Adriana Harrington is the Managing Director of Policy for ExcelinEd.
When it comes to navigating our journeys from education to career, strong policies can make our lives easier and poor ones (or gaps in policy) can completely derail our plans. We might not know it at the time, but policy influences our lives every day. It might be state financial aid that helps us afford college, a CTE program that helps us earn a valued credential, or state-provided data and information that helps us make informed decisions about our pathways. They all stem from a policy.
ExcelinEd’s Pathways Matter proposes a policy framework for states to make sure all learners are supported across their unique pathway and ensure there are no gaps in policy for learners to fall through.
Let’s take a look at two hypothetical learners, Taylor and Jordan, and the power of policy in shaping their pathways.
Jordan’s high school received a state grant to implement a computer networking program of study. This grant (Key Policy: Targeted CTE Program Funding) provided the funding to ensure students learn on industry-relevant equipment and with standards developed in collaboration with IT experts.
After taking three courses in the program of study (Key Policy: High-Quality CTE Programs) Jordan obtains the industry-valued Network+IT certification (Key Policy: Industry Credentials).
This credential gives Jordan options – 1. Go straight into the workforce at a living wage or 2. Stack the credential in an apprenticeship program (Key Policy: Stackable Credentials; Key Policy: Registered Apprenticeship).
Jordan chooses path two and gains on-the-job training and another credential in the apprenticeship. Jordan enters the workforce with an even better paying job in IT – a field with current and future relevance.
Jordan’s high school has maintained the same three CTE offerings since her parents went there – business, family and consumer science (known around the school as “home ec”) and automotive.
Upon graduation Jordan realizes her program of choice – business – was incredibly vague. It was not aligned with the needs of employers and didn’t prepare her for the expectations of college.
Jordan decides to enroll in the local community college still unclear on her major and career path. Having to take non-credit remedial courses to catch up hinders Jordan’s motivation and she ends up not completing her degree.
With student debt to pay off, Jordan ends up working at a local retail store to pay her loans and figure out her next steps.
Taylor is once again on the job hunt due to a pandemic related downsizing at their employer.
Unsure of where to turn Taylor reaches out to the local technical school. Taylor learns about the skills retraining program (Key Policy: Skills Retraining/Credentialing) in five high-wage, high-skill, high-demand fields (Key Policy: Shared Program Quality Definitions and Indicators) which provides him reassurance the time invested in going back to school will set him up for success later in life.
Then learning that all schools in the state have a systematized prior learning assessment policy (Key Policy: Credit for Prior Learning and Credentials) and tuition support (Key Policy: Last Dollar/Last Mile Financial Aid) takes a huge weight of his shoulders. His time to earn his nursing degree can now be shortened because he’s getting recognized for what he already knows and can do. And funds for tuition help to make going back to school financially viable for his family.
Back on the job hunt after a pandemic-related downsizing Taylor is overwhelmed.
Searching the community and technical college websites is confusing, and he’s not sure which careers are most in-demand in his region and will earn him a wage to comfortably support his family.
Taylor chooses to re-enroll in postsecondary to get his nursing degree, but the lack of statewide transfer policies means that the credit he had obtained earlier when he started his degree won’t count for credit at his new institution. And Taylor will have to pay for the degree out of pocket.
Taylor’s car needs work at the same time that his mother falls and breaks her hip. With these additional financial burdens Taylor decides that he needs to put his degree on pause and get a job as an office assistant. He never goes back and completes his degree.
These stories might sound oversimplified – or they might sound familiar. Either way, the takeaway is real: policies can change lives. In order to help make sure that Jordan and Taylor don’t hit barriers, state policymakers need to look at the whole continuum of education to workforce policies. Having a continuum of policies helps ensure that learners are supported in their whole pathway from education to the workforce (and back to education and back to the workforce if they so choose).
Pathways Matter proposes a policy framework, the learner continuum, for state policy makers to leverage when conducting that landscape analysis.
Visit PathwaysMatter.org to see the 20 policies that comprise a complete learner continuum and example states that are strong in each policy. Have a question? Email PathwaysMatter@ExcelinEd.org. We look forward to hearing from you.
