"Accelerating Opportunity" responds to the nation's growing need for improved pathways from Adult Basic Education (ABE) to credentials of value in the labor market. It builds on promising practices developed in "Breaking Through," an initiative of Jobs for the Future and the National Council for Workforce Education, and…

This final report concludes a three-year project to identify the program impact on 125 youths and adults who took vocational education in eight locations in Illinois. The longitudinal case study began in 1978-79 when the subjects were still enrolled in their vocational programs. Many of the students who became case subjects for the study were…

This report details the process of the Illinois Standards Project to develop, adopt, and implement standards of quality for agricultural occupation programs at both the secondary and postsecondary levels throughout Illinois. Part I, standards for quality programs in area vocational centers excluding metropolitan areas, is divided into three…

The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 requires that workforce investment areas establish individual training accounts (ITAs) that provide vouchers customers can use to pay for training. The United States Department of Labor is supporting the ITA experiment, during which new customers determined to be eligible for training will be randomly…

This manual contains guidelines for organizing small business programs in community colleges. Following an introductory discussion of the need for such a program both throughout the United States in general and in Illinois in particular, the role of the community college in facilitating small business development is examined. Guidelines are set…