Issue/Policy Brief

This brief profiles Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ efforts to establish career pathway systems for its students. These efforts focus on providing students with coursework that builds their competencies in core academic and career areas, and provides opportunities to earn postsecondary and workforce credentials. Key features of the district’s career pathway systems include early career exploration, strong partnerships with postsecondary and workforce institutions, and emphasis on college and career in school curriculum and culture.

Evidence suggests that earning college credit prior to postsecondary enrollment is a predictor of college success. States are now being asked to consider including measures related to students earning college credit during high school in their accountability systems. This paper offers research-based guidance and recommendations to states for incorporating these indicators into their accountability systems.

The Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA) has created opportunities for stakeholders to play a more active role in helping state education agencies create policy and implement initiatives. For this to happen, however, state education agencies must first to be able to engage stakeholders in a way that will encourage committed collaboration with state and local leaders.

Work-based learning is an educational strategy that offers students an opportunity to reinforce and deepen their classroom learning, explore future career fields, and demonstrate their skills in an authentic setting. This article from Advance CTE highlights how states can set a vision for work-based learning and provides some key questions when setting this statewide vision. The article highlights an example from Tennessee and their strategy for strengthening work-based learning. 

Education leaders and employers across the country are working together to develop a well-prepared and competitive workforce. Work-based learning is an effective strategy for connecting students’ classroom learning to their future careers. This article from Advance CTE discusses the state’s role is removing potential legal barriers around work-based learning and provides key questions to ask when confronting those legal barriers. The article also highlights examples from New Jersey.

This brief recommends seven ways for supporters of deeper learning to take advantage of the changing education policy landscape, as authority shifts from the federal government to states and local districts. The authors outline priorities to help the nation’s high schools move from a largely inequitable system to one that prepares all students for college and careers, with the full range of academic, personal, and social skills needed for life success.