New White House Council for Community Solutions to Address Pathways to Skills and Work for Youth

First Lady to Address the Council on Critical Need to Win the Future by Promoting Youth Achievement

WASHINGTON, DC –The White House Council for Community Solutions will hold its inaugural meeting on Friday, February 4, 2011. The Council was created with the goal of advancing the President’s domestic agenda to win the future by out-educating, out-innovating, and out-building our way to a stronger economy. Specifically, the Council’s focus will be finding the best ways to prepare our nation’s youth for the jobs of the future.

Melody Barnes, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, will charge the Council with bringing together the public, private and nonprofit sectors to identify promising community solutions for connecting or re-connecting young people to school and work and to build public support for the need to effectively tackle this important national challenge.

First Lady Michelle Obama will address Council members and emphasize their critical role in finding and promoting solutions that are working at every level. Mrs. Obama will thank them for lending their time and expertise to lifting up young people everywhere.

More than 1.3 million students drop out of high school each year, and the unemployment rate for young people ages 16-24 is at an unacceptable high of almost 20%. Today’s changing labor market demands that young people get some post-secondary education or credentials to compete in the global economy. There are many promising solutions that have been developed in communities across the country to address these challenges. By engaging the private, nonprofit and philanthropic sectors in greater collaboration and collective action, these promising solutions have the potential to connect more American young people to school and work.

The Council will work to turn the attention and concern generated by the current job and education crisis into a rallying cry to ensure this nation reclaims our heritage as the land of opportunity for all our youth. Portions of the meeting will be live streamed on Whitehouse.gov/Live to allow the public to participate in the meeting. The public can continue to connect to the work of the Council at Serve.gov/CommunitySolutions.