Can Youth Apprenticeship Thrive in the United States?

Abstract

During the early 1990s, youth apprenticeship is being proposed as a model that can solve many of the perceived problems with the education of the non-college-bound, reintegrate alienated urban youth, and help reestablish U.S. dominance in international markets. I argue that although many of the elements of the youth apprenticeship model appear to have great potential, three problems must be addressed before the strategy can be successful: securing employer involvement, assuring and improving the quality of on-the-job learning, and confronting the equity issues that arise from a public policy that incorporates the highly stratified world of work into the core educational system.