I entirely agree with Ms. Ricketts. The stimulus has to come from the employer level. We can't emphasize that enough.
In our recommendations, there's a theme in there. We see a disconnect between what's going on with the efforts.... It's not to discredit or undervalue anything the federal government has invested in terms of the skills and experience layers for youth, but it has to be looked at in an equation, which is skills and experience plus opportunities equal results. It's just that simple. We have an incomplete equation going on right now across the country.
The employers need to be on board. In order to get the employers on board to start that employment curve back in high school.... Looking at countries that are the educated, industrialized countries in western Europe, they do this. We don't. We need to do a better job with this.
In short form, there's a disconnect that we see. We need to work on closing that gap between what's going on in the free market economy and what employers need. We need to look at this as an equity investment from the stakeholders on both the market side and the social side, supported by the federal government. Once we start to change that philosophy to be a bit more holistic, I think we're going to start seeing real results.
I'll leave it at that.