Career Pathways for All Youth: Lessons from the School-to-Work Movement

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 fast-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 most deserving.

Hamilton recounts the history and trajectory of STW and CP and outlines the components of a career pathways program that can stand the test of time. He 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 Pathway for All Youth features vignettes and interviews with educators, leaders, and career-to-work industry veterans, including High-Tech High, YouthBuild, Linked Learning, CareerWise Colorado, and Apprenticeship Carolina. Showcasing CP’s many guises and possibilities, the book should help educators learn from the past and secure a more equitable future.