Employers in six communities in Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas announced a series of new commitments to address and promote inclusion and belonging in the workplace for young employees of color. These commitments are the culmination of a unique collaboration supported by America’s Promise Alliance, known as Read more
As youth apprenticeship has gained traction across the United States, many programs have adopted the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA) Definition & Principles for Youth Apprenticeship to guide program design and implementation. Building from those principles, PAYA has developed a new Youth Apprenticeship Quality Assessment Tool as a piece Read more
The College Payoff: More Education Doesn’t Always Mean More Earnings from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce explores how lifetime earnings vary by education level, field of study, occupation, industry, gender, race and ethnicity, and location. The lifetime earnings of a full-time full-year worker with a high Read more
Navigating pathways through high school, higher education and training, and into the workforce can be overwhelming for students and families. Families need to be engaged early and often to ensure they have the resources and support they need to make informed decisions. But as the economy has shifted—including dramatic changes Read more
The economic and societal instability brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic compounded and laid bare the inequities in American education and workforce systems. It also forced policymakers to go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that programs remained accessible. Amid these unprecedented challenges, the states in the National Governors Association Center’s Read more
Excel in Ed has established the first comprehensive learner-centered education to workforce continuum for state policy, Pathways Matter. Beginning in K-12 and extending to and through postsecondary and on to employment, this resource takes the fragmented narrative and structure of state education to workforce policy efforts and turns it into Read more
A new issue brief from the Center for American Progress, Preparing Students of Color for the Future Workforce, applies a race equity, community-centered lens to understand how to prepare Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students for college and the workforce. Major themes emerged from community conversations, which have allowed the authors Read more
A new national survey by Carnegie Corporation of New York and Gallup, Family Voices: Building Pathways from Learning to Meaningful Work, reveals a disconnect between the opportunities families want for their children and the postsecondary pathways available to them. It offers new insights into the aspirations that parents have for Read more
Bruno Manno of the Walton Family Foundation and Lynn Olson of FutureEd recently partnered to propose a new bipartisan education agenda focusing on offering multiple career pathways to students. Excerpts from the piece appear below: The new career pathways emerging around the country exemplify what University of Texas law professor Read more
A report released by The YES Project at America’s Promise Alliance provides key insights into young people’s conceptions of the changing employment landscape and what it means to be ready for, connected to, and supported within today’s world of work. Drawing from interviews with 65 young people, ages 16-28, who Read more
Bellwether Education Partners has released a new policy scan titled, “Working to Learning and Learning to Work: A State-by-State Analysis of High School Work-based Learning Policies.” Excerpts from the report appear below: Work-based learning – including internships, youth and pre-apprenticeships, and cooperative education programs – allows students to gain work Read more
Writing for The 74, Bruno Manno explores programs that help nurture students’ occupational identities and vocational selves. Excerpts from the piece appear below: New partnerships are emerging across the U.S. that create innovative educational approaches to preparing America’s young people for jobs, careers and further education, helping them develop an Read more
Between 2013 and 2018, the number of apprenticeship programs in the U.S. more than doubled, and the U.S. Department of Labor reports that the return on investment of apprenticeship programs is 147%. Although apprenticeships have long been viewed as for blue-collar industries, tech companies and small businesses in a variety Read more
The National Center for College and Career Transitions (NC3T) has released a new position paper, arguing for Career Connected Learning as a strategy for engaging students and preparing them to thrive in the adult world. Written by Hans Meeder and Brett Pawlowski, this piece provides education decision-makers and stakeholders with Read more
Recognizing the value of interdisciplinary collaboration and systems thinking, RAND Corporation researchers, supported by RAND Corporation investment funds, have developed a systems-level, blue-sky approach to conceptualizing and visualizing a 21st-century U.S. workforce development and employment system. A new report from RAND is the first step in moving the United States Read more
As its name suggests, the middle-skills pathway sits between a high school diploma and a bachelor’s degree. There are a wide variety of credentials associated with this pathway, but certificates and associate degrees are the most popular. In general, associate degrees include a mix of general education courses and career Read more