Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century
Harvard University Graduate School of Education
March, 2011
A strategy to help youth obtain the postsecondary credentials needed to attain economic success must address the reason so many high school and college students drop out — the lack of a clear connection to career opportunities, a report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education finds.
Funded by Accenture and the DeVry, Irvine, Kellogg, Pearson, and Nellie Mae Education foundations, the study, Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century (52 pages, PDF), describes how, through vocational and technical programs, many European countries offer a broad cross-section of students diverse, robust pathways to careers and postsecondary options.
The challenge, the authors suggest, is to build within the Common Core standards enough differentiation in the eleventh and twelfth grades to enable non-college bound youth to begin preparing for viable careers, as well as provide opportunities for work-linked learning through job shadowing and internships.
