New Website Explores Why “Pathways Matter” When It Comes to Success in the Workforce

Corporation grantee ExcelinEd’s new online tool aims to help policymakers and education advocates create robust education-to-workforce pathways for all learners

By Carnegie Corporation of New York May 20, 2021
Future of Learning & Work
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Even before the COVID-19 pandemic upended the way millions of Americans live and work, many high school and college graduates found themselves entering the workforce unprepared. It’s imperative that all learners be set up for success on their chosen career path, but the question that has plagued parents, teachers, principals, district leaders, governors, and state representatives has continued to be: How can we make that happen?

Corporation grantee ExcelinEd’s new online tool, Pathways Matter, was built to help answer that question by exploring robust education-to-workforce pathways through the lens of a core set of ideas:

  • That pathways to success can take many routes
  • Agencies, policymakers, education systems, employers, and communities must work together to ensure that learners can earn valuable credentials and succeed in high-wage, high-skill occupations
  • State policies should be integrated so that progress made at one level or system is not slowed or stopped at another

The three main areas of the Corporation-funded website provide case studies of how individual learners have benefited from policy continuums on their pathway from education to workforce; exemplary state policies that more states can adopt and strengthen to support learners of all ages; and an analysis of how certain policies are currently being implemented.

Designed for policymakers and education advocates, Pathways Matter aims to help leaders not only ask the right questions when it comes to education-to-workforce transitions for all learners, but provide examples of successful policy implementation to help build a diverse and robust workforce that benefits all.

Top: A student works on an electrical box during an electrician class at the Santee Construction Academy, inside the Abram Friedman Occupational Center on June 09, 2011 (Credit: Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

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