Our Strategy

Our Why

“America’s workforce is experiencing the perfect storm: our workers are lacking the skills needed to grow and strengthen the changing economy, yet the high costs of college as well as lack of opportunity to engage in college and career-based learning is preventing our students from acquiring those skills and getting good jobs.”

– Structured Pathways Systems in the Great Lakes Region: A Landscape Scan by MDRC, February 2015

Employers, educators and community members alike lament the economic challenges and racial disparities facing our country. In many ways it’s a never-ending cycle where:

  1. Today’s K-12 institutions struggle to improve student engagement and skill development within the context of high stakes testing and accountability systems.
  2. Postsecondary institutions struggle with the retention and success rates of students of color and student living in poverty, citing the challenges of a high cost system.
  3. Employers identify the lack of a skilled workforce.

Often each institution points its fingers at the other. High school educators state, “if only my students came to me prepared for high school”. College and university staff point towards the k-12 system, “kids today do not graduate with the skills needed to be successful in college” and employers point toward the secondary and postsecondary education system.

Over the years, each system, K -12, postsecondary and workforce has operated as separate islands. Our new American economy calls for a new way of working across systems. Greater coherence between education and workforce systems has yielded higher rates of student achievement and success particularly for our historically underrepresented and marginalized students. This effort, referred to as College and Career pathways offers real promise for addressing and interrupting educational and economic barriers prevalent across the Great Lakes Region.

Our Plan:

Priority 1

Strengthen capacity of secondary, postsecondary, and workforce leaders within each community to effectively implement and sustain high-quality college and career pathway systems.  Convene and sustain a GLCCPP Community  to learn from one another about best practices in pathways implementation.

  1. Provide technical assistance within each community focused on deepening and refining pathways implementation, work-based learning, leadership and governance structures to ensure high-quality college and career pathways implementation.

Priority 2

Implement a continuum of high-quality work-based learning (WBL) experiences for a large proportion of students. This will result in increased student participation rates in work-based learning (WBL) across the Great Lakes region.

  1. Identify organizational infrastructure needed to support WBL grades 9 -16+.
  2. Begin implementation and scaling the implementation of a 9 -16+ WBL continuum.
  3. Develop and/or refine WBL tools and resources to support employer engagement and student placement in the WBL continuum of experiences.
  4. Develop and/or refine data collection, tracking and usage practices in order to continuously improve WBL experiences.
  5. Develop an employer engagement strategy within each community that is reflective of their specific employer dynamics, with the express goal of cultivating champions for pathways work.
  6. Collect and disseminate WBL resources from the communities to inform policy and practice within the Great Lakes region.

Priority 3

Implement high-quality pathways that extend from early high school through postsecondary credentials aligned to a vision of a graduate.

  1. Map pathways programs of student secondary through postsecondary to identify  “best bet” non-remedial academic and technical dual enrollment courses in each region (i.e., courses that provide access to the broadest range of potential sub-B.A. credentials) in LMI-aligned pathways.
  2. Convene a postsecondary working group which will include community college and 4-year University representation. This working group will be charged with working with secondary partners on issues such as student transitions and course alignment.
  3. Develop and/or refine data collection, tracking and usage practices in order to continuously improve high quality pathways.
  4. Collect and disseminate pathways resources from the communities to inform policy and practice beyond these sites.