Education
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Quality education is essential to a skilled and competitive workforce. Access to education, coupled with reliable, quality childcare is key for improving economic opportunities for all Americans.
Our education system is failing many students as shown by data that reveals two-thirds of our fourth and eighth graders are unable to read or do math at their grade level. And the United States ranks below a number of other countries in reading and math proficiency. Recognizing the importance of childcare as a key component of the education system is crucial to addressing the current challenges and ensuring that every child has the support they need to thrive.
- 6th in ReadingGlobal Ranking for U.S. Students
- 10th in ScienceGlobal Ranking for U.S. Students
- 26th in MathGlobal Ranking for U.S. Students
Introducing Commerce Meets Classroom, a new series from our K-12 education experts, Kyle Butler and Caitlin Codella Low, featuring the business perspective on pressing education issues.
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3 Things People Get Wrong About Childcare — That Probably Includes You
Dive deeper with Joseph Davis and Sydney Lewis as they debunk the most common childcare myths, inviting you to explore the hidden truths that every American family should know.
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In the United States, 44 million adults lack basic educational and workforce readiness skills, and 28 million do not have the basic digital skills needed for our ever-growing. digitally-enhanced workforce. For these people, getting on track for a job that comes with a livable wage starts with adult education.
For many looking to join the American workforce today, the chance to start working towards “the magic number of greatness” is out there, it’s just a matter of finding that opportunity.
In this country, the early childhood education system is in market failure. In recent years we have seen the greatest federal funding increases for early childhood education in history, and yet those significant investments just barely make a dent to tackle the need. In 2018, NASEM studied “how to fund early care and education for children…that is accessible, affordable to families, and of high quality, including a well-qualified and adequately supported workforce.” The report concluded that a financial windfall of around $54 billion would be required.
The lack of access to affordable, high-quality childcare isn’t just a problem for families. A new report found that it’s costing Washington businesses more than $2 billion per year in employee turnover or missed work, and the total cost to the state economy tops more than $6.5 billion per year.
We are in an economy that competes on talent. The business community succeeds or fails based on its ability to find and develop a consistent and reliable pipeline of high-quality talent. Thus the business community is very interested in what is taught in our nation’s postsecondary institutions. Rather than an intrusion on postsecondary education’s mission, it is a realization that what postsecondary education does and does not do has a real impact on the success of the business community and the competitiveness of the United States.
Atlanta’s economy is growing rapidly. In 2018, employers created 58,400 new jobs, and the workforce increased by 2.8 percent. Demand for new employees also jumped, with more than half a million job openings in the metro area – nearly 10 percent more than 2017. But despite this tremendous opportunity, like other growing areas, the Atlanta region is competing for talent at home and abroad to ensure economic prosperity and competitiveness in the years ahead.
Employers would like to invest in their current employees, but they don't always know how to overcome hurdles such as cost and logistics. Luckily, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation's Center for Education and Workforce (CEW) is helping lead the charge on solutions.
Successful career pathways are created through deep and meaningful coalitions of organizations. These coalitions bring education, community members, and business leaders together with a shared dedication to meeting society's biggest challenges in a responsible, sustainable, and profitable way. They blur the lines between formal education, community service, workforce development, and economic development.
The future of work is now and the problem we are solving is not adapting to new technologies, but adapting to the dynamism of the economy, which will only accelerate. Dynamic economies require dynamic labor markets, and agile businesses require agile workers and workforce partnerships.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were approximately 8.6 million STEM jobs in May 2015, with the highest jobs in software development, user support, and systems analysts. Despite the high number of jobs, the lack of skilled workers in the labor force allow these positions to go unfilled. To make matters worse, the existing STEM workforce lacks diversity among women and minorities, not representing the emerging workforce of women and underrepresented groups.