupations in our community that are in desperate need of a talent solution. Our community needs thousands of new nurses and healthcare professionals. Our community needs thousands of new skilled trades professionals, technologists, and engineers to support advanced manufacturers and construction services. Our community needs thousands of new information technology and information security professionals. We have not and are not graduating enough high school students to fill nearly enough of these high-demand, solid middle-class jobs that lead to economic prosperity for all.
With support from area CTE leaders, PPBEA curated some very important talent pipeline data that was revealed at the October 29th Summit. The data provided in the Career Pathway Enrollment v LMI Data Infographics highlights the chronic shortfall of students engaged in secondary CTE pathway education versus the open jobs reported.
A quote from a recent interview with Mike Rowe, the “Dirty Jobs” star, demonstrates where we are related to this problem. “We’re dealing with alarming math … For every five tradespeople who retire this year, two will replace them.”
“I got a call a few months ago from a company building four nuclear-powered submarines for the U.S. Navy. They need to hire 100,000 tradespeople in the next nine years. This guy called me and said, ‘Can you help? … Do you know where they are?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I do, they’re in the eighth grade.’ We have to start now, because we’re racing the math and the math never loses.”
For the sake of our students and for the economic vitality of our region, we need to take immediate, organized and thoughtful action to remedy this imbalance. The first steps to move the needle in the right direction include having education systems and parents prioritize CTE pathway curriculum and PPBEA career-connected learning (CCL) for students. And, businesses with chronically unfilled jobs need to lean into the PPBEA system to provide CCL and mentorship opportunities so they can compete for the attention of 8th graders!
Monumental Impact is a Community Education Partner with PPBEA and able to provide students in our programs access to the rich set of career-connected learning opportunities. Reach out to Jeanette Breton if your student is interested in exploring these opportunities.