In 1989, the National Center on Education and the Economy created the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. In its 1990 report, "America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages!," the commission recommended that the United States build a new skills-development system. This document provides a progress report on reforms that followed the…

Establishment of a national-state system of world-class occupational skill standards is a first step in restructuring adult vocational-technical education and job training programs. Occupational skills standards provide the necessary foundation for addressing three major state policy issues: the state's proper role in private work-based training,…