Researchers suggest that the economy of the future will consist of jobs that do not currently exist, there will likely be a shortage of individuals with necessary education and credentials to fill those jobs, and if the nation does not produce this workforce, there will likely be a $1.72 trillion loss in productivity by 2030. Considering these…

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…

The Illinois Community College Board (ICCB) continues to build and expand opportunities for adult education students to transition into college and the workforce. Through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), the ICCB will better align services with the core partners to assist students in accessing career pathway instructional and…

Communities face powerful challenges that require powerful solutions: a high-school dropout epidemic, youth unemployment, teen pregnancy. In an era of limited resources, those solutions must help communities to achieve more with less. A new kind of community collaborative--an approach that aspires to significant community-wide progress by…

Postsecondary and work success is central to the economic and social wellbeing of a country. Fundamentally, college success is measured by persistence to degree attainment. Analogously, work success refers to effective performance of a job's required tasks. To succeed in college, one must be ready for college. A student who is ready for college is…

A sample of 384 secondary school teachers in Illinois ranked the instructional techniques they considered most important for teaching these essential work skills: interpersonal relations, personal work attitudes, problem solving, communication, and job-related expectations. Techniques ranked were: group discussion, lecture, interviews, and…

This report contains a condensation and highlights of public hearings held by the Illinois State Advisory Council on Adult, Vocational and Technical Education (SACVE) and the Illinois Employment and Training Council (IETC) on the subject of community colleges in the state. During the hearings on this topic, 100 witnesses testified. The report is…

A model illustrating the relationship between mentoring and job competency was developed and tested in a sample of 82 members of a local chapter of a national association for training and development professionals. Human capital was conceptualized in terms of job competency attainment and social capital in terms of mentoring and protege…

The possibility of improving employability skills through cooperative education and tech prep was examined in an action research project involving high school students from two neighboring suburban communities in northern Illinois. The extent to which the schools were currently teaching employment and career development skills was examined by…