“Our students are not widgets!” 

Certainly that is the sentiment of educators who see business involvement in schools as “putting in orders” for workers. Yet that refrain might be less common in an era when the whole notion of career and technical education is evolving way beyond shop class. 

Maybe that’s because each side understands its boundaries. Businesspeople and educators both say the same thing: Industry lays out the workforce needs; schools develop the curriculum. 

The video above, the final one in our opening series for American Graduate: Getting to Work, includes voices from a major regional employer as well as from K-12 and higher education.