without a clear direction. Many end up
dropping out of college or choose jobs
that aren’t a good fit for their interests
and abilities—a key reason many Americans are unhappy at work. Even those
who graduate from college increasingly
find that their degree hasn’t equipped
them with the skills needed to get a
good job. In Wisconsin, for example,
more than 4,000 bachelor’s degree
holders are now attending Milwaukee
Area Technical College to acquire technical skills that will make them more
employable. There’s also a
growing skills gap; 52 per-
cent of U.S. employers report
that they’re having difficulty
finding candidates with the
right skills and experience to
fill jobs (Manpower Group,
2011).
High-quality career
counseling should become
a central component of students’ experience in middle
and high school. We should
expose students to a wide
range of options and then
help them explore those that
most excite them. Students
should have ready access to
a clearly delineated set of
pathways to major occupations, so that both students
and their families can know
which classes and experiences
would help a youth interested
in a career field gain access to it. This
is hardly a call for “tracking.” Students
would make their own decisions about
which pathway to pursue and would
have freedom to change direction as
their interests evolved.
Many European countries as well as
New Zealand and Japan have already
embraced such an approach. Some U.S.
states have also put increased emphasis
on career counseling. South Carolina,
for instance, adopted an ambitious
approach known as Personal Pathways
to Success in 2005 (although the recession has since limited funding). The
We must provide
meaningful career
counseling so that all
students can explore
their options and
chart a pathway
that works best.
career clusters initiative, which divides
career opportunities into 16 different
clusters, has also created useful scaffolding for introducing students to careers.
This initiative outlines pathways that
lead from overview courses in secondary
school to more specialized coursework
or training in postsecondary schools. 1
Meeting this challenge will clearly
require innovation. Given the con-
straints on state spending, it won’t be
possible to hire enough school coun-
selors to meet the need. Rather, schools
will need to adopt more comprehensive
approaches to career counseling, such
as encouraging all teachers to help
students identify their interests and
talents.
