Colorado apprenticeship program turns the factory floor into a classroom

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MILES O’BRIEN: Next, we continue our series
Rethinking College, with a look at the nation’s first statewide
youth apprenticeship program.


As Hari Sreenivasan reports, it offers high school and college
credit and pays students for their work.


This story is part of our weekly education segment, Making the
Grade.


HARI SREENIVASAN: In Colorado, this factory
floor may be the classroom of the future.


MAN: This goes into that hopper, gets melted
back into a liquid, as it goes through the machine.


HARI SREENIVASAN: And these students may be
hired for prime jobs before they even finish high school.


Manufacturers like Intertech Plastics in Denver are facing
critical shortages of skilled labor, and they want to teach teens
how to work for them.


NOEL GINSBURG, CEO, Intertech Plastics: We
couldn’t support the growth in both facilities because we didn’t
have the people.


HARI SREENIVASAN: Noel Ginsburg is the CEO.


NOEL GINSBURG: From the day I started the
company to this day, the biggest challenge we have was around
having the right people with the skills we needed to grow the
business. We have 40,000 unfilled tech jobs in Colorado.


College is not cheap, right? So, if you could earn up to 40 to 50
credit hours for college by working in a business like this, and
get paid, and get your high school diploma, who wouldn’t want to
do that? It’s a pretty cool deal.


HARI SREENIVASAN: Colorado’s governor, John
Hickenlooper, is behind the idea.


GOV. JOHN HICKENLOOPER, D-Colo.: We are one of
the fastest growing economies in the country. You can’t sustain
that without talent. And it is a global competition for talent
now. And a lot of that talent, it’s not Ph.D.s and the
superstars. A lot of that talent is middle skills.


HARI SREENIVASAN: Partnering with the state,
Ginsburg founded CareerWise, an apprenticeship program that links
Colorado industries and school districts.


Starting this year, high school Jr.s and seniors can spend three
school days a week as on-the-job apprentices, earning classroom
credit and a paycheck.


NOEL GINSBURG: We’d like to have 230 career
paths that will, in 10 years, serve 20,000 young people in a
whole host of careers, from banking and finance to advanced
manufacturing.


HARI SREENIVASAN: Colorado leaders believe they
are in the forefront of addressing what economists call a middle
skills gap, unfilled jobs that require more than high school, but
less than a four-year college degree.


GOV. JOHN HICKENLOOPER: For more than 30 years,
we took on this challenge that we were going to make sure every
kid went to college, and this was the only solution. But we have
barely nudged the needle in terms of how many kids actually go to
college and graduate. And in that sense, I think it’s been a
failure.


NOEL GINSBURG: I was part of that mantra, saying
everybody should go to college. The reality of it is, that’s
never going to happen. In this country, what the percentages?
Twenty-eight percent, at best, will get a four-year degree in
this country.


So, we’re essentially telling everybody else that they can’t be
successful in our economy and in our country. And it’s simply not
true.


HARI SREENIVASAN: After graduating high school,
the program offers apprentices full-time employment and financial
support toward community colleges degrees.


The pitch convinced visiting high school student Kevin Roquemore
to add another choice to his career path.


So, what are you going to do after you graduate high school? What
are you thinking right now?


KEVIN ROQUEMORE, Student: So I have a plan A,
plan B. Plan A hopefully is to go to the Major Leagues, just if I
don’t go to college, play baseball.


HARI SREENIVASAN: OK, I don’t know your athletic
skill, but let’s just say the baseball career stops in high
school. What are you going to do?


KEVIN ROQUEMORE, High school
student: My plan B was to be in manufacturing
and engineering.


HARI SREENIVASAN: Alejandro Garcia’s parents
were thrilled to hear he was accepted into the program.


JOSEFINA SANTUARIO, Mother of Alejandro Garcia,
high school student (through interpreter): We preferred him
to attend university. That’s what we wanted. But when we heard of
this opportunity, we jumped straight on it.


HARI SREENIVASAN: But will schools become
training grounds for industry? Will apprentices miss out on
crucial classroom learning?


The idea that critical thinking and kind of the long-term life
lessons that you pick up being in an academic environment, those
are necessary too.


NOEL GINSBURG: They are, but what I believe is
that those skills can be learned in the workplace, because the
workplace is real, and you have different personalities. I think
soft skills are better taught in business, not in the classroom.


HARI SREENIVASAN: Looking to fine-tune their
apprentice program, Colorado leaders traveled to Switzerland,
where 40 percent of companies offer student apprenticeships.


MAN: So, why apprenticeship? Swiss firms do not
only train because it’s a tradition. There is an economic
rationale.


MAN: It is an investment into young people for
making sure that we have a low unemployment rate.


HARI SREENIVASAN: Suzi LeVine, former U.S.
ambassador to Switzerland, hosted the delegation and is now
working with Colorado’s CareerWise apprentice program.


SUZI LEVINE, Former U.S. Ambassador to
Switzerland: We’re at the front end of an apprenticeship
renaissance in the United States. When you look back at Hamilton
and Franklin, started out as apprentices. In Switzerland,
two-thirds of young people go into apprenticeship. Their youth
unemployment is just 3.2 percent. We need that here in the United
States.


GAIL MELLOW, President, La Guardia Community
College: I think what Colorado is doing is a great first step.


HARI SREENIVASAN: Gail Mellow is the president
of New York’s La Guardia Community College, which also offers
programs that link high school students to middle skills.


While enthusiastic about Colorado’s new program, Mellow cautions
that Europe and the United States have very different social
structures.


GAIL MELLOW: The challenge is that if we model
those steps exactly at what happens in Switzerland, we don’t have
the robust safety net. So, our robust health benefits, the living
wages, those are often not part of American businesses.


HARI SREENIVASAN: And she’s concerned that
apprenticeships could lead to short-lived jobs that improved
technology could eventually wipe out.


That it’s not a dead-end job?


GOV. JOHN HICKENLOOPER: It’s a job that’s going
to lead to a better job, that will lead to a better job. That’s
what we used to call a career.


HARI SREENIVASAN: For now, Colorado’s
apprenticeships are financed by federal and state funds, business
and philanthropy.


But the future plan is for industry to provide the biggest
investment.


In Denver, for the PBS NewsHour, I’m Hari Sreenivasan.


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