National Security Goes to School
By Jamie Merisotis
Our nation’s security was center stage during the State of the Union address this week. The president focused on rebuilding our military to promote peace through strength. But let’s not stop there. Those who serve can also strengthen our workforce and our economy here at home.
To realize that opportunity, we must evolve our views on education beyond high school in America. We must lay aside forever the anachronistic belief that college degrees and other credentials only come in a brick-and-mortar classroom by way of professors following a prescribed syllabus.
Instead, we must embrace a new approach to measuring what counts as learning. A great place to start is by broadening our perspectives on the valuable experience that members of the military gain while serving our nation. They should be able to apply this hard-earned education toward a post-high school credential that provides access to more education and better job opportunities.
By creating more and better pathways for members of the armed services to convert their experiences into credentials of value for the civilian workforce, we can both honor them and strengthen our labor pool
This approach would benefit service members and enhance national security in myriad ways. For starters, we face a massive talent shortage across America in which jobs in high-demand fields such as healthcare, technology, and advanced manufacturing remain unfilled.
At a recent event we hosted near Fort Leavenworth, Kan., Jason Tyszko, executive director of the Center for Education and Workforce at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, talked about the challenges this ongoing skills deficit creates for American businesses.
“We’ve been talking about this for decades now. We’ve sometimes referred to it as a gathering storm on the horizon,” he said. “Well, that storm has hit, and it’s hurting our economic competitiveness.”
I agree wholeheartedly. And one opportunity for getting more from our investments in veterans’ education and training could come from reducing unnecessary and duplicative requirements on veterans to retrain to demonstrate competencies they already have.
Veterans and taxpayers alike have an interest in making sure that these investments deliver meaningful returns, considering that the Veterans Administration spent about $12 billion on educational benefits in 2016, and the U.S. Department of Defense plans to spend about $8.7 billion for training and education this year.
An example often used when talking about transferable skills is the medic in the military who comes home and wishes to be an EMT but has to start completely over to earn a civilian credential. That person is qualified to save lives on the battlefield and may not need the full civilian training, but rather just the medical skills that weren’t included in their military education.
Jim Tweedy, a power company lineman in Tennessee, was a Marine for eight years and then served in the Tennessee National Guard. He was at the Kansas meeting near Fort Leavenworth and said he still uses key parts of his military training in civilian life.
“I’ll never forget the 14 Marine Corps Leadership Traits, which include initiative, dependability, decisiveness, tact and integrity,” Tweedy said. “Every day I go to work and I use those. I’ve had some pretty rigorous training, and I appreciate the discipline needed to work in small groups and make decisions in very critical situations.”
Laurie Dodge, board president of the Competency-Based Education Network, has a good line of sight into this space, and she believes we need a system that is transparent to employers, to students, and to institutions. She acknowledges there are challenges — the biggest of which may be establishing a common language for competency-based learning — but she says, “we have to understand: the world is changing, and we have to be able to address that.”
Yes, our national security is about more than rebuilding our military. It’s about doing a better job of valuing, measuring, and rewarding the knowledge, experience, and skills our servicemen and servicewomen already have. And it’s about enlisting them to address our workforce challenges and opportunities.
To keep America secure, we need thriving national, state, and local economies. And to succeed, we need more people with education and training beyond high school. Let’s help former members of the military better match their military experience with the skills employers say they need. Let’s broaden our perspectives on what qualifies as learning in America. Simply put, all quality learning should count.
Merisotis is president and CEO of Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation, and author of “America Needs Talent: Attracting, Educating & Deploying the 21st-Century Workforce.”
