States and districts use career pathways in a variety of ways, in a variety of settings, and under vastly different circumstances to give young people access to meaningful careers and stable lives. In this report, the authors conducted case studies of career pathways initiatives in Texas, Ohio, and Colorado to better understand the triumphs and…

Nearly every high-priority item in national, federal, state, and local discussions about education--and policy proposals across the political spectrum--requires high-quality longitudinal data to inform its design, implementation, and evaluation. This factsheet shares Data Quality Campaign's (DQC's) analysis of what "Data for Action 2011:…

To address key policy and programmatic questions and help improve student and system performance, states must work to link data across the early childhood, postsecondary and workforce (P-20/workforce) spectrum and share this information with appropriate stakeholders. This issue brief highlights current efforts in California, Florida, Indiana, and…

To give states the information they need to sustain hard-fought education reform policy changes effectively, Achieve conducted research on state education reforms that have been sustained successfully for over a decade or more. Funded by the GE Foundation, Achieve hopes this work will help other state leaders, wherever they may be on their road to…

The Texas Scholars Program, a joint business/education venture, is a low-cost program that motivates the "forgotten majority" (lower ranked students) to complete a rigorous academic curriculum preparing them for the labor market or postsecondary education. Since 1989, Eastman Chemical Company business leaders have been…

This study describes the major forms of year-round education, evaluates their potential costs and educational benefits (including effects on student academic achievement, learning retention, socialization, and employability), and assesses such programs' feasibility as to legal requirements and effects on school personnel and the larger community.…

High school graduates from a self-selected group of school districts in Texas were surveyed early in the year after graduation regarding the extent to which they were engaged in activities endorsed by the state's School-to-Careers (STC) initiative during their senior year in high school. Since the STC initiative had only begun during these…

This book contains 30 chapters on the tech prep initiative in Texas: "The Identity of Tech Prep in Texas" (Tunstall); "A Snap-Shot of the Impact of the Tech Prep Initiative in the Governor's 24 Planning Regions" (Brown); "The Tech Prep Consortium Directors: The Architects for the Future of Texas" (Hensley et al.);…

Developed during a project to document and analyze the tech prep initiative in Texas, this handbook contains exemplary documents associated with the model programs in the state. This second edition of the handbook organizes documents in sections (sections A, C, D, and G) that correspond to the major impact sectors identified during the research…

Many adults in basic literacy programs tend to drop out if they cannot see the program's relevance to the real world. In response to this problem, Odessa College (Odessa, Texas) developed, implemented, and evaluated an innovative program for adult education through technology designed to provide high quality, multimedia literacy education directly…

The activities and services delivered under the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 by the Capital Area Education and Careers Partnership in Austin, Texas, during 1998 and 1999 were evaluated by an independent evaluator, using interviews with 24 persons involved in the project, site visits, and document analysis. The evaluation found that…

A research team gathered and disseminated information on effective tech prep policies and practices for developing and evaluating program curriculums in the broad career pathways of allied health, business, and engineering technology in Texas. Data were gathered through interviews, site visits, document analysis, and surveys. Curricular documents…

The first in a series of publications addressing issues of linkage and coordination of job training programs in Texas, this paper focuses on the background of federal and state events requiring new strategies for coordination of job training programs in Texas and examines the nature and purpose of coordination of job training activities and…

Early state and local progress toward implementation of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) was reviewed. Data were collected through visits to selected sites in Florida, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Vermont and a 90-item Workforce System Information and Evaluation (WSIE) data collection form. The following aspects of WIA…