The Pathways to Prosperity Report

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news_events/features/2011/Pathways_to_Prosperity_Feb2011.pdf

You can download the full report at the Harvard Graduate School of Education site for Pathways to Prosperity. And you can also view videos from the release of the report, hosted by the American Youth Policy Forum.

Excerpts from the February 2011 Pathway to Prosperity Report

A more demanding Labor Market:

In 1973, nearly a third of the nation’s 91 million workers were high-school dropouts, while another 40 percent had not progressed beyond a high school degree. Thus, people with a high-school education or less made up 72 percent of the nations workforce.

By 2007 the workforce had exploded nearly 70 percent to 154 mission workers, those with a high school education or less had shrunk to just 41 percent of the workforce. Thus, over the past third of a century, all of the net job growth in America has been generated by positions that require at least some post-secondary education. Workers with at least some college have ballooned to 59 percent of the workforce, from just 28 percent in 1973.

The Center on Education and the Workforce projects that the U. S. economy will create some 47 million job openings over the 10-year period ending in 2018. Nearly two-thirds of these jobs, in the Center’s estimation, will require that workers have at least some post-secondary education. The center projects that nearly half of these jobs (14 million jobs) will be filled by people with an associate’s degree or occupational certificate. These jobs pay more than many of the jobs held by those with a bachelor’s degree. (27% of people with post-secondary licenses or certificates-credentials short of an associate’s degree-earn more than the average bachelor’s degree recipient.)

Widening skills and Opportunity Gaps:

In the 2006, Are They Ready to Work Report from the Conference Board and others, they reported that high school graduates were “deficient” in such skills as oral and written communications, critical thinking and professionalism.  They concluded that schools that focus on college readiness alone does not equip young people with all of the skills and abilities they will need in the workplace or to successfully complete the transition from adolescence to adulthood. They suggested that a more holistic approach to education is more likely to produce youth who will succeed in the 21^st Century. They argued that both hard and soft skills are essential for success in this economy.

Teens’ who have good high school work experiences are more likely to be inspired to stay in school, graduate, and adopt ambitious goals.

Setting the right Target:

In 2009, President Barack Obama challenged every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training.  Was he recognizing that a bachelor’s degree is not required to prepare youth for the emerging jobs in the economy?

“College for All” and not a post-secondary credential has been the rhetoric for many years in education. Nearly 70 percent of high school graduates now go to college within two years of graduating. However, only 4 in 10 Americans have obtained either an associate’s or bachelor’s degree by their mid-twenties. Only 56 percent of those enrolling in a four-year college attain a bachelor’s degree after six years, and less than 30 percent of those who enroll in community college succeed in obtaining an associate’s degree within three years.  The US has the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world. (Fewer than one in three young people achieve this “college for all” dream.)

If current trends persist, the percentage of young adults with a post-secondary degree will actually drop. For the first time in U. S. history children will have less education than their parents. The College Board has set a goal of raising the U.S. college completion rate to 55 percent by 2025. (That is a 1% increase for each of the next 15 years.)

If the college completion rate goal succeeds, what about the other 45 percent of young Americans? What is the U.S. strategy for equipping these students wit the credential they need to be full participants in American Society? A high school diploma alone is no longer a sufficient passport to the middle class.

Learning for Jobs:

Inadequate career guidance is a major reason why so many students end up in classes they find boring and irrelevant, sentiments that are often a precursor to dropping out of school.

Economic prosperity and social cohesion depend on an appropriately skilled and employed workforce. School learning is often abstract, theoretical and organized by disciplines while work is concrete, specific to the task and organized by problems and projects.

Work-based learning appears to be the best way for the majority of young people to prepare for the world of work.

Two different Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports, provide compelling evidence that Career and Technical Education (CTE) that integrates work and learning is a superior way to learn and help youth in finding jobs after school completion.

Building a better network of pathways to adulthood for our young people is one of the paramount challenges of our time. Male dropouts who are likely to end up in prison and female dropouts who are likely to have babies out of wedlock could be minimized if the education experience engages them and prepares them for productive adult roles. A new social compact is needed to change the way education and preparation for the workplaces of the future is done in the U. S.

Multiple Pathways: A Broader Vision for School Reform:

The U. S. education system would be greatly strengthened if the pathways to all major occupations were clearly delineated from the beginning of high school so that young people and their families could clearly see the patterns of course-taking and other experiences that would best position them to gain access to that field. It would also expand both their earning potential and employment opportunities.

The workplace is clearly the place to “try on” or “test out” a career choice It is also by far the best venue in which to learn the “21^st century skills” so critical to success in today’s economy and work-linked learning can be extraordinarily powerful in engaging students who are bored or turned off by conventional classroom instruction. (They are engaged more effectively.)

Today’s best CTE programs do a better job of preparing many students for college and career than traditional academics-only programs. CTE can be highly effective in promoting student engagement and in educating students who for whatever reason are not motivated by a purely academic program.

Our goal in the U. S. should be to assist every young adult beginning at the end of middle school to develop an individualized pathway plan that would include career objectives; a program of study; degree and/or certificate objectives; and work-linked learning experiences.

The pathways system envisioned would require business and other employers to become deeply engaged in multiple ways at an earlier stage-in helping to set standards and design programs of study; in advising young people; and most importantly, in providing greatly expanded opportunities for work linked learning. Career counseling, workplace tours, job shadowing, attendance at job fairs, career mentors, cooperative on-the-job learning, apprenticeships, and opportunities to work on projects or problems designed by industry partners would greatly increase.