Career Pathways Systems

Establish a career pathways team that includes state and local leaders from across secondary and postsecondary education (including CTE), adult education, workforce development, human services, economic development, justice, and the private sector, including employers from high demand industry sectors and occupations.

Conduct service mapping to identify shared goals, services, resources, and performance measures across partner programs.

Agree upon and clearly define the roles and responsibilities of each partner for the development and implementation of the comprehensive Career Pathways System, formally committing to those roles and responsibilities in a memorandum of understanding (MOU), ensuring that all partners are empowered to make or influence decisions.

Identify a lead and coordinator at the state and local levels to coordinate day-to-day operations, convene partners, broker opportunities, lead planning, and evaluate the development and progress of the comprehensive Career Pathways System.

Use multiple dataset labor market analyses, real-time data, and employer advisory groups or partnerships to inform high-demand industry sector identification, as well as curriculum and system design.

Target high-demand industry sectors for establishment of pathways in the comprehensive Career Pathways System.

Compare capacity of education and training systems to needs of employers, identify and address skills gaps.

Identify key employers as partners from the targeted sectors and provide unified outreach.

Utilize technical skills assessments that

• measure skills attainment and the application of knowledge at multiple points along a pathway;
• use industry-recognized assessments and credentials; use state assessments where industry credentials do not exist; and
• award postsecondary credit and/or industry recognized credentials

Use partnerships with employers to regularly test the validity of technical skills expectations and credentials.

Incorporate "employability" or "soft" skills into technical skills curricula and instructional strategies.

Ensure course content and curricula

• Ensure course, credit, and credentials are sequential and non-duplicative, with one education level articulated to the next so students' progress along pathways results in credential attainment and/or a degree, and in employment or progression in a high-demand career.
• Ensure that curricula are aligned with rigorous college and career readiness standards.

Courses (secondary and adult learners)

• Design secondary level courses along the lines of a skills pyramid, with broad foundational content offered at the introductory level, applying to the many careers encompassed within a cluster, with courses becoming more occupationally focused and skills-specific as students progress to the postsecondary level.
• Organize coursework for adults to meet their needs, including modularized curricula; stackable credentials with value in the labor market (with programs built and organized around DOL competency models that may also follow the lines of a pyramid, to the extent practicable); non-semester-based scheduling, alternative class times and locations; and the innovative uses of technology.

Provide comprehensive academic and career counseling to students at all levels, particularly at the beginning of a POS/CP and at points of transition along the pathway.

Identify and promote opportunities for secondary students to engage in dual enrollment (high school and postsecondary education courses) and for low-skilled adults to engage in co-enrollment (adult education and postsecondary occupational training)—allowing students to earn college credit while still in high school or in adult education programs, respectively.

Promote interdisciplinary planning and teaching among academic and CTE teachers and postsecondary technical and basic skills instructors (for low-skilled adults), with the goal of integrated instruction and acceleration.

Use contextualized content and instructional strategies that teach team building, critical thinking, communication, and other work-readiness competencies.

Incorporate prior-learning assessments and competency-based education and training models wherever possible, particularly at the postsecondary level.

Develop career maps that can be used across secondary and postsecondary systems, resulting in credential or degree attainment and in high-demand careers.

Identify, validate, and keep current technical and workforce readiness skills (using industry-developed or recognized assessments and credentials with value in the labor market, where available, and state-developed assessments and credentials where industry-recognized qualifications do not exist).

Identify costs associated with system redesign, development, operations, and costs associated with student participation, particularly at the postsecondary level (e.g., tuition, books).

Identify areas of overlap, especially between career and technical education programs of study and adult career pathways; explore ways system alignment may lead to efficiencies and savings.

Conduct unified outreach to raise awareness and build support for comprehensive career pathways among key stakeholder groups including business leaders and policymakers.

Identify and seek out new funding sources and implement new funding strategies to "braid" multiple funding sources (including local, state, and national public and private initiatives).

Examine opportunities for alternative financing (e.g., bond financing, augmented FTE, employer-provided training, apprenticeships).

Jointly develop a sustainability plan.

Jointly set goals for scaling.

Conduct a cross-agency policy audit (at the state and local levels) to determine points of alignment across participating programs and agencies, as well as barriers to collaboration.

Identify policy changes that are needed

• Once a policy audit is completed, identify policy changes that are needed, statutory or administrative, to eliminate barriers and to drive the systemic changes that are necessary for development of a comprehensive Career Pathways System in the state and local area.

Teams should examine impediments to systems change

• In addition to formal policy barriers to system alignment, state and local teams should also examine informal, perceived policy and cultural impediments to systems change that stand in the way of progress (at state, local, and institutional levels).

Teams should identify and make changes across agencies and institutions

• Working as a team, identify and make those changes that can be made across agencies and institutions without legislative or complex administrative actions (e.g., informal policy or cultural changes); work to craft and build support for more complex legislative and administrative changes that are necessary.

Examples of changes that may be pursued include policies ranging from encouragement for dual and co-enrollment, establishing statewide articulation agreements, increased flexibility for student aid eligibility, and elimination of barriers to cross-system alignment.

Identify system changes and performance indicators, including the participant outcomes that are needed to determine the effectiveness of a comprehensive Career Pathways System that extends from secondary career and technical eduation and adult education to postsecondary credential attainment and employment in high-demand occupations.

Ensure college and career readiness standards are

• consistent across secondary and postsecondary systems;
• reflective of math and English knowledge levels expected of high school graduates; and
• incorporate industry-recognized technical standards

Align state databases, either through sharing agreements or through incorporation into a P-20 data warehouse, and consider how data will be stored, tracked, and shared.

Focus on improvements to metrics and data collection methods.

Set long- and short-term goals; measure progress against them.

Provide timely data evaluating effectiveness of alignment.

Ensure data is used to drive decision-making.