Book Description

Career pathways (CP) has gained prominence as a strategy to ensure that high school students and displaced workers acquire the college and career readiness skills needed in a changing, globalized economy. In an effort to ensure future success for CP, Stephen F. Hamilton examines the School-to-Work (STW) movement of the 1980s and 1990s and explores how the lessons learned from that campaign's demise can pave the way for a CP program that endures and serves the students who need it most. Hamilton recommends a plan that includes work-based learning, dual enrollment opportunities, coordination at the K-12 and post-secondary levels, private and public funding, and above all, the creation of a CP infrastructure or system rather than a loose collection of programs that characterized the earlier STW initiative. Guided by the latest research, Career Pathways for All Youth features vignettes and interviews with educators, leaders, and career-to-work industry veterans. Showcasing CP's many guises and possibilities, this book will help educators learn from the past and secure a more equitable future for their students. "Stephen Hamilton's ambitious book about career pathways will be essential for everyone interested in building an education system that can prepare all students for both careers and further education. He argues that this crucial effort requires a system based on a partnership of employers, educational systems at all levels, civic institutions, and policy makers." --Thomas Bailey, president, Teachers College, Columbia University, and director emeritus and senior fellow, Community College Research Center Stephen F. Hamilton is professor emeritus of human development at Cornell University, where he was also associate director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research and associate provost for outreach. He is a past dean of the High Tech High Graduate School of Education.