All youth need to learn the skills required to succeed in school, work, and life. The pathway to success begins in high school and continues, usually through postsecondary education, to work and independent adult living.

Different Youth, Different Needs

• High academic standards that align with graduation or certification requirements
• Creative and engaging instruction that emphasizes connections between learning and life
• High expectations for all youth
• Low student-to-teacher ratio
• High-quality teachers who
• Are certified in their content area
• Can establish rapport with youth
• Use creative teaching techniques
• Play a role in designing curricula
• Participate in ongoing professional development
• Flexible schedules and individualized programming
• A few simple rules for youth, consistently enforced
• Well-maintained, clean, accessible, and safe facilities
• Opportunities to connect with caring adults who support and mentor the youth during his or her transition to adulthood
• Connections to community resources, including resources for career development
• Needed supportive services

In addition, many communities offer pathways that supplement the formal education pathways provided in schools, such as dropout prevention programs, dropout recovery programs, and youth development programs. In short, most communities already provide a variety of pathways for youth to achieve success.

A Multiple Education Pathways Ecosystem

However, the different pathways already available in many communities do not make up a single integrated system. Instead, existing pathways are part of different, unconnected systems.

• Primary, secondary, and postsecondary public education
• Private education
• Employment and training programs
• Adult basic education
• Juvenile justice system
• Child protective services
• Health and human services such as mental health and substance abuse treatment
• Shelters for homeless or runaway youth
• Play a role in designing curricula
• Youth development organizations like Junior Achievement, DECA, and 4-H
• Workforce Investment Act (WIA) youth programs

• Makes all the pathways in the community available to all youth
• Allows each youth to find a pathway that uses methods and strategies geared to his or personal and educational needs – rather than expecting the youth to adapt to a single pathway
• Help both youth and adults re-enter education easily as their careers develop or the needs of their workplace change

• Be operated by institutions that can award education credentials and include multiple pathways to a credential
• Offer competency-based and applied learning approaches
• Employ relevant and appropriate performance indicators for student achievement, programs, and schools
• Include a combination of pathways and structures such as charter schools, partnerships with departments or boards of education, and community-based organization
• Award credit based on proficiency and competency
• Use measures that consider student progress over time and relative gains
• Collaborate with a variety of partners
• Include characteristics, elements, and strategies that encourage students to stay in an education program or school
• Include work-based learning, career preparation, internships, and other opportunities to help prepare youth for employment

• Collaboration. Multiple Education Pathways require extensive collaboration between a variety of existing organizations and institutions all of whom have their own funding, ways of thinking, and missions.
• Funding. Federal, state, and local funding for alternative learning environments may be limited, require complex and frequent negotiation, and extensive recordkeeping to document compliance with federal programs such as WIA.
• Placement. Because there is no longer a single education pathway, it becomes necessary to have a method to place youth in the appropriate education pathway. More research is needed to determine best practices for placing youth when there are a variety of choices available.

Political and educational leadership will be necessary to overcome these and other challenges.

What Should WIA Youth Programs Do?

WIA youth programs can participate in a local Multiple Education Pathways ecosystem and take full advantage of it.

• Local workforce investment boards, youth councils, and administrative entities should
• Participate as full partners in planning and implementing a local Multiple Education Pathways ecosystem
• Build relationships and connections with all ecosystem partners
• Case managers should
• Familiarize themselves with all the pathways available in the local ecosystem
• Place WIA youth participants in local pathways that meet their individual needs
• Coordinate WIA youth activities with other pathway activities as needed

To Sum Up

Each youth needs an education pathway to success; to meet the different needs of all youth, communities need an integrated ecosystem of Multiple Education Pathways of partners who all communicate, coordinate, and collaborate with each other. With a Multiple Education Pathways ecosystem

• Youth can acquire the knowledge and skills needed in school, work, and life.
• Employers have a pool of skilled, educated, and motivated employees.
• The public receives a benefit of $209,000 in higher government revenues and lower government spending for each additional high school graduate.

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LearningWork Connection is an initiative of the Center for Learning Excellence at The Ohio State University.