by Brian Kelsey
(Austin, TX, USA)
Our experience working with Career Clusters is helping school districts use labor market data to make strategic decisions about implementation choices--which Career Clusters to offer, and why. Linking Career Cluster offerings at schools to projected living-wage job and occupation growth, for example, promotes alignment among regional economic development, workforce training, and education goals that benefits students and the regional economy as a whole. It's also useful for getting buy-in from the private sector for activities such as internships, mentors, and hopefully full-time job options after graduation. Labor market data linked to Career Clusters is very useful for showing companies, in quantitative terms, why investing time and energy into partnering with school districts implementing the Career Cluster framework will help ensure a competitive workforce for their companies in the future.