What are Career Pathways
and What Do They Have To
Do with Adult Education?
Maureen Wagner
CAACE Conference
March 26, 2015
What are career pathways?
Career pathways are…
a series of connected education and training strategies and support services
that enable individuals to secure industry relevant certification and obtain
employment within an occupation and to advance to higher levels of future
education and employment in that area.
Joint commitment to career pathways
“The U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human
Services, and Labor have made a joint commitment to promote
the use of career pathways approaches as a promising strategy
to help adults acquire marketable skills and industry-recognized
credentials through better alignment of education, training and
employment, and human and social services among public
agencies and with employers.”
Why the focus on career pathways?
Credential and degree attainment is critical to U.S. economic growth
Existing mismatch between employer skill needs and available workforce
Millions of low-skilled adults need a bridge back to education and training that is
meaningful/relevant and will lead to family-sustaining jobs
And – then there is WIOA
WIOA Passage
Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) signed into
law on July 22, 2014
WIOA is designed to help job seekers access employment,
education, training, and support services to succeed in the labor
market and to match employers with the skilled workers they
need to compete in the global economy.
Hope Cotner, CORD
WIOA Career Pathway Definition
Includes, as appropriate, education offered concurrently with and in the
same context as workforce preparation activities and training for a
specific occupation or occupational cluster.
Organizes education, training, and other services to meet the particular
needs of an individual in a manner that accelerates the educational and
career advancement of the individual to the extent practicable.
Enables an individual to attain a secondary school diploma or its
recognized equivalent, and at least 1 recognized postsecondary
credential.
Helps an individual enter or advance within a specific occupation or
occupational cluster.
Hope Cotner, CORD
Dorothy followed the yellow brick road. What pathway did you follow?
Expanding the Pipeline from
Literacy to Careers
Careers
Workforce
Pathways
Career
Secondary
Education
Adult
Education
Postsecondary
Education
Postsecondary
Education
(Traditional
Pipeline)
(Returning
Students)
(Certificates
and AAS)
(B.A./B.S. and
beyond)
Pathways
Career Pathways
Integrating ABE/ASE/ESL Content into a
Career Pathways Model
Minnesota FastTRAC
Career Pathways Model
Carreras en Salud Pre-CNA Bridge
Carreras en Salud Pre-LPN Bridge
What do career
pathways have
to do with adult
education?
Low-wage, entry-level jobs should
not be dead ends—they should be
stepping stones to more productive
employment.
U.S. Department of Education. (2012)
http://cte.ed.gov/employabilityskills/
Employability Skills Framework
Overall Framework
What can be done in the adult
education classroom?
•Use career pathways maps as a tool for incorporating career awareness and
development in the classroom in order to build reading comprehension, vocabulary
development and math skills.
•Engage students in research on local labor market trends.
•Take an incremental approach when creating lesson plans.
 Start with basic foundational competencies required for the workplace
 Then focus on career pathway specific topics
 Finally move to occupation specific topics
What else can be done in the adult
education classroom?
•Correlate job skills to basic academic skills (contextualize instruction).
•Concentrate instruction on these correlated skills.
•Use industry sectors and specific occupations as the context for reading, writing and
math instruction.
•Make use of workplace materials, problems and scenarios to provide a motivating
context for career pathways instruction.
At the end of the day, it’s about…
Students
Hope Cotner, CORD
Sixteen career clusters
Career Cluster Information -
Career Pathways Resources
www.acp-sc.org
http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/PDF/DEPS/Career/Pathways_Wheel.pdf
Questions?
Maureen Wagner
maureen.wagner@ct.gov
860-807-2102