The Career Pathways Movement: A Promising Strategy for Increasing Opportunity and Mobility

Abstract

As the movement to raise academic standards has grown over the past 25 years, so has the notion grown that the primary purpose of the American high school is to prepare all students for college. High school students and their families have increasingly bought into the notion that the only legitimate destination after high school is "college." The "college for all" mantra has to some degree been fueled by the dire predictions of economists that we were headed into a world in which there were only going to be two kinds of jobs: high-skill, high-wage jobs for those with at least a 4-year degree; and low-wage, low-skill jobs for everyone else. The career pathways movement-based on the premise that everyone needs something beyond a high school diploma but not necessarily a 4-year degree, and designed to connect young people to middle-skill jobs in such growing fields as information technology, health care, and advanced manufacturing-offers a promising route to upward mobility for those young people not well served by our current education system.

“I'm Still Waiting On That Golden Ticket”: Attitudes toward and Experiences with Opportunity inThe Streetsof Black America

“…Study Implications : More and better quality education and employment training can help to improve the job prospects of Black inner city residents. For example, career and technical education, as described in Schwartz's () paper in this issue, holds promise for providing residents with marketable job skills in face of current barriers to college enrollment. However, as reflected in this study, there are deeper structural issues which need to be addressed.…”

Introduction: Reframing the Inequality Debate toward Opportunity and Mobility

“…As such, alternatives like career and technical education (CTE) have begun to gain political and education support. In his article, Schwartz (), Director of the Pathways to Prosperity Project at Harvard University, examines how a systemic, career pathways movement can help a broad majority of high school students thrive in school, gain the technical skills that are increasingly vital to a technology‐ and knowledge‐based economy, and, at the same time, earn a respectable middle‐class wage. Unlike the vocational training programs of the 1970s and 1980s, CTEs have several economic, cultural, and educational factors that enhance its promise.…”

Commentary

“…The career pathways movement, described by Robert Schwartz (), provides a model for strengthening the link between education and the labor market. With its explicit recognition that not all students are college bound—and that it would not make sense for them to be—the movement seeks to provide a pathway for students to proceed from Grade 9 through Grade 14 (which includes 2 years of postsecondary training) to develop both the academic and technical skills they need to enter and succeed in the high demand areas of the labor market.…”

“…For that approach to succeed, however, “state political and corporate leaders . [will need] to come together and make the case publicly in terms of a state economic development strategy” (Schwartz, , p. 740).…”