The Modern Youth Apprenticeship

A scalable strategy for work-based learning that leads students to effective careers and social mobility

In June 2015, I attended the CEMETS Institute in Switzerland, which focused on that country’s youth apprenticeship system. I was there both as the founder of Intertech Plastics in Colorado and as chair of the Denver Public Schools’ College and Career Pathways Council, one of my volunteer roles to improve students’ education outcomes and create more paths to career success.

One of the most impactful of those roles was with the I Have A Dream Foundation. Through the foundation, my wife and I sponsored 42 young people who lived in a neighborhood with a high school dropout rate of more than 90 percent. When we adopted our class of “dreamers,” most of them 3rd graders, we embarked on a 10-year journey that ultimately turned a 90 percent dropout rate into a graduation rate of more than 90 percent.

For the next 15 years, I searched high and low for a solution that could replicate that kind of impact at scale. I found that solution in youth apprenticeship on that trip to Switzerland.