Workforce Development & Education

Goal: Improve Student Outcomes, Match Skills to Job Requirements and Upskill the Existing Workforce

Summary

Education is crucial to the future of California. It is the best place to invest to reap economic, social, public health, and environmental benefits. NBLC seeks to provide preschool for all, more career technical education, more focus on closing the achievement gap, greater college access, and more support for higher education. Our students are competing for the jobs of the future with students from all over the world. We need the state to make education their top investment and elevate public education to the top of the rankings.

One of our priority focus areas in education is the skill mismatch of the current workforce. We urge more worker training and upskilling to improve the ability to fill new jobs with a 21st-century workforce whose skills match the requirements of the positions. NBLC seeks to close that skills gap and upskill the workforce to minimize displacement due to automation. Today, companies go where the talent is, and we want that talent to stay in the North Bay.

Our Priorities

  • Early Child Education (ECE): Recognize that investing in ECE saves money in the future. 

  • Seamless alignment of early education programs (0-5) with K-12, with a greater focus on 0-3.

  • State policies promoting access to child care and strong educational opportunities.

  • An increase in the development of a professional early-learning workforce.

  • Stronger Partnerships between Employers and Educators: Employers seek a better match between what students are being taught and the skills required by the jobs they are creating. There needs to be more collaboration so that the students are ready to work and ready to do their jobs from the first day. We urge legislators to strengthen ways for these collaborations to occur in recognition that over 90% of all jobs require some post-secondary education.

  • Additional CTE grants to increase career technical education and other pathways.

  • Funding for work-based learning opportunities.

  • Dual enrollment to enhance connectivity between K-12 and Higher Education.

  • Incentivizing degrees that are essential to the California economy so the state has the talent it needs to grow.

  • Improving access to necessary courses through innovative strategies like online learning and course regularization and standardization.

  • Workshops and trainings of adult workers who are being displaced by automation/technology skills so they may be employable in the changing job market.

  • Collaborating with our region’s community colleges and other suppliers to improve curriculum and training in specific industries to increase middle-skill graduates’ success rate at getting jobs or getting better jobs at regional employers.