Comparing How All 50 States Connect Schools to the Workforce
July 24, 2019
By: Andrew Ujifusa
Source: Education Week
All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have some kind of investment board to direct different funding streams for workforce development, but only 12 states have career pathway systems that are primarily coordinated by the state’s K-12 system.
Those are two main takeaways from a new Education Commission of the States report looking at the different approaches states have when they want to connect their education systems to the world of work.
The information published by ECS is part of the group’s ongoing study of the connections between education and work. In part, this reflects a surge of interest in the topic at the state level. Last year for example, state lawmakers introduced 165 bills addressing the link between the two issues, and 27 of them became law. By contrast, in 2012, lawmakers only introduced 30 such bills.