Charting a Path: An Exploration of the Statewide Career Pathway Efforts in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin
Over the last decade, career pathways has emerged as a strategy to increase access to postsecondary training and education as well as improve educational attainment for low-income and low-skill adults. Defined as a framework, career pathways are “a series of connected education and training programs and support services that enable individuals to secure employment within a specific industry or occupational sector, and to advance over time to successively higher levels of education and employment in that sector.”1 Blending multiple elements that range from redesigning curricula and programs that lead to an industry-recognized credential to aligning the various missions of a community college and providing case management and wrap-around support services, career pathways are an important vehicle for the economic advancement of adults living at the economic margins.