Advanced manufacturing is growing and thriving in the United States. Companies are in great need of reliable employees who can communicate well, effectively make decisions, and are interested in long-term careers with opportunity for advancement. Employers have identified a need for a more robust talent pipeline to narrow America's skills gap--a…

As community colleges across the country look for ways to promote student success, the need for scaling effective approaches is critical. This guide builds on a framework of four phases of scaling developed in Job For the Future's (JFF's) previous publication, "Thinking Big: A Framework for States on Scaling Up Community College…

Employers interested in working with young people are often concerned about possible barriers that may limit youth's access to workplaces, such as labor laws and liability issues. Employers who eagerly partner with educators to provide guest speakers and company tours might nonetheless be hesitant to invite students into workplaces for experiences…

It is a truism of American social policy that our nation has great success generating innovative programs that improve outcomes for participants--but that we are far less effective at moving from small, "boutique" programs into broadly applied solutions that improve the prospects of large numbers of individuals. This is certainly true in…

In 2011, the Harvard Graduate School of Education released "Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century." The report argued that the current education system was too narrowly focused on the goal of preparing all young people to pursue a four-year college or university degree immediately…

North Queens Community High School serves approximately 200 students, 16-20 years old, as they strive to reach their personal and academic goals. All students at North Queens have previously been enrolled in high school elsewhere and are over-age and undercredited. Small class sizes, student-centered support, and an accelerated credit acquisition…

This brief begins with a discussion of the composition of state leadership teams and organizing structures for supporting a Pathways to Prosperity Network initiative, and then describes effective strategies currently at play in the network states for jumpstarting work in the regions. It goes on to review state policies that support 9-14…