Career Pathways Systems

Partnerships are at the heart of career pathways and are essential to making them successful. Key cross agency partners at the local and state levels must be engaged, agree to a shared vision, and gain support from political leaders. Along with employers, State and local partners include, but are not limited to, workforce investment boards, community colleges, adult basic education providers, human services, economic development and community-based organizations and workforce intermediaries. Commitment and participation from the governor’s office and local elected officials is also essential. Roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and formalized.

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Sector-based training strategies that include employers in the design of curricula have demonstrated better employment and earnings outcomes for participants than more traditional approaches. Career Pathways Systems are designed using real-time labor market information and active employer involvement to ensure that training and education programs meet the skill and competency needs of local employers.

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Career pathways provide a clear sequence of education courses and credentials that meet the skill needs of high-demand industries. Key program design features include contextualized curricula, integrated basic education and occupational training, career counseling, support services, assessments and credit transfer agreements that ease entry and exit and promote credential attainment.

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Because career pathways approaches blend and align services from different government agencies to support an individual’s successful completion, innovative funding strategies that braid funds from a variety of public and private sources are essential.

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Career pathways programs require significant alignment among workforce, education, and human services to ensure that an individual can move seamlessly from school to work and earn in-demand credentials. Since every state and local area has its own particular policy infrastructure, there is no single approach to creating the public policy necessary for career pathways approaches. States, localities and tribal entities will need to examine whether administrative or legislative policy changes are necessary to help individuals participate in programs, enable blended funding, or support the professional development of staff necessary to support career pathway approaches.

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Career pathways initiatives define desired system and program outcomes; establish how data will be collected, stored, tracked and shared; and analyze data and assess progress made toward achieving outcomes.

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Select a career pathway element to find information on program development, implementation, and scale-up efforts.

1. Build Cross-Agency Partnerships and Clarify Roles
2. Identify Industry Sectors and Engage Employers
3. Design Education and Training Programs
4. Identify Funding Needs and Sources
5. Align Policies and Programs
6. Measure System Change and Performance

• America Works: Education and Training for Tomorrow’s Jobs, The Benefit of a More Educated Workforce to Individuals and the Economy (National Governors Association Chair’s Initiative 2013-2014) (PDF, 1.8 MB)
  • Preparing America's 21st century workforce to keep pace and stay competitive demands gubernatorial leadership. This report calls for governors to make significant improvements to our education system and workforce training programs, and forge closer relationships among our high schools, colleges, workforce training providers, and employers.
• Building Partnerships to Overcome Barriers (PDF, 6.4 MB)
  • The Minnesota Governor’s Workforce Council has created a policy brief that lays out recommendations for creating a statewide career pathways strategy that aligns the state’s vision, policies, and resources.
• Career Pathways Explained (Website)
  • This web-based tool from the Center for Law and Social Policy explains how the Career Pathway Systems approach helps individuals with limited skills access education and training that leads to employment in occupations and industries that are in high demand. It also provides concrete examples of success in Alliance states.
• Creating Career Pathways in Colorado (PDF, 1.5 MB)
  • The Colorado team participating in the Advancing Career and Technical Education in Career Pathways Systems project has created a step-by-step guide for building career pathways. (Government-Funded Resource)
• Glossary of Career Pathways Terminology (Website)
  • To work toward a common vision, the Oregon Career Pathways team, with input from team members of the Advancing Career and Technical Education in Career Pathways Systems project, created a glossary of terms with the goal of building a common understanding of pathways across the state. Defined terms ranged from descriptions of associated state programs and strategies to national initiatives and organization. (Government-Funded Resource)
• Minnesota "It Takes a Village" Presentation on Career Pathways Engagement (YouTube)
  • To spread the vision of what a career pathway can accomplish, the Rochester (MN) partnership created a set of communication tools that included a PowerPoint slide deck describing the local Career Pathways System and a listing of its members. (Government-Funded Resource)
• Cross-Agency Credential Measurement (CACM) (PDF, 220 KB)
  • Essential Elements for State Credential Measurement Policies—Cross-Agency Credential Measurement (CACM) is a systemic approach to assess whether a state’s human capital investments align with the needs of its labor market.
• Career Pathways Partner Agreements (Website)
  • This resource includes sample partner agreements that can be used in cross-agency collaboration to build career pathways.

• A Framework for Understanding Labor Market Alignment in Higher Education (PDF, 124 KB)
  • This report from the Heldrich Center offers a comprehensive framework for understanding labor market alignment with a focus on community colleges. Assesses current research and practice on the issue and provides recommendations for future research.
• Bridge the Gap: Rebuilding America’s Middle Skills (Website)
  • Accenture, Burning Glass, and Harvard Business School's Bridge the Gap: Rebuilding America's Middle Skills explores middle-skill jobs and career pathways and encourages employers to take a leadership role in collaborating with education to prepare the workforce.
• Colorado Sector Partnership Toolkit (Website)
  • The NoCO Manufacturing Partnership comprises a group of more than 50 northern Colorado manufacturing companies and 20 public partners. Working with the state, the group created the Sectors Summit Toolkit which contains resources and tools to support states in replicating project work.
• Expanding Business Engagement Website (Website)
  • The Expanding Business Engagement (EBE) website houses an entire curriculum on working effectively with employers. The curriculum is presented in a series of short, easy to digest recordings along with companion facilitator guides on a variety of topics and tools for engaging business including competency models, Labor Market Information (LMI), and using social media with employers and job seekers.
• Healthcare Pathways for Opportunity Youth: A Framework for Practitioners and Policymakers (Website)
  • Health Care Pathways for Opportunity Youth draws on experience and models for enabling underprepared adults to attain professional credentials and family-supporting earnings to offer a framework for designing and assessing parallel efforts to prepare opportunity youth for health care jobs and careers.
• Minnesota Model for Expanding Employer Involvement From the Regional to State Level (PDF, 384 KB)
  • To promote employer involvement in the Twin Cities, the region launched the Itasca project. Itasca staff work with participating schools and employers in a partnership that includes an academic planning process that takes into account labor market needs. Employers are asked to review curriculum to identify misalignment and provide input to strengthen instruction.
• Mobilizing Employer Support: The Kansas Employer Engagement Initiative (PDF, 4.13 MB)
  • To recognize businesses and industries that have partnered with education, the Kansas Board of Regents launched an Employer Engagement Initiative. The initiative provides a formal means for community and technical colleges to acknowledge employer contributions to the postsecondary system. Employers may be nominated by a college at one of three levels, with each level reflecting a successively higher level of contribution.
• Quick Lesson Workforce Data Podcast Series (Podcast)
  • The U.S. Employment and Training Administration has issued a series of podcast instruction guides to help identify and use labor market and workforce statistics. The presentations are written simply, and presume no previous subject matter or statistical knowledge. (Government-Funded Resource)
• Real-Time Employment and Job Vacancy Data Repository (Website)
  • Because of the importance and growing use of real-time employment and job vacancy data, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration has compiled a repository to enable individuals to find, understand, and use information.
• Tangled Up in Data? Putting Workforce Programs to Work in Employment and Education Programs (Webinar)
  • This webinar demonstrates how to use workforce data to identify growing and in-demand jobs, determine which of them are “good” jobs, and ascertain what preparatory education and training are needed to qualify for them.

• “Partners in Innovation: How a High School and College Are Improving Outcomes for Youth in San Diego” (Website)
  • The early college high school program at San Diego City College is a partnership of the college, San Diego Unified School District, and several state and national organizations. The partnership has successfully implemented a variety of college-readiness and college-connected strategies, including an early college school, to better prepare students for college work without the need for remedial courses.
• Career Pathways: One City Working Together (PDF, 3.14 MB)
  • New York City, based on recommendations from the Jobs for New Yorkers Task Force, plans to reinvent its workforce system based on the two interrelated themes of career pathways and industry partnerships. Specific task force recommendations, outlined in this report, include investing in bridge programs and middle-skill occupations, improving and expanding career and technical education and career counseling, and increasing work-based learning opportunities.
• Creating Pathways to Careers in Precision Machining for Opportunity Youth (PDF, 796 KB)
  • This working concept paper, Creating Pathways to Careers in Precision Machining for Opportunity Youth, explores why manufacturers are reporting a skilled worker shortage and how communities can create pathways for youth who are currently not enrolled in classes or working to take advantage of these career opportunities.
• How Career and Technical Education Can Help Students Be College and Career Ready: A Primer (PDF, 362 KB)
  • Describes how career and technical education can function as an educational strategy for providing young people with the academic, technical, and employability skills and knowledge to pursue postsecondary training or higher education and enter a career field prepared for ongoing learning.
• Kansas Accelerating Opportunity Project (Website)
  • The Kansas Board of Regents, in partnership with the Kansas Department of Commerce, is implementing the Accelerating Opportunity initiative in Kansas (AO-K) to transform the delivery system for adult education in Kansas by delivering career and technical education at the same time as adult basic skills instruction within a career pathways framework. Students complete short term certificate programs aligned with labor market needs, leading to industry-recognized credentials and immediate jobs.
• Kansas Program Alignment Resources (Website)
  • The state Postsecondary Technical Education Authority works to enhance technical education by aligning specific technical programs.  Groups of business leaders convened by the Kansas Department of Commerce and the Kansas Board of Regents, with participation from program advisory committee members from colleges, have worked to “map” preferred program outcomes for an occupational category.
• Mapping Pathways Connections: Community College Career Pathways Roadmaps in Oregon (Website)
  • To help high school students learn about their career training options, the state has created an interactive website that enables students to locate community colleges offering career and technical education programs of study that align with their secondary career and technical education studies. Students may use the site to identify affiliated career areas and programs offered within the college, and to download a career pathway roadmap to assist them in selecting courses.
• The Underuse of Apprenticeships in America (Website)
  • Apprenticeship is a worker-training model that has been shown to raise workers’ wages, increase employee productivity, and improve employers’ bottom lines. But, for all its benefits, apprenticeship is significantly underutilized in the United States.
• Washington State’s Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training Program (I-BEST): New Evidence of Effectiveness (PDF, 444 KB)
  • In the I-BEST model, a basic skills instructor and an occupational instructor team teach occupational courses with integrated basic skills content, and students receive college-level credit for the occupational coursework. The goal of this instructional model is to increase the rate at which basic skills students are able to succeed in college-level coursework leading to certificates and associate degrees in high-demand fields.
• What Works in Job Training: A Synthesis of the Evidence (PDF, 492 KB)
  • This report, prepared by the Secretaries of Labor, Commerce, Education, and Health and Human Services, with input from several other Federal agencies and staff, presents the results of evidence gathered on effective adult and youth job training strategies and programs.
• Workforce Imperative: A Manufacturing Education Strategy (Website)
  • The Society of Manufacturing Engineers has issued “Workforce Imperative: A Manufacturing Education Strategy” containing a national action plan to address job skills gaps in the manufacturing sector.

• State Strategies for Financing Career and Technical Education (PDF, 1.08 MB)
  • States are using a variety of approaches to allocate career and technical education funding, with the most common being categorical funding for career and technical education based on student enrollment, according to a new report from the National Center for Innovation in Career and Technical Education. (Government-Funded Resource)
• States Use Performance Funding to Help Meet Future Workforce Needs (Website)
  • Realizing the negative effect a shortage of educated workers will have on economic competitiveness, many states have implemented a range of policies to proactively address this gap and make their higher education systems more productive. Performance-based funding for higher education is one strategy states are using to increase educational attainment.
• The Kansas GED Accelerator (Website)
  • The GED Accelerator awards community and technical colleges with performance funding for students who concurrently earn a GED and an approved postsecondary credential. Colleges are eligible to receive up to $1,500—payment of $500 for completion of the GED and payment of $1,000 for completion of a high demand, state approved technical certificate—for students co-enrolled in adult basic skills and technical pathway programs.
• The Kansas Tuition Assistance and Incentive Program (PDF, 118 KB)
  • To promote dual credit opportunities, Kansas established legislation in 2012 to cover the cost of tuition for high school students admitted to a career and technical education course or program offered within a community college, technical college, or institute of technology. The legislation also directed the State Board of Regents to initiate development of a statewide articulation agreement for career and technical education programs to support students in transferring their credits earned within high school to a postsecondary institution of their choice.

• Call for a National Conversation on Creating a Competency-Based Credentialing Ecosystem (PDF, 731 KB)
  • This paper describes the crisis of credibility in our complex and highly fragmented credentialing system and outlines the components of what a fully functioning, competency-based credentialing ecosystem would include.
• Career Pathways Approaches for the Delivery of Education, Training, Employment, and Human Services: Summary of Responses to a Request for Information (Website)
  • The U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) recently published a blog on the continuing collaboration between ED, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) around career pathways and the response to their joint Request for Information (RFI) from April 2014. (Government-Funded Resource)
• Creating Policy Environments That Support Integrated Career Pathways (Website)
  • Integrated career pathways have emerged as a promising strategy for helping academically underprepared individuals to pursue, progress through, and complete the education and training needed to attain industry-recognized credentials and family-supporting jobs. This blog post describes policy efforts that have the potential to greatly improve the academic and job success for adult education students.
• Guide to State and Local Workforce Data (Website)
  • The U.S. Employment and Training Administration’s Office of Workforce Investment has released the second edition of its popular Guide to State and Local Workforce Data, which connects users immediately to the information they need. (Government-Funded Resource)
• Minnesota Mission Statement for Career Pathways Systems Development Efforts (PDF, 408 KB)
  • Representatives from Minnesota’s education and training agencies participating in the Advancing Career and Technical Education in State and Local Career Pathways Systems project collaborated to craft a mission statement for their system development efforts. This one-page brief served both as a marketing tool to communicate project work to state policymakers, and to solicit the involvement of other state agencies and groups. (Government-Funded Resource)
• Minnesota Postsecondary Enrollment Options (Website)
  • This program provides students with opportunities to earn college credit while they are still in high school, with courses generally offered on the campus of postsecondary institutions in Minnesota. Students may take postsecondary courses on a full- or part-time basis. Tuition, fees, and required textbooks are provided at no cost to high school students, with postsecondary institutions paid by the state.
• Oregon Glossary of Career Pathways Terms (Website)
  • Recognizing that state staff were using different language to describe a Career Pathways System, the Marketing & Communications Committee of the Oregon Career Pathways team created a glossary of terms to build a common understanding of pathways across the state. (Government-Funded Resource)
• Scaling "Stackable Credentials": Implications for Implementation and Policy (PDF, 1.37 MB)
  • This paper identifies five strategies several states and community colleges and their partners are using to create “stackable credentials.” The paper also discusses policy and institutional barriers these states and colleges have been working to overcome as they create a transferable currency of credentials.
• Texas Student Success Council: Finding Common Ground to Increase Community College Completion (PDF, 629 KB)
  • This publication is a concise documentation of the work of the Texas Student Success Council, a group of diverse stakeholder groups in Texas who collaborated and were successful in bringing about some high leverage policy changes in the state's legislative session. It includes a summary of the Council's origins, accomplishments, process for setting its policy agenda, and recommendations for states seeking to implement a similar strategy.
• USDOL ETA’s Workforce System Strategies: Sector Strategies (Website)
  • Sector Strategies build and nurture multi-stakeholder partnerships focusing on the workforce needs of an industry within a regional labor market. They constitute a major strategy by which the workforce investment system addresses skill gaps, engages directly with industry, and better aligns programs and resources serving employers and workers. (Government-Funded Resource)
• West Virginia Resolution Improves Higher Education Credit Transfer Process (Website)
  • The resolution, adopted by the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission and the West Virginia Council for Community and Technical College Education expedites the process of transferring between two- and four-year schools without having to pay to retake credits earned at another institution.

• CEDS 5.0 Includes Career Pathways Data Elements (Website)
  • The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has released the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) 5.0. CEDS is a national collaborative effort to develop voluntary, common data standards for a key set of data elements across the education and workforce pipeline, including data elements with relevance for career and technical education, adult education, and the workforce. Version 5.0 adds data elements relating to career pathways participation, among other elements. (Government-Funded Resource)
• Defining, Strengthening, and Measuring Career Pathways and Systems (Website)
  • CLASP and the Alliance partners jointly created and provided consensus support for Shared Vision, Strong Systems: The Alliance for Quality Career Pathways Framework Version 1.0, which establishes a common understanding of quality career pathways and systems.