This brief reports on the first year of a promising effort in Texas to deepen the postsecondary preparation that schools and programs offer. With support from the Greater Texas Foundation (GTF) and coaching and technical assistance from Jobs for the Future (JFF), five sites have begun using JFF's Back on Track: Postsecondary Success model and…

This Policy Brief captures some of the challenges for students' math education trajectories, in light of the coronavirus pandemic, and it highlights three ways states can strengthen math pathways to improve student access and success. Specific policy options that states can consider include: (1) aligning high school math courses with postsecondary…

The United States must raise the graduation rates of community college students if it is to increase economic opportunity for individuals and improve the competitiveness of its workforce. Yet too many students arrive on campus academically underprepared and get placed into developmental (or remedial) courses where they fail to progress. For this…

Texas has long been an innovator in policies, systems, and practices to ensure that young adults from low-income backgrounds are prepared for postsecondary education and careers. Today, the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic crisis have cast a harsh light on the importance of reengaging young adults who are disconnected from school and work…

With the national spotlight on community colleges, the sector has a unique opportunity to seize the moment and collaborate with K-12 to increase student success. Efforts to increase community college access and open doors to more students must include a complementary focus on improving readiness. Otherwise, remediation rates will remain…

Jobs for the Future (JFF) set out a little over a year ago to create such models for bridging the secondary-postsecondary divide, developing strategies for high schools and colleges to build paths from the 12th grade through critical milestones of success in the first year of college. These partnerships of school districts and community colleges…

The paper begins with a challenge, namely: How do we work with families and communities to co-create the next generation of family and community engagement, providing equitable learning pathways--both in and out of school and from birth to young adulthood--that will enable all children to be successful in the 21st century? Exploring what it takes…

Through Job For the Future's (JFF's) work with communities around the country on the Back on Track model, postsecondary bridging strategies have emerged as a particularly critical and especially replicable component of programming for vulnerable youth. This issue brief offers a typology of evidence-informed bridge programming, drawing on…

Teachers dedicate their lives to working with students, but also in learning from each other. In programs around the Spokane, Washington area of the U.S., teachers have been meeting with the intention of strengthen connections and smooth transitions between K-12 schools and institutions of higher education in alignment with expectations for the…

Several systemic factors contribute to the lack of stability and educational opportunities for students in foster care, including lack of transportation to the school of origin (or the schools they enrolled in when they first entered foster care), difficulty enrolling in new schools and transferring credits between school districts, gaps in…

The transition to college presents significant challenges to many returning veterans. These students are, in many ways, the most nontraditional of all nontraditional students. These soldier/scholars are set apart from their campus peers--by age, by life experience, by envelopment in the military culture, and all too often by a close-up view of…

As they closed the books on the 2012-2013 school year, Long Beach City College continued the task of pouring over years of student enrollment data. They found that after years of offering remedial courses for students who entered unprepared for the rigors of higher education, the college reported and astonishing 500 percent increase in the number…

The University of North Texas's Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science began admitting students to its 2-year early college entrance science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) program in the fall of 1988. This program provided accelerated entry for top students in Texas in the areas of mathematics and science. Approximately 200…

Although the United States is touted as a country where anyone could be successful regardless of social class or national background, upward social mobility is hard to attain. Less than one in 10 children born into poverty will reach the top of the income distribution. For many individuals, postsecondary education has historically been a way out…

The U.S. Department of Education's Policy to Performance project was funded in 2009 to build the capacity of state adult basic education (ABE) staff to develop and implement policies and practices that would support an ABE transition system. Policy to Performance states were selected though a competitive process. State adult education directors…