Career Skills Said to Get Short Shrift

U.S. Seen Lagging in Melding Preparation for College, Work

In education and workforce-training circles, there’s a sentiment one hears so often that it’s become something of a mantra: Students must graduate from high school prepared for both college and work.

But amid the clarion calls for “college for all” and the clamor for more-rigorous academics, the “work” part of that imperative tends to get drowned out, business and industry groups say, to the point that high-wage jobs not requiring a bachelor’s degree often go unfilled.

“Industry after industry is going after high-skilled labor[ers] and cannot find them,” said Robert T. Jones, who was an assistant U.S. secretary of labor in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and is now the president of Education and Workforce Policy, an Alexandria, Va.-based consulting company. Even in the current recession, he said, many skilled manufacturing and technician jobs—such as for...