Community colleges in the United States, which serve a disproportionate number of students from low-income backgrounds, can provide a valuable pathway toward well-paying careers. However, graduation rates at community colleges are very low--among first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who enter public two-year schools, only 29 percent…

Skills Bootcamps were introduced to support the 2019 UK Government's manifesto commitment to giving adults the opportunity to build sector-specific skills and to help employers by giving people the skills they need to move into jobs in sectors with skills shortages. Skills Bootcamps are short, flexible courses, co-designed with employers and run…

The Mississippi Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (MIBEST) initiative is a statewide workforce and economic development effort led by the Mississippi Community College Board and implemented in partnership with the state's 15 community colleges. MIBEST concurrently delivers career and technical education and adult education, targeting…

While a college degree offers the opportunity for increased income, a degree alone does not guarantee a student's successful entry into the workforce. Work-based learning, such as internships and apprenticeship programs, has become an increasingly popular way to help students build workforce skills and experience and gain real-world exposure to a…

"Reinvention" chronicles an unprecedentedly comprehensive approach to community college reform and the leadership challenges encountered along the way. The book addresses cultural clashes over the role and purpose of community colleges and argues for an emphasis on success and access. As chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago, Cheryl…

Prior research has classified strategies to facilitate adult learners' transitions to postsecondary opportunities into five broad categories: advising, General Educational Development-plus (GED-plus), English as a second language, career pathways, and college preparatory (Zafft, Kallenbach, & Spohn, 2006). This two-part study relied on…

Standardized testing for higher education has been much in the news in the US over the last few years. In the wake of the Spellings Commission, the clear intent of the Department of Education's (USDOE) position in negotiated rulemaking in 2007 was to mandate its use in accreditation. Standardized testing is also a central feature of the Voluntary…

A program was conducted to implement a "regular high school" adult diploma program built on a school-to-work philosophy and operated through a two-county, multidistrict lifelong learning consortium in Pennsylvania. The project also provided a rural, cooperative program model ready for replication in other areas in order to provide…

This document is a report on audit findings on issues related to 1997 Kansas community college customized employee training courses. Twenty-eight community college customized employee training classes were reviewed in the audit. Findings showed that: (1) 16 of 19 community colleges provided customized employee training courses for college credit;…

This is a report on the 2001 after-college earnings of students from Washington State's community and technical colleges. The state board created a wage-based category system for all 500 vocational/job-preparatory programs offered by the 34 state two-year colleges. The programs were divided into high- ($12 or more per hour), middle- ($10.50-$12…

The document contains materials relating to the annual meeting of the project directors working with the Secondary Transition Intervention Effectiveness Institute, held December 1-2, 1988. The document includes an agenda, summaries of 10 featured project presentations, summaries of 32 poster sessions, a list of meeting participants, and a…

This handbook is intended for people who work with unemployed adults in education and training in Britain, as well as policymakers and administrators in the field. It includes five sections: (1) the principles involved in educational guidance for unemployed adults, including the meaning of unemployment for adults, a definition of educational…

A survey of the New York Department of Correctional Services Vocational Education Program was conducted in 53 correctional facilities throughout the state, with a questionnaire measuring perceptions of staff and inmates about the effectiveness of the program in the areas of work skills, technical skills, and student personal attributes relating to…

This is a report on the worker retaining program administered by the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. The program provides job retraining to workers unable to find jobs in their current fields. Since 1993, the program has served more than 44,000 unemployed and displaced workers at 34 state community colleges and over…

This book examines the capacity of the career academy--one of the initiatives spawned by the school-to-work movement--to address academic reform in terms of increased education and workplace skills. Qualitative data collected as part of a 7-year local evaluation of career academies and a data set that contains transcript data on a population of…