This brief summarizes findings from implementation, impact, and cost-benefit evaluations of Accelerating Opportunity (AO). AO is a career pathways initiative launched in 2011 that aims to help adults with low basic skills earn valued occupational credentials, obtain well-paying jobs, and sustain rewarding careers. AO was one of the first efforts…

As policy makers have placed an increasing focus on training and preparing workers to obtain postsecondary credentials, questions remain about the value to various actors, especially for job seekers and workers who often invest time and money to obtain a credential with the hopes of improving their employment prospects and raising their earnings.…

Accelerating Opportunity (AO) combined integrated career pathways at two-year colleges with team teaching, acceleration strategies, supportive services, and policy changes. It aimed to help low-skilled adults earn occupational credentials, obtain well-paying jobs, and sustain rewarding careers. This final implementation report documents activities…

Public funding for employment and training has dwindled over the past several decades. Yet in communities all over the United States, there has been considerable development of alternative approaches to help low-income people gain skills for particular industry sectors. In 2003, with support from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Public/Private…

Over the past two decades, an innovative approach to workforce development known as sectoral employment has emerged, resulting in the creation of industry-specific training programs that prepare unemployed and underskilled workers for skilled positions and connect them with employers seeking to fill such vacancies. In 2003, with funding from the…

This case study on Focus: HOPE is the fourth of six sectoral studies to provide an in-depth look at individual sectoral employment development programs and their interaction within distinct economic and industry environments. It explores HOPE, a Detroit civil rights organization with a highly developed machinist training program. Section 1…

The Sectoral Employment Development Learning Project (SEDLP) examined industry-based ("sectoral") approaches to employment training to determine whether they can help low-income individuals advance in the labor market. The SEDLP sample included 732 individuals at baseline, including 185 recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy…

Asian Neighborhood Design (AND) was established by a group of student architects in 1973 to rehabilitate houses and revitalize community spaces in the crowded neighborhoods of San Francisco's Chinatown. Despite its growth and development in response to changes in economic conditions, the policy environment, and its own clientele, AND has retained…

The benefits of sectoral workforce development programs to the working poor were examined in a 3-year longitudinal study of participants in six sectoral employment training programs across the United States. The programs, which were all designed to serve low-income clients, provided training in a diverse set of industries, including the following:…

The Garment Industry Development Corporation (GIDC) was founded in 1984 by a 3-member partnership that included the local union, industry associations, and local government. GIDC's goal was to support New York City's garment industry, which had been steadily losing jobs. GIDC exhibits the following characteristics of sectoral initiatives: it…

Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) is a worker-owned cooperative and employer-based training program that provides home health aide services in New York City's South Bronx. Since 1985, CHCA has developed from an outsider advocating for change in the home health sector to an insider within the sector. CHCA exhibits the following…

Project QUEST (Quality Employment through Skills Training) was begun in 1992 to provide unemployed and working poor residents of San Antonio, Texas, with employment training and job placement services. The program provides tuition subsidies and ancillary support services to low-income San Antonio residents enrolled in two-year associate's degree…