Postsecondary institutions, and particularly community colleges, are positioned well to train more and more of the nation's entry- and middle-skill workers. The New World of Work (NWoW), a program that promoted teaching and learning soft skills, was designed in 2012 and operated briefly in over 75 community colleges in California. The program…

To understand how ISL addresses linguistic difference between participants and host communities, a qualitative content analysis of recent peerreviewed articles in which programs were described as having addressed linguistic difference. Nearly half of the literature did not explicate how language was addressed. Across 25 programs, seven methods…

Many public workforce training programs lead to industry-recognized, third-party awarded credentials, but little research has been conducted on the economic benefits of these credentials in the labor market. This paper provides quasi-experimental evidence on the labor market returns to industry-recognized credentials connected to community college…

This article estimates earnings impacts for those who completed long-term college credentials (degrees or college certificates requiring a year or more of study) and those who did not in an experimental evaluation of a federally-funded sectoral job training program. The experimental evaluation found no overall impact of the program on earnings,…

Accreditation is a critical process in maintaining standards of consistency and excellence in the academic preparation of students for their chosen profession. While academic programs, professional associations, and credentialing organizations all recognize the importance of programmatic accreditation in recreational therapy professional…

"Stackable credential programs" are designed to make it easier for students to earn multiple postsecondary certificates or degrees in a field as they advance in their careers. To examine the stacking of credentials in Ohio and inform ongoing efforts to scale stackable credential programs, the Ohio Department of Higher Education and the…

For more than three decades, the inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood education settings has been developing worldwide in educational research, policy, and real-world practice. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a Special Needs Inclusive Practices Credential Program with early educators working in the…

In 2015, Abt Associates received a grant from the Institutes for Education Sciences (IES) for a five-year "Development and Innovation" study of PTC. The purposes of the study were to gauge progress in implementing PTC and to develop and test improvements where needed. Fein et al. (2020) summarize the IES study's approach and findings. A…

Educators have long recognized that students gain important skills through real-world learning, which frequently takes place outside school hours or school walls. In Boston and Providence, after-school program leaders engaged in a bold experiment to formally recognize these skills through an innovative credential called a digital badge. For two…

Micro-credentials are increasingly being adopted across a variety of industries and countries, including the kindergarten through grade 12 education system in the United States, as a way to identify workers with specific skills, knowledge, and competencies. This report presents the results of a study conducted by RAND researchers who investigated…

In 2013, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) approved the implementation of a performance assessment for all preliminary services credential candidates. The result is what is now known as the California Administrator Performance Assessment (CalAPA). Consisting of three sub-assessments, prospective administrators will need to…

Abt Associates evaluated the Bridges to Career Opportunities (BCO) program, developed by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), to determine whether adults with low incomes and low skills who participate in BCO services are more likely to increase their employment and financial stability than do adults who participate in LISC's…

California's Commission on Teacher Credentialing (Commission) requires all programs of preliminary multiple and single subject teacher preparation to use a Commission-approved Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA) as one of the program completion requirements for prospective teacher candidates. Three TPA models were approved by the Commission: (1)…

World Education Services (WES) is a non-profit organization with over 40 years of experience in assessing academic credentials from more than 200 countries and jurisdictions and 40,000 educational institutions. Because many refugees are unable to obtain verifiable documents, the assessment of their qualifications calls for a different approach…

This report summarizes the results of the AISD CTE Program Analysis Scorecard for the 2020-2021 school year. The CTE Program Analysis Scorecard results focus on three components of program outcomes: (a) program alignment, (b) quality of instruction, and (c) access and equity. Program outcomes provide information about program effectiveness and…