Reskilling America: Learning to Labor in the Twenty-First Century - Hardcover

Katherine S. Newman is the author of a dozen books on topics ranging from urban poverty to middle class economic insecurity to school violence. No Shame in My Game: the Working Poor in the Inner City received the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Prize and the Sidney Hillman Foundation Book Award. Newman, who has held positions at Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and Princeton, is currently provost and professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Hella Winston is a sociologist and investigative journalist. She has held postdoctoral fellowships in sociology at Princeton and Johns Hopkins universities and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. She is the author of Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels (Beacon Press, 2005). She lives in New York City.

“What a great and timely book! As the opportunity gap rises to the top of our national agenda, this compelling account of ‘on-ramps’ for the millions of young people left behind by the simplistic ‘college for all’ mantra is must reading for civic leaders and activists across the country. Newman and Winston combine irrefutable statistical and qualitative evidence to show exactly what needs to be done in vocational and technical education, apprenticeship programs, and community colleges to ensure rewarding careers and lives for all our kids.”
―Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis

“Vocational education―if done right, if reconceived―is not a relic of the past but the hope of the future. The reskilling described here may be the only way to save so many of our kids. Newman and Winston get it―and this very important book gets it across. It’s the very thing John Dewey would be telling us but Newman and Winston have done it just as well. Now we have the program. The rest is up to us.”
―Thomas Geoghegan, author of Only One Thing Can Save Us

“Reskilling America argues persuasively for seriously reexamining our ‘college for all’ approach and placing greater emphasis on vocational programs to prepare students, especially students from disadvantaged backgrounds, for middle-skilled jobs. In this election year Newman and Winston’s insightful and provocative book is a must-read, especially for presidential candidates and policymakers.”
―William Julius Wilson, author of More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City

“Katherine Newman and Hella Winston have crafted a unique guide to understanding America’s struggle with vocational training. A much-needed book in the twenty-first century, Reskilling America exceptionally lays the foundation for a better America.”
―Wes Moore, Founder and CEO of BridgeEdU and author of The Other Wes Moore