Las Vegas, NV
April 4, 2024
Hello everyone! Let me add my thanks to you all for being here today. It's great to hear from so many school leaders, and thank you for welcoming us to your school. It's been great to see your work in action. And Jeanette, thank you for sharing your story with us. You inspire us all.
I'm also glad to be here with Members of Congress, Representative Titus and Representative Horsford, and I want to thank them for their commitment to creating good jobs right here in Nevada.
And it's always great to be with my good friend, our Education Secretary, Miguel Cardona.
As our boss, President Biden, likes to say, a job is about more than a paycheck. Good jobs bring dignity and respect. They sustain families. They lift up local communities. In President Biden's America, everyone who wants a good job should be able to get that good job, and that includes jobs in education.
But good jobs don't just happen by accident. We have to be intentional about this work. Now, educators do vital jobs but that doesn't mean that they're always good jobs. Teaching has always been tough and the pandemic made a tough job even more difficult. So retention rates in education have suffered, especially over the past few years. And when it comes to hiring new professionals into this field, some aspiring educators find that the certification they need is cost-prohibitive.
We also have lots of work to do to make sure our country's education workforce looks like America. I've always been struck by the statistic that showed that Black students who had just one Black teacher by the third grade were 13 percent more likely to enroll in college. But in a recent report, the Department of Labor found that, across the country, Black women and Latinas were under-represented as elementary or middle school teachers. So we have to be intentional about increasing high-quality pathways into teaching careers, including for those who have been shut out of opportunities in the past.
For us at the Department of Labor, that means Registered Apprenticeships. Registered Apprenticeships are one of the most powerful tools we have for workers to find their place in the middle class, including for people and communities that have been left out for far too long.
Registered Apprenticeships allow people to earn while they learn. And graduates of these programs are highly skilled. Registered Apprenticeships bring employers and unions together to make sure that graduates have a job at the end of their program and will have a voice on the job.
These partnerships are absolutely critical, because Registered Apprenticeships are most robust and effective when employers and unions come together to design curriculum and meet current workforce needs. Registered Apprenticeships also have real standards and recognized credentials that allow workers to be more mobile. And that adds to job security.
That's what UNLV has created with its Registered Apprenticeship program for paraprofessionals and teachers. It's an opportunity to help meet the teacher shortage. And graduates will be able and ready to fill open positions all across your state.
Now, this is a new program with its first cohort of apprentices. But already you have more than 500 aspiring educators enrolled. And we want to support you in the weeks, months, and years ahead to make sure you have everything you need to meet the full promise of Registered Apprenticeship programs in training Nevada's education workforce.
As you heard Secretary Cardona say, we now have 34 states and Puerto Rico with Registered Apprenticeships for education. And the Biden-Harris administration is investing big to modernize, diversity, and expand Registered Apprenticeships all across the country and across all kinds of industries.
Earlier this year, we announced another $200 million in funding opportunities. That includes $95 million in our Apprenticeships Building America grants that school districts, unions, non-profit organizations, community colleges, can apply for directly. And I want to note that those applications close soon on April 15th.
Creating good jobs doesn't happen overnight. But being in Nevada these past couple of days, I can feel the excitement in this state around making sure that jobs in education are good jobs.
The people who open doors for their students' future also need and deserve the security that comes with a good job.
We're excited to support that work here.
And the Biden-Harris administration will continue to make sure we create more good jobs across our country and across industries—jobs with the power to truly change lives.