Editor’s note: Bruno V. Manno, a senior advisor for the Walton Family Foundation education program and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for Policy, wrote this commentary exclusively for reimaginED.
From 1910 to 1940, the soaring demand in America for educated workers to fill new white-collar jobs produced “a spectacular education transformation” called the high school movement.
It increased enrollment of 18-year-olds from 19% to 71% and graduation rates from 9% to more than 50%, lifting the U.S. to the forefront of educational attainment in the world.
Today’s effort to connect young people to work through career pathways programs is creating a 21st Century high school movement.
These programs link students and schools with employers and work, helping young people develop new friendships, other relationships, and social connections with those different than themselves.
These programs also promote a new opportunity agenda for young people.
This agenda gives them more educational options and fosters cross-class relationships that are a key way to boost economic mobility, according to new research led by Harvard economist Raj Chetty.
Partnership models and credentials
Pathways programs integrate education, training, employment, support services, and job placement, spanning K-12, postsecondary, and workforce development.
They include apprenticeships and internships; career and technical education; high school and postsecondary dual enrollment; career academies; acquiring specific knowledge or skills through boot camps; and staffing, placement, and other support services for job seekers.
There are statewide partnership programs created by governors and legislators from both political parties. Delaware Pathways began in 2014 under Democratic Gov. Jack Markell and includes paid internships and an associate degree or certificate.
Tennessee’s Drive to 55 Alliance began in 2015 under Republican Gov. Bill Haslam and has five programs for schools, colleges, and workforce training. Similar programs exist in politically diverse states like California, Colorado, Texas, and Indiana.
There are local partnership programs between K-12, employers, and civic partners, like 3-D Education in Atlanta; YouthForce NOLA in New Orleans; Washington, D.C.’s CityWorks D.C.; and Cristo Rey, 38 Catholic high schools in 24 states.
Some local partnerships straddle district and charter schools and include postsecondary education, like in Los Angeles County between the Wiseburn School District and Da Vinci Charter School with associate or bachelor’s degrees through UCLA Extension and El Camino College or College for America.
Partnerships exist outside K-12 and postsecondary education, like Building Futures, a Rhode Island Registered Apprenticeship Program with 29 public, private, and nonprofit organizations awarding industry credentials in fields like construction, health care, manufacturing, and commercial fisheries.
Community colleges are reinventing themselves and creating new partnerships, like Come to Believe Network, a new community college, hosted by four-year institutions, that provides academic support, meals, tutoring, and work experience leading to associate degrees and employment.
Finally, organizations like Pathways to Prosperity Network, P-Tech Schools, and Linked Learning Alliance create regional or local partnerships and provide advice and other support to those creating pathways programs.
Credential Engine identifies 967,734 unique U.S. credentials in 16 categories delivered through secondary education, postsecondary education, non-academic organizations, and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
What works
These different programs have five common features: academic curriculum linked with labor-market needs leading to a recognized credential and decent income; work experience, including regular engagement with adults; advisers helping participants make good choices and complete the program; a written civic compact between employers, trade associations, and community partners; and supportive policies that create a program framework.
Evidence suggests these programs are successful.
The federal Administration for Children and Families Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse reviewed over 8,000 research studies identifying 221 pathways interventions, concluding that 38% of the interventions improved outcomes in at least one domain of interest.
The international 38-member Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development examined teenage activities, experiences, and adult career outcomes in eight countries, concluding there is evidence that secondary school students who explore, experience and think about their futures in work frequently encounter lower levels of unemployment, receive higher wages and are happier in their careers as adults.
While not examining pathways programs as such, the recent research of Raj Chetty and colleagues suggests another way to look at what these programs accomplish. Their research shows community-level friendships across classes developed in different settings, including schools and workplaces, is among the strongest predictors of upward income mobility, stronger than measures like school quality, job availability, family structure, or a community’s racial makeup.
Creating these cross-class relationships between students and successful, employed adults is a major goal of pathway programs. Chetty emphasizes it’s not the relationships themselves that do this. It’s their downstream effect resulting from things like mentorships and new information that shapes a person’s aspirations and behavior, and that these outcomes have a long-term multiplier or dosage effect.
An opportunity agenda
This approach creates a new opportunity agenda for a 21st century high school movement based on what students know—knowledge—and whom they know—relationships. These relationships are what the experts call two complimentary forms of social capital.
Bonding social capital occurs with those we know well and whom are like ourselves, while bridging social capital occurs with individuals different from ourselves. It’s often said that binding social capital is for “getting by” and bridging social capital is for “getting ahead.”
These forms of social capital create strong and weak ties, important to social networking and the ability to collect information about different opportunities we have. Strong ties are with those most like us who know mainly the same places, information networks, and opportunities we do.
Weak ties are with those different from ourselves and likely to connect us to new places, information networks, and opportunities. They’re especially valuable when seeking a new job since they provide new connections and information not available through our usual networks.
This approach fosters opportunity pluralism, or offering individuals many pathways to work, career, and opportunity, different from the ”college for all” mantra or the old high school vocational education that tracked students into occupations based on family backgrounds and other demographic characteristics.
It helps young people develop an occupational identity and vocational self, important for adult success, and can yield faster and cheaper pathways to jobs and careers. It also creates cross-class friendships that boost long-term upward mobility.
Expanding pathways programs, fostering cross-class friendships, and embracing opportunity pluralism are at the heart of the 21st century high school movement. That’s good for young people and current workers—and American society.
