This report investigates a number of education and training programs involving employers in efforts to help disadvantaged young adults attain postsecondary credentials leading to career track employment. Our model programs meet four basic criteria: 
  1) Getting low-income youth and young adults postsecondary credentials that will allow them to enter and advance in career track employment. 
  2) Working with employers in industry sectors important to the region's economy. 
  3) Maximizing employer roles and commitment.
  4) Demonstrating portability, scalability, and replicability.

An ever-increasing proportion of high school students in the United States today aspire to graduate from college. Yet statistics indicate that the percentage of college students receiving bachelorâ??s degrees has remained relatively constant over the past 25 years, that it now takes on average 6 years to get a four-year college degree, and that somewhere between 30 percent and 60 percent of students now require remedial education upon entry to college, depending on the type of instruction they attend. Also, over the past 25 years, SAT and ACT scores have risen only slightly in math and have been relatively constant in reading, high school grade point average has gradually risen, and the proportion of students taking college preparatory courses has grown as well. Given these statistics, what must be done to create a more aligned educational system that prepares students for college success? This paper tells you how.

YO! Academy in Baltimore, MD released a report on its successes from 2006 through mid-year 2009. The findings include increased attendance rates and in increased participation rate in a variety of holistic services that include job readiness training and skills training as well as community service.

Attaining a post-secondary credential has become increasingly important for securing opportunities to get high-return jobs in the United States in the 21^st century. Students from low-income families are underrepresented at every milestone in the educational pipeline. That limits their ability to attain post-secondary credentials and break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. This study seeks to identify educational pathways to high-paying careers that may improve social mobility. We also assess the extent to which successful transit of these pathways is contingent upon students' educational preparation and performance. This study uses comprehensive data on the high school, postsecondary, and workforce experiences of every public school student in the state of Florida belonging to a cohort of 144,545 students in the 9th grade in 1996. Florida has one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the country, and thus faces particular challenges to increasing the educational attainment of its students.

Author(s): ACT, Inc.
Research Methods: Descriptive statistics
Publisher: ACT, Inc.
Peer Reviewed: No
Released: December 2008
The question(s): How many eighth graders were on track to be college/career ready by the end of high school? What factors best predict college/career readiness by high school graduation? What steps could students take to improve their college/career readiness during high school? How does achievement growth affect college/career readiness?
The study: Results are based on approximately 216,000 members from the high school graduating classes of 2005 and 2006 that had taken all three of ACT's longitudinal assessments from 8th to 12th grade Explorer, Plan, and the ACT test.  The scores for each assessment are aligned so that it is possible to determine if a student scores high enough to be on track to be college/career ready by the 11th or 12th grade when they take the ACT test.

These policy recommendations for the 111th Congress and the incoming President will begin to help lift children out of poverty and poor health, keep them safe, elevate our educational system to equip children for the 21st century, and engage youth in the nation's communities. Making the changes proposed in this document can save money, improve health, strengthen families, produce a more educated workforce for coming decades, and lay a base for an America that will thrive into the next century. - September 11, 2008

• Distinguish carefully between gross outcomes (such as how many young people attend college after high school) and net impacts (the extent to which these outcomes were caused by the policy or practice being studied, rather than by other factors).
• Explore whether policies and practices have different net impacts for certain subgroups within the high school population.
• Test policies and practices on a reasonably large scale in a variety of real-world settings.
• Include analyses of program implementation and cost.