In many industries, opportunities for advancement depend on additional training that employers may be reluctant to provide, seeing it as a disruption that compromises service. This practice guide discusses the Jobs to Career Initiative, a work-based learning model which integrates learning into the job and provides participants the opportunity to earn college credit. This approach is considered most effective for frontline healthcare workers who often earn low wages. While the approach is still developing, the authors highlight two sites where it is being implemented and offer lessons learned and suggestions for site-specific strategies.

In 2009, the Breaking Through initiative awarded grants to five participating schools to help them scale up their efforts in improving career and technical education for low-skilled students. The case studies presented here explore the strategic approaches of each school (e.g., financial incentives, advising and student supports, revised curricular alignment, external workforce partnerships) and the successes and challenges of bringing these efforts to scale.

An ever-evolving labor market requires that education and training keep up with changing demands to ensure that students and graduates are equipped to pursue and attain available jobs. This report discusses the challenges that postsecondary institutions have staying abreast of current labor market demands and offering courses that prepare students with the skills employers need. The author proposes that community colleges use online job advertisements to identify local hiring trends and skill requirements and use the findings to inform career pathway curricula. Additionally, the author presents three steps for analyzing online job ads, identifies features of actual online job sites that would enable this analysis, and describes five examples from the field.

While the GED increases educational and employment opportunities for high school dropouts, few of those who pass the exams and go on to college persist to earn a degree. In part, this can be linked to traditional GED preparation programs that focus on test preparation only. The authors of this guide explore the potential of a college-connected program model to improve success rates among GED earners by providing enhanced instruction in preparation for the test, bridge programs to help college-bound students build necessary skills, and academic supports during the first year of college.

This report examines the implementation of Florida’s developmental education policies at three community colleges with high success rates among developmental education students. These colleges exhibit the same characteristics as those identified by the research literature on high-performing colleges: committed leadership, innovative instruction, proactive student support, regular use of data, and professional development. The authors discuss Florida’s statewide mandates in developmental education on issues of assessment and placement, literacy and math competencies, funding formulas, and accountability, and suggest how other states can learn from their policies.

Offering financial aid incentives to students who graduate high school early may allow states to reduce their overall spending on education, but such policies need to be carefully designed to make sure they offer long-term benefits to students. This brief outlines the factors that policymakers need to address to ensure that early graduation incentives provide real impact in improving college readiness and access for the most in-need students. The authors provide an overview of the current programs in eleven states.

It’s Not About the Cut Score offers case studies from Virginia, Connecticut, and North Carolina to provide a detailed look at what is involved in evaluating and implementing common, statewide placement policy. In each case, the state found that establishing cut scores was only a small part of creating effective policies. In addition to the case studies, the author provides data on the range of policies in use across the nation and recommendations for policy evaluations.

This report describes the efforts of one school district on the Texas-Mexico border that implemented dual enrollment and career pathway programs districtwide and successfully turned around a district known for high dropout rates and high populations of low-income students and second language learners who did not go on to college. The author describes how the district created rigorous career pathways and a range of early college options, and then explores the instructional changes in the classrooms implemented to prepare students for the challenges of college-level work.

As states are building more robust K–16 data systems for improving student outcomes, there is a need for a common approach to interpret the data. This report describes a set of key indicators of community college student progression and completion benchmarks intended for practitioners and policymakers to use in their reform efforts to increase student achievement. Developed by the Achieving the Dream Cross-State Data Work Group, the final benchmarks, plus interim indicators, enable states and institutions to track student progress toward college completion. The report discusses how interim indicators can identify students in need of intervention to get them back on track, and how the set of measures makes possible cross-state comparisons for those institutions that are committed to making data transparent.

As states are looking into how to strengthen their student data and performance measurement systems to track student progress and success, they are in need of best practices that are taking root in other states. Based on a set of indicators identified by seven Achieving the Dream states focused on developing and improving their data systems, this policy brief describes the essential features that a state should consider when building or modifying its performance measurement and data systems, as well as the research capacity to support data-driven improvement strategies. Goldberger describes 10 performance measurement features, seven data system features, and four research capacity features along with examples of how other states are effectively demonstrating each particular feature.

As funding for financial aid diminishes, states need to leverage their resources to best support student success. Prepared for Massachusetts Department of Higher Education’s Vision Project, this report examines existing financial aid policies currently in place in various states to improve college access and success. The author categorizes financial aid policies into three distinct models — entitlement programs, programs targeted to low-income students, and programs that reward certain behaviors — and describes them for Massachusetts’ consideration in its desire and effort to improve college success and degree completion through student financial aid reform.

Currently, the federal approach to measuring community college completion assumes that students will earn a credential within three years, but this assumes a college-attending behavior similar to a traditional full-time student, and does not account for older or part-time students who work and raise families while attending school. This policy brief discusses how the current federal method for measuring community college performance is too simplistic, and describes a modified approach to defining and measuring student success with more accuracy. Based on the pilot project of the Achieving the Dream Cross-State Data Work Group, the author reports on the group’s methodology for analyzing postsecondary data, the results of their testing process, and how the findings can lead to changes in state policy concerning increased community college success.

Funders, organizations, and colleges want new models for how to improve postsecondary success rates, but working alone, they are limited by their own capacity, knowledge, and existing systems. This report describes the successful collaboration between a community-based organization (CBO) and a New York City community college focused on improving the college success rates of underrepresented, postsecondary students. Bringing their resources and strengths, the two partners provided a comprehensive support system to the underperforming students that helped in their academic, and social and developmental preparation for college. The authors describe how the collaboration began, key components of the initiative, and lessons learned for future endeavors between CBOs and postsecondary institutions.

Designing appropriate work-based training programs requires extensive planning. This tool is designed to assist partnerships developing work-based methods of instruction. The tool provides a step-by-step process for planning and documenting key activities and milestones with aligned timeframes for completion. The goal is to “predict” where the barriers and changes are and how to get the appropriate strategies in place. The tool is considered a “living document” to be revised on a regular basis.

This report offers a summary of Texas’s Colloquium on State Policy Support for Developmental Education Innovation, which focused on the practices and policy supports needed for successful reform of developmental education programs. In addition to encouraging the implementation of proven strategies such as learning communities and enhanced student support services, the discussion focused on the need for systematic data use, focused professional development, and improved alignment of adult basic education.

As demand for an educated workforce increases, effective high school-to-college pathways are needed to improve college and career readiness. This policy brief describes dual enrollment initiatives that seven states are enacting to provide more high school students — high- and low-achieving students — with opportunities to take college courses while completing high school. The authors introduce a web tool and offers six design principles for helping state leaders shape research-based policies on this key strategy.

The traditional use of placement exams for incoming college students may actually act as a barrier to college completion, misassigning students into developmental education who really don’t need remediation. Using information from a Jobs for the Future convening, involving state officials and community college leaders along with interviews and analysis, this report examines how emerging research is challenging assumptions about placement tests as an accurate data source for determining college readiness. The author describes innovative approaches that some states are taking with placement exams and presents them in three broad categories: Downplaying the tests, Changing the tests, and Supporting students around the tests. Lastly, the author discusses key issues of cost, time, and validity as related to reforming the use of placement tests.