When you have the K-to-12 system abandoning shop class, the first thing we need to do is to get young people to know how to hold a hammer or hold an auto part. That is called pre-apprenticeship. You have to remember that you can't become an apprentice unless you have an employer, and the employer is not going to hire you if you don't know how to do some very basic elements at the technical, first level of the apprenticeship. A lot of colleges are getting into the notion of pre-apprenticeship and exposing grade 7 and grade 8 students to that, or doing a kind of foundational course. That happens in a very patchwork way, sometimes though only very little funding for that activity. That's one.
But before we worry about getting more youth into apprenticeships, the bigger issue is what to do about the 400,000 youth now in the system who are not completing these. If they do not get their final level of certification, then they cannot be the master craftsmen from whom the young will learn. That's the nature of apprenticeship. I encourage you to look at both ends of the spectrum.