There is a strong national movement to improve the quality in child care programs nationwide and an important part of this movement includes professional preparation standards. Stakeholders in New York State (NYS) have developed the NYS Children's Program Administrator Credential (CPAC), designed to meet the need for increased knowledge in child…

New York State, in all of its regions, has a growing number of diverse public-school students, including many immigrant groups, accounting for a significant change in the ethnic and racial demographics of the state's student population. Despite the rapidly changing student population, the teaching force nonetheless remains disproportionately White…

As the U.S. workforce ages, baby boomers retire, and birth rates decline, the United States is facing an estimated shortfall of 8 million workers between now and 2027. At the same time, the U.S. economy is becoming ever more knowledge-based. Having a marketable postsecondary credential, whether an academic degree or a professional certification or…

Studies have demonstrated the significance of afterschool staff development and have attempted to show the impacts of staff training on program quality and youth outcomes. Professional development, though necessary, wasn't always a priority for the author, especially if training hours conflicted with the author's afterschool program schedule.…

A plethora of micro-credentialing research and pilots are underway across Canada and around the world led by academic researchers, government, and industry. The intensity is creating a perfect storm of opportunity that is reframing assessment practices. Exploring their utility for admission and transfer into higher education, the focus of this…

As the COVID-19 pandemic ebbs, thousands of New Yorkers are searching for jobs, and employers across the state are struggling to fill empty positions. New York's publicly funded city and state community colleges are uniquely positioned to help bridge this gap, providing more job-focused education for mid-career adults and traditional college-age…

This article examines the current literature and state legislation of statewide "free tuition" promise programs. The purpose of this paper was to analyze state free community college programs, legislation, scholarly literature, and state websites to understand program structures, funding sources, and student-eligibility requirements. The…

In 2017, the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) funded Mathematica to conduct the Infant and Toddler Teacher and Caregiver Competencies (ITTCC) project. The project aims to examine existing efforts across states, institutions of higher education, professional organizations, and…

This study finds that schools are poorly prepared to counsel students about community college certificate or associate degree programs. Instead the mantra of college for all continues to encourage youth to spend time and money on bachelor's degrees, for which many students are not prepared to do well. Teachers desire more information on college…

There is currently more focus than ever on the importance of earning a college degree. At the same time, many students and parents are dubious that America's expensive, one-size-fits-all higher education system can adequately educate students for an ever more diverse and sophisticated world of work. There are other educational options that are…

This report examines the structural divide between for-credit and noncredit postsecondary education and the problems it presents for people seeking better jobs with higher pay. It highlights innovative ways that some community colleges are trying to bridge the gap nationally--creating more seamless pathways between credit and noncredit…

The Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC) and The Presidents' Forum have released a new study authored and researched by the Online Learning Consortium's Dr. Jill Buban, which sheds light on how adult learning institutions address students who possess alternative credentials and seek to apply these experiences to a degree. This…

Discussions of workforce development emphasize stackable training, and assume linear advancement and alignment, through college and career paths. Stackable credentials have become a best practice for community colleges across the United States as they struggle to advance the college completion agenda and ensure that students graduate with the…

This article illuminates major features of high-quality leadership programmes across different education systems. We do so by focusing on capturing commonalities and variations in high-quality pre-service programmes from five differing societies, all of which are high-performing education systems. To this end, we first delineate key profiles of…

We study employers' perceptions of postsecondary degrees using a field experiment. We randomly assign the sector and selectivity of institution to fictitious resumes and send them to real vacancy postings on a large online job board. According to our results, a bachelor's degree in business from a for-profit "online" institution is 22…