According to Recovery 2020, a recent study completed by Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce, in the next five years, the United States will fall short by 5 million workers with postsecondary education. In order to increase the number of young people with a postsecondary credential, we need to both increase the number of students accessing postsecondary education and increase the number completing a credential. In order to achieve these goals, many states and communities across the country have been working to build collaborative, cross-system pathways to postsecondary opportunities.
The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) conducted a study tour for Congressional and Administration staff as well as staff from national youth-serving organizations to visit schools and programs in Connecticut that showcased promising elements of pathways to postsecondary opportunities for all students. Through visits and dialogue with state and local leaders, AYPF facilitated a discussion of the role of policy in sustaining and growing multiple pathways to postsecondary opportunities for all students, particularly those who face barriers to entering postsecondary education and the workplace (opportunity youth).
Participants visited youth-serving programs that have built seamless transitions from K-12 into postsecondary opportunities in both education and the workforce through cross-system collaboration and had multiple opportunities to discuss the development and sustainability efforts with state and local leaders.
Resources
- AYPF Background Information, Cross-System Collaboration To Create Postsecondary Opportunities for All Students
- Connecticut Voices for Children’s Keeping Kids in Class: School Discipline in Connecticut, 2008-2013 (including state, district, and local data and local initiatives)
- CSCU Student Success Center PowerPoint Presentation
- Our Piece of the Pie (OPP)
- Opportunity High School
- 2014 Annual Report
- General OPP Results
- Path Academy Model
- Pathways to Careers Flier
- Impact Profile: Nastassia Scott on New Skills, New Job, and a Renewed Opportunity – A conversation with Nastassia Scott, a graduate of the Pathways to Manufacturing Initiative offered by Our Piece of the Pie (OPP) of Hartford, CT, in partnership with Asnuntuck Community College located in Enfield CT. (Jobs for the Future and National Fund for Workforce Solutions)
- Pathways through College: Strategies for Improving Community College Student Success (March 2013)
- Hartford Opportunity Youth Collaborative PowerPoint Presentation
- Connecticut United Way’s Have you Met Alice?
- United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut
- Fiscal Policy Center at Connecticut Voices for Children for Children PowerPoint Presentation
- Court Support Services Division, Connecticut Judicial Branch’s Opportunity Youth, Justice-Involved Youth. CSSD PowerPoint Presentation
- The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s The Connecticut Turnaround
- Asnuntuck Community College
