Career

This issue brief, sponsored by the Alliance for Excellent Education, discusses using multiple pathways to prepare students for college and career. The author examines the effects of California’s multiple pathways programs on high school students, concluding that multiple pathways can increase high school graduation rates, engagement, achievement, and college and career readiness. The author also provides recommendations that include addressing federal laws, funding stream structures, and policies that inhibit multiple pathway programs.

This report from the Center for Postsecondary and Economic Success at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) includes brief profiles of Minnesota’s FastTRAC initiative, Washington’s Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) program, and Illinois’s bridge programs as examples of promising state policy strategies to address the problem of low-skilled students in the workforce. The authors provide suggestions for how to shape state policy in order to improve the success of low-skilled people in a postsecondary education life.

This publication from American Youth Policy Forum is designed to help policymakers and practitioners learn about effective programs supporting college- and career-readiness. The authors describe programs that have been proven to help young people successfully complete high school and be prepared for success in postsecondary education and careers. These programs represent a wide range of interventions, including school-wide reform initiatives, community-based afterschool services, work-based learning opportunities, and college access programs.

The researchers investigated the effects of participation in Career Academies on the labor market preparation, school-to-work transitions, and other long-term outcomes for young people. The findings suggest that academic learning need not be compromised by career education, and investments in career-preparatory activities for high school students can create significant improvements in long-term outcomes.

This report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) identifies and reviews selected K-12 postsecondary education college access programs. Information on how the program works and under conditions and limitations on the research are discussed, and characteristics of effective programs based on the research is provided.

This policy brief released by the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability at the Institute for Educational Leadership identifies five broad policy and practice areas critical to ensuring all students--and especially those with disabilities--are prepared to succeed in high school and in their post-secondary careers. The brief makes 14 recommendations spread across the five areas and provides suggestions on what organizations can support these recommendations.

This Alliance for Excellent Education policy brief provides an overview of the data collected on student writing achievement, recommends more opportunities for students to practice writing in school, encourages schools to teach better writing instruction, and offers policymakers suggestions on how to support school improvement efforts in this area.

This report, commissioned by the California Teachers Association’s (CTA) High School Restructuring Task Force and authored by WestEd, synthesizes the major initiatives on high school reform taking place nationally and in California. The publication provides: 1) clear synthesis of the problem and context; 2) research on high-performing high schools, comprehensive school reform models, and the barriers to improvement; 3) current reform proposals and their research base; and 4) suggestions for further discussion and exploration by CTA.

This report from MDRC looks at how three different high school reform models--Career Academies, First Things First, and Talent Development--addressed five challenges found to be obstacles to successful reform implementation in low-performing high schools. According to this report, the pillars of high school reform are structural changes to improve personalization and instructional improvement. The report offers tangible solutions as well as supporting evidence and various resources.