Developing a College- and Career-ready Workforce: An Analysis of ESSA, Perkins V, IDEA, and WIOA | March 2019

By 2020, 65% of all jobs will require some postsecondary education or training. But are U.S. students graduating college and career-ready to meet this demand? ESSA, Perkins V, IDEA and WIOA provides opportunities for states to develop a coherent approach to ensuring that all of today’s students are prepared for tomorrow’s careers and workforce demands.

State leaders need to align labor market efforts with the education pipeline to provide students with the academic, technical, and employability skills they need to be successful in the workplace. Aligning the education-to-workforce pipeline can help increase cost-efficiency, promote coherence, and produce better outcomes for students and workers. This resource includes the following:

  • A brief to help state and local agencies identify opportunities to align and leverage policies, programs, and funding across the three laws to support the education-to-workforce pipeline;
  • A workbook to facilitate cross-agency conversations to identify and plan for alignment opportunities across ESSA, Perkins V, IDEA and WIOA; and 
  • An interactive tool that identifies specific language in the laws that address college and readiness topics and help state education agencies and local education agencies find new or greater alignment opportunities in their plans.

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