Our education systems are often difficult for students to navigate. Integrating secondary and postsecondary education is a vital strategy to ensure more equitable education and labor market outcomes.
NETWORK MEMBER RESOURCES
The Texas Regional Pathways Network explicitly communicates the importance of secondary and postsecondary integration - and what it looks like - in this stakeholder-facing one-pager.
Great Lakes State Policy Recommendations
The Great Lakes College and Career Pathways Partnership (four communities in the northwest suburbs of Chicago; Rockford, Illinois; Madison, Wisconsin; and central Ohio) informed state policy recommendations for strengthening alignment between secondary and postsecondary education to remove barriers to student transitions and success in college and careers.
The Massachusetts Early College Initiative provides examples of how early college high schools can specifically remove systemic barriers to engaging young men of color.
Dual Enrollment for Special Populations
Focusing on work in California, JFF outlines strategies for improving dual enrollment for special populations including English learners, students with disabilities, foster youth, and young people experiencing homelessness.
Illinois College and Career Pathways Endorsement
The State of Illinois established a College and Career Pathways Endorsement that indicates students have completed an individualized learning plan, received a career-focused instructional sequence, participated in professional learning, and demonstrated reading and math readiness for postsecondary coursework.
Blueprints for College and Career Readiness School Models
Texas drives secondary-postsecondary integration through state support for a large and growing number of early college high schools and P-TECH schools, where students have the opportunity to earn college credit—and even associate’s degrees—prior to high-school graduation. The Texas Education Agency has developed a blueprints for college and career readiness school models in order to ensure quality and rigor across hundreds of campuses statewide.
The Massachusetts Early College Program has detailed promising practices from its implementation of early college programs that pair college-level coursework with strong support from teachers, counselors and mentors. Students earn at least 12 transferable college credits—and up to an associate’s degree—by the time they graduate from high school.
JFF RESOURCES
The Big Blur: An Argument for Erasing the Boundaries Between High School, College, and Careers —and Creating One New System That Works for Everyone
In "The Big Blur," JFF calls for us to stop “tinkering around the edges” of our dysfunctional systems and create new institutional arrangements that erase the arbitrary dividing line between high school and college and prepare more young people for good careers.
Equity-Centered CTE Programming
In this article JFF lays out 10 questions when reviewing, reforming, or starting a CTE program to ensure it contributes to more equitable student outcomes.
Higher Education Partnerships
This Guide to Working with Higher Education Partners supports intermediaries and their community college partners in forming productive and lasting relationships to provide high school students with opportunities to earn college credits that will help them build their future careers.
This easy-to-use MOU guide describes the purpose of an MOU, outlines the process for developing one, and provides sample templates for adaptation.
PARTNER RESOURCES
The CTE Research Network works to conduct and promote the use of high‑quality studies examining the impact of CTE.