Issue/Policy Brief

Pathways through College: Strategies for Improving Community College Student Success

This brief discusses the barriers to community college completion faced by students, such as lack of preparation, financial aid, and competing obligations. The brief also offers solutions for improving community college student outcomes through implementing promising practices and strategies, some of which include curriculum alignment and student supports.

Research-Based Options for Education Policymaking: Twenty-first-Century Skills and Implications for Education

This brief describes the different interpretations of  what "21st century skills" are as well as the different perspectives of how these skills should be implemented and assessed. The brief also includes recommendations for policymaking around implementation and assessment of 21st century skills. These recommendations include refocusing accountablity systems, defining proficiencies and competencies around work-based learning opportunities, expanding secondary and higher education cooperation, and implementing Linked Learning.

Connecting the Disconnected: Improving Education and Employment Outcomes Among Disadvantaged Youth

This paper examines current trends in the declining employment outcomes among disadvantaged youth, with a particular focus on those "disconnected" from schools and the labor force. The document offers explanations for these trends and analyses of policies designed to improve said outcomes. The supply- and demand-side policies recommended in this piece are ultimately designed to ensure the employability of disadvantaged youth, incentivize labor-force participation, and remove employment barriers faced by offenders and non-custodial parents.

Pathway to Recovery: Implementing a Back on Track Through College Model

This brief from Jobs for the Future outlines a model for engaging disconnected and at-risk youth through the development of aligned postsecondary pathways and academic supports. The brief presents an overview of the current attainment and skills gap and then outlines the Back on Track Through College model, including examples of successful implementation and policy recommendations that support implementation.

Workforce Data Landscape

This fact sheet discusses the importance of aligning workforce data and how that data can inform educational and economic development policy. Aligning education, employment, and workforce data also allows stakeholders to answer a variety of questions such as: What educational experience do children need to successfully pursue their desired careers and do the courses a student takes correlate to his or her later employment and earnings?

Improving College and Career Readiness by Incorporating Social and Emotional Learning

This issue brief was written to assist state policymakers in better understanding how social and emotional learning (SEL) can help students to be college and career ready. The brief provides a short description of what SEL is, why it is needed, and what it looks like in practice. In addition, examples of standards that support SEL at the federal and state levels, current SEL initiatives and programs, and outcomes and measures that can be used to assess SEL programming are described.

Improving College and Career Readiness for Students with Disabilities

This issue brief is intended to assist state policymakers in better understanding strategies to prepare students with disabilities and special needs for college and career. The brief provides context and background on the numbers of students with disabilities who are college and career ready; examines issues related to preparation and readiness for postsecondary education and careers; and includes examples of current programs and policies that help students with disabilities to successfully transition to college and career.

How Career and Technical Education Can Help Students Be College and Career Ready: A Primer

If educators and policymakers are to make good on the national commitment to graduate more students from high school prepared to face postsecondary challenges, schools must continue to improve career technical education (CTE), ensuring that students have access to high-quality pathways to success. This brief provides an overview of the evolution of CTE in the U.S., reviews what CTE looks like in practice, and highlights issues CTE faces in the field that must be overcome for it to become an impactful and wide-reaching strategy for preparing students for postsecondary success.

Goals and Expectations for College and Career Readiness: What Should Students Know and Be Able to Do?

This brief, the second in the College and Career Development Organizer series, summarizes the goals and expectations of college and career readiness that have been collected and organizes this information into three key threads: 1) Core Content; 2) Pathways Content; 3) Lifelong Learning Skills. Along with a brief description of each thread, key components are highlighted and examples of each type of goal and expectation are provided.

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