 Good morning everybody. Thank you so much for being here. I'm excited to see so many folks interested in the issue of skills. My name is Amy Leighton. I'm the deputy director for higher education here at the New America Foundation. And before I forget, there's some logistical things for those who may be live tweeting or who are tweeting about this. The hashtag is skills beyond school. So and then if you want to follow it later, you can look at skills beyond school. We're really excited to be here this morning with the release of this new report from a really important organization and outsider's perspective on how the U.S. does and does not measure up in terms of meeting the education and skill needs of workers, students, and employers. As many of you know, there have been shifts in the labor market demand for post-secondary education over the past few decades. In the 1970s, over 70% of the workforce only had a high school diploma. And now, five years from now, two-thirds of all jobs will require some form of post-secondary credential. And as this report indicates, the fastest-growing demand in the post-secondary space is in this specifically career-oriented field of credentials. So as we all know, college credentials and college is becoming both increasingly expensive and increasingly necessary. But while the returns to college on average are great and the college investment is still worth it, the question is less is college worth it and more which credential in which field at which price. And I think that's one of the other points of this report that's really interesting is the variability in our credentialing system. And for the most part, we can't answer those questions, which credential in which field and which price. So we don't really know what we're paying for and what we're getting. You have students, employers, and taxpayers sending billions, over a trillion dollars, in fact, on education and credentials that are of dubious or unknown quality. And that's crazy. That's my official statement on that. And this speaks to the main issues of the report, which is that there are issues that are plaguing US higher education and those issues are around quality, transparency, and coherency. So that's the bad news is we've got these problems. The good news is there are solutions that this report offers up and we're going to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly during the panel discussions today. But just hitting on the three themes again, quality, the sort of takeaway is we need better, more predictable outcomes. And to do that, the OECD has invoked this old adage, you get what you pay for. Right now, we're not paying for outcomes and we need to start doing that. Transparency is another theme. The OECD report uses the word risk 41 times, in large part because prospective students don't know the true values of the credentials they're seeking and employers don't know what students with those credentials know and can do. And we have this sort of baffling array of credentials, we have degrees, we have certificates, we have licensure, we have industry recognized credential, we have badges, we have over 80,000 badges and growing. I mean, there's just this sort of, like I said, baffling array and sort of wild west of credentialing. And more and more popping up as employers are losing faith in the credential that has sort of has had meaning, which is this college degree. But what is it that employers need and want and what do these credentials that we can hold a point to? And then the recommendation is that we anchor these credentials in the needs of industry. And then the last is sort of coherence. As we think about, you know, there's not necessarily a linear path to and through post-secondary, it's sort of a cycle, but there are different entry points to and through post-secondary and out into the labor market. And again, in the US, because we are such a varied system, there is sort of a baffling number of entry points, entry points and exit points, and funding streams that students have to navigate. So and students, learners often find that learning acquired in one place isn't often recognized in another, whether or not that's in a formal learning environment like an institution or whether or not that's on the job training or some other form of learning. So the panels will focus on the recommendations to transition to through and out of post secondary and into the labor market and back. And just to note, the report focuses specifically on career and technical education and credentials, but I think it speaks more broadly to higher education at large. And I think it also gets to this sort of false division we have in this country of what is career education and what is education. So I think even for folks in the liberal arts, I think one of the sort of takeaways, what you would hope, what I would hope a good liberal arts program would do is provide students with the skills they need for a meaningful life, which includes a meaningful career. So with that, I am pleased to introduce Dr. Brenda Dan Messier, the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Vocational and Adult Education, and currently she has another very long title, which is on your handout, which essentially she's acting as the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Post Secondary Education at the US Department of Education. In both of those capacities, she oversees adult education, career and technical education, and serves as the chief advisor on higher education post secondary issues to the Secretary of Education. She's a longtime practitioner and advocate and champion for adult education, and most importantly, my former boss. So we're pleased to have her share her thoughts and reflections on this report to ensure that CTE and higher education learners have the skills they, the employers, and the economy need. So thank you so much for joining. Thank you Amy. Thank you very much Amy for that very nice and brief introduction. Appreciate that. Good morning everybody. It's wonderful to be here with all of you. And I'm pleased to be here for the release of the Skills Beyond School, the US Country Report release. I've been asked to provide some opening remarks. So let me begin by thanking all of you who have joined us today for this important discussion, both in the room and on the live stream. It's wonderful to know that there's so much interest from such a wide array of stakeholders in the area of post secondary career and technical education. Thanks to the America Foundation, Kevin and Amy for organizing this event. Thank you Amy. We're delighted to have the opportunity here from such an esteemed group of subject matter experts and practitioners on the report and its recommendations into the panelists. We appreciate your time and your thoughts on the report. I'd also like to give a very special thanks to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, specifically Deborah Rosevier, Simon Field, Marco Zotta, Kuchera from the Directorate for Education and Skills for their thorough research and excellent analysis. My colleagues and I greatly appreciate OECD's vital role in strengthening career and technical education for learners around the globe. The OECD's contributions help member nations address the skill development needs of their citizens and keep pace with accelerating change in the context of an interconnected global economy. Their broad knowledge of the trends, excuse me, trends in promising practices and post secondary education provide an invaluable benchmark for understanding our own strengths and weaknesses and forging a thoughtful path forward. We've been looking forward to the release of OECD's study of post secondary career and technical education in the United States. The findings of this study and the complementary efforts, like the program for the international assessment of adult competencies, will provide an invaluable outside perspective for policymakers and practitioners as we work to improve our programs. The Office of Vocational Adult Education and the National Center for Educational Statistics commissioned this report because of our desire to have a better understanding of how our system compares to other countries. We're hopeful that the skills beyond school report will provide the foundation for continued discussion among key stakeholders across government, education and the private sector on how to ensure that career and technical education programs are responsive to the rapidly changing needs of employers and the increasingly diverse population of students seeking skills and credentials. We're looking forward to hearing your reactions to the reports and its recommendations and hope and hope that it's a beginning of a very robust exchange of ideas. I'm not going to respond specifically to the recommendations in the report. I'm really here to listen and learn from all of you. But before we launch into that discussion, I do want to say a few words about the importance of career and technical education to the Obama administration and to our future. From the start of his first term, President Obama placed education at the center of a very ambitious agenda to build a sustainable economy, grow the middle class and preserve the American dream for generations to come. Weeks after taking office, he presented a bold goal for the United States to again have the world's highest proportion of college graduates and the most competitive workforce. In fact, he called on every American to complete at least one year of higher education or advanced training. In launching his second term agenda, President Obama made it clear that education remains a central element of the administration's efforts to ensure a thriving middle class and a strong America. In his most recent State of the Union address in many speeches since then, the president has highlighted the importance of post-secondary education for our future competitiveness. He spoke specifically about building the skills that lead to high quality, high wage jobs and making sure, as Amy said, that a high school diploma or its recognized equivalent puts our nation's youth and adults on a path to a good job. At the Department of Education, we're working closely with stakeholders at the national, state and local levels to implement a comprehensive cradle to college and career agenda that enables us to meet these critical goals. The president's FY 2014 budget is evidence of this commitment. It continues the administration's priority of investing in education, including $71 billion in discretionary funds. That's an increase of $3.1 billion or 4.5% above the FY 13 pre-sequester level. And these education investments are built around five key themes that span the cradle to career continuum, from a plan to ensure high quality preschool for all, to strategies to improve college affordability and quality. For our purposes today, however, one of the most important aspects is an expanded focus on high school redesign and career readiness, including $1.1 billion to transform CTE as outlined in our 2012 blueprint. This includes $42 million for CTE focused dual enrollment programs to improve graduation rates for high school students and GED attainment rates for adult learners and to increase college enrollment and persistence. There's $4 billion in mandatory funding beginning in 2015 for a community college to career fund to prepare workers for jobs in high growth and high wage sectors. And under the $1 billion for raise to the top college affordability and completion initiative, applications could include plans to develop innovative new pathways and ease transition for students across the pipeline. We're excited about these new areas of investment in education and are dedicated to continuing the work we began four years ago to strengthen career and technical education. As many of you know throughout the first term, my office engaged in a thorough review of career and technical education programs and the opportunities, the reauthorization of the Col. D. Perkins Act for CTE could provide for improving their performance. We hosted dozens of meetings with stakeholders across the country to learn about what's working and what's not working in CTE. And how could we use the reauthorization to help? And that effort led to the release of our administration's blueprint to transform CTE. The blueprint focuses on four core reforms. Alignment between CTE and labor market needs, collaboration among key stakeholders, accountability for improving academic outcomes and building technical and employability skills and innovation in state and local policies and practices. At the core of the proposal are high quality CTE programs, these programs that are well aligned with college and career readiness standards as well as the needs of employers, industry and labor. They provide students with a curriculum that combines integrated academic and technical content and strong employability skills. They provide work-based learning opportunities and most importantly they enable students to earn certifications, licenses and degrees at both secondary and post-secondary levels that prepare them for in-demand careers in high-growth industry sectors. We view the OECD study skills beyond school as a continuation of the discussion we initiated to develop the blueprint and are happy to have another opportunity to engage with all of you around these vitally important issues. Finally, I do want to share one important takeaway that I gleaned from the report that post-secondary career and technical education is not something separate or fundamentally different from the rest of higher education. Rather, post-secondary CTE programs, certificates and career focused associate's degrees are offering stepping stones or on-ramps to higher levels of learning and educational attainment. CTE programs cannot exist in isolation from higher education, K-12 or systems for workforce training. To achieve their maximum potential, they must be part of a broader career pathway system for all students. In order to meet our education and skills challenges of the future and, of course, the president's 2020 goal, we need a fundamental shift in the way learners of all ages think about education and opportunity and in the way we think about our learners and their abilities. Achieving the goal will require new strategies for engaging all types of non-traditional learners, adults, first generation college goers, recent immigrants, disconnected youth and ensuring their success in college. High quality career and technical education leading to in-demand skills and saccable credentials can go a long way towards meeting the challenge. So let me conclude by emphasizing that at the United States Department of Education, we're focused on creating a culture of lifelong learning that extends far beyond high school for learners of any and every age. We're focused on creating seamless systems that offer clear and customizable paths to the skills and credentials learners need to achieve their goals, pathways that allow them to keep skilling up over the course of their entire careers. In the 21st century, a college degree is not an end in itself. Rather, it is the learning and skill development that degrees or certificates represent that is the key to the greater individual and national prosperity. That's why our agenda for post secondary reform aims to dramatically increase quality and relevance, as well as access, affordability and completion. And that makes high quality CTE for learners of every age absolutely vital to America's future success. Thank you for being here today. And I look forward to the discussion.