Overview of Strategies and Recommendations
“The main way that I would measure success is not just the impact you’re making on your own life, but the one you’re leaving on others.”
—High school student in Indiana
What Can We Do to Prepare Learners for Prosperity?
The Commission believes that to enhance American prosperity and ensure American competitiveness, every part of the civic, education, and workforce ecosystem must transform to empower learners to choose the best postsecondary path for themselves, receive guidance throughout college, service, and work, and continue to learn, earn industry-valued credentials, and advance civically, personally, and professionally.
Our recommendations promote policies and practices that facilitate collaboration across the silos of education and workforce systems to enable the full participation of our diverse talent pool and support multiple pathways to thriving in adulthood.
The Commission envisions a collaborative ecosystem in which the education, workforce, philanthropy, and service sectors break down silos to accelerate the pace of innovation and support learner thriving. Policymakers can lead the way by creating and supporting entities that convene stakeholders across K–12, postsecondary education, workforce, philanthropy, military, service-year programs, and community-based organizations at the local, state, and regional levels. While creating spaces to convene across sectors is a necessary first step, simply meeting on a regular basis will not improve learner and worker outcomes.
State leaders need to set a vision for cross-sector collaboration that includes not only shared goals but also the necessary resources, such as time, funding, and information, to be successful. Trusted intermediaries can play an integral role in providing additional capacity, translating language across sectors, and building coherence among disparate systems. Critically, educators, employers, and other decision-makers must understand the strengths and weaknesses of the system to make effective decisions and policies. Federal, regional, state, and local data collection and reporting must inform leaders’ actions and allow learners and families to make better choices for themselves.
“I feel like high school was a time to . . . realize who you’re becoming as a young adult.”
—Learner at a community college in Colorado
The Commission wants every learner to develop the durable skills, competencies, and mindsets necessary for success in school, career, and life. Building on the work of America Succeeds, this Commission uses durable skills to refer to transferable, nontechnical, interpersonal, and relational competencies, including adaptability, collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking, fortitude, growth mindset, leadership, mindfulness, problem-solving, reliability, systems thinking, time management, and working across differences. Middle and high school grades are an important time for learners to develop their sense of self and explore their interests and aptitudes. In recent years, a movement to “blur the lines” between grades 11 and 14, across high school and college, has encouraged education and workforce systems to rethink learners’ experiences to build new connections among high school, college, and workplaces.1 Awareness of and exposure to different postsecondary paths needs to start much earlier in learners’ journeys so that they are positioned to experience and participate in early career, college, and service opportunities in the latter half of their high school years.
The Commission anticipates a future when all learners have actionable information about their options for career fields, colleges, and service opportunities and are empowered to make the best choice to reach their full potential. One of the best ways to learn about these options is through hands-on experiences in a safe and developmentally appropriate environment that is supported by advisers and mentors. We believe all learners should be offered meaningful dual enrollment and relevant career-connected education before they graduate high school. The new majority learner population is best served by institutions that smooth transitions and remove systemic barriers through structural partnerships. Rather than leave learners to determine which credentials they need and build a path that sequences and stacks those credentials in an efficient manner that pays off, institutional partnerships and transparency efforts can make a stackable path more apparent and accessible to learners. Postsecondary paths should also have multiple entry points that recognize prior learning, work, and service experience as valuable assets that learners bring with them to any educational, training, or service program.
To empower learners with agency in their postsecondary choices, the education and workforce systems must adapt to better serve them and form a collaborative ecosystem that supports multiple paths to thriving in adulthood.
The Commission believes all learners should have the support they need to thrive now and in the future. Meeting learners’ basic needs is essential to them being able to learn and work. A successful education and workforce ecosystem relies on a strong social services system that helps people access food, housing, and health care. To help them design a postsecondary education, service, and career plan that advances their goals, learners and employees should have access to mentors and advising, including online tools, throughout their lifelong journey. Changes in educational programs as well as advising will be vital to making sure that doors to opportunities are opened wide. Access to low-cost programs and financial aid will help learners afford the best education and training for their needs, interests, and aspirations.
This vision for a better future will be achieved only by breaking down silos and fostering cross-sector partnerships to create viable opportunities for learners to thrive.
Strategy 1: Build Alignment, Communication, and Coordination Across Systems and Sectors for Learner Success
Recommendation 1
Break Down Silos and Build Shared Responsibility Across Education and Workforce Systems
Build cross-sector partnerships to support education and workforce needs that collaboratively define and align metrics of readiness for specific education and work pathways.
Recommendation 2
Maximize Existing Resources to Fund Educational Opportunities
Sustain and streamline funding across federal, state, and institutional sources to increase learner access and success while aligning education benefits for military veterans, service-year alumni, and workers to advance in their careers, which is aided by expanding “earn and learn” opportunities.
Recommendation 3
Improve Data Collection and Sharing at All Levels for Transparency
Link labor market data to education, occupation, and industry-specific metrics of success while expanding statewide longitudinal data systems and leveraging federal data collection and incentives.
Strategy 2: Develop Skills for Educational and Workforce Success in a Changing World
Recommendation 4
Promote Durable Skills Across the P-20 Continuum
Expand the development of durable skills both inside and outside the classroom, ensure competency in digital literacy, integrate civic education and engagement experiences, and strengthen learners’ social capital networks for their future success.
Recommendation 5
Validate and Demonstrate Essential Knowledge and Competencies
Expand competency-based education, align graduation requirements to state readiness metrics, and build partnerships across K–12 and higher education and industry to validate and demonstrate competencies and accept these credentials in admissions and hiring processes.
Strategy 3: Clarify and Grow Multiple Pathways to Postsecondary Opportunities to Empower Learner Choice
Recommendation 6
Expand Awareness, Exploration, and Participation in Activities Connected to Career, College, and Service
Support learners’ discovery of their interests, strengths, and values while bolstering postsecondary and career navigation alongside career-connected experiences, dual enrollment, and service-year opportunities.
Recommendation 7
Foster Effective and Efficient Journeys to Postsecondary Thriving, including Reengagement and Nonlinear Pathways
Expand direct admission; simplify credit transfer; grant credit for prior learning, service, and work; and embed credentials of value that are aligned to high-demand occupations on postsecondary paths.
Strategy 4: Support Learner Thriving in Education, Work, and Life
Recommendation 8
Meet Learners’ Basic Needs
Expand access to community- and school-based wraparound supports and behavioral, mental, and physical health care.
Recommendation 9
Advise and Mentor Learners, Alumni, and Workers
Facilitate partnerships to improve advising while leveraging online tools to complement in-person advising and embedding mentoring to support all paths through high school, college, and career.
Recommendation 10
Improve and Expand Access to Financial Aid
Create and fund postsecondary savings accounts, develop learners’ financial literacy, promote FAFSA completion, and expand financial and emergency aid for learners.