GPS Education Partners, Inc.

GPSEd has been leading the way with work-based learning in Wisconsin with regional expansion across the midwest and aims to expand nationwide by partnering with innovative businesses, educators, and communities across the country to develop solutions that properly prepare ALL students for career readiness.

By 2025, we would like to see 10,000 students journey through a GPSEd work-based learning experience to establish awareness of a technical career that they may pursue that shows them their purpose, and provides a pathway to a more meaningful life.

Our future would see that scalable work-based learning has become an accepted and essential part of the educational model for primary and post-secondary schools, and would bridge the existing gap between education and work that has inhibited student success for select populations, while improving viability for business and communities.

GPS Education Partners will continue work to connect business and education, both in and outside of Wisconsin, by implementing education/workforce solutions that change the lives of adolescents in middle and high school and provide the outcomes businesses need to close the gap between education outcomes and workforce needs.

We will continue to form and leverage strategic partnerships with more stakeholders across more industries and communities so that we can provide scalable work-based learning opportunities to more students to develop their work, employability, character, and leadership skills in real-work environments.

GPSEd staff leverage expertise across the lifecycle of work + learn strategies to perform: alternative education services, employability assessment and training programs, academic and career counseling, socio-emotional learning, training of business employees through mentorship programs, coordination of state-required documents, and competency mapping. Our leadership team has vast experience in corporate HR, non-profit management, educational delivery, and workforce development. GPSEd’s Board and advisors reflect the focus of both regional and national alignment in education and workforce development as well as industry expertise.

Since GPS Education Partners (GPSEd) launch in 2000 as an innovative educational model designed to bridge the needs between a single employer and five disengaged high school students lost in the traditional education system, we have grown to meet the needs of over one thousand underserved students and hundreds of schools, businesses, and community-based organizations- all focused on the development and employment of our youth in technical careers through work-based learning solutions.

With an early emphasis on developing at-risk high school juniors and seniors through work-based learning (WBL) activities that provide experience, preparation, and development in technical roles in manufacturing, GPSEd has expanded its model and services to include activities that reach younger students to develop earlier career awareness and exploration. These activities provide equity and access to all students and help align more students to well-paying technical careers that are closing the skills gap for employers and building more prosperous communities. By linking classroom learning to the real-world of work in technical careers, these students are shown a new pathway to post-secondary education and career training that was getting lost in the traditional K-12 system.

The current need in most communities is the development of innovative solutions that attract, develop, and retain the next generation of technically skilled employees to fill the gap in the workforce left by retiring baby boomers, and a 30-year lack of focus on technical careers by the current education system. As our work continues, GPSEd is developing cutting-edge initiatives that will scale work-based learning to more students in more communities both in and outside of Wisconsin. GPSEd features these innovative solutions at https://gpsed.org/media-library/. As students adapt to new ways to learn, GPSEd is designing new ways to deliver work-based learning solutions.