Resources

In a recent virtual event, College Promise hosted a panel featuring top academic voices to discuss this disconnect. The panel heard from CARPE Director, Alexandria Walton Radford, and other experts on top priorities for research in the field, including economic benefits from a national, federal, and state partnership, the future of the workforce, and how this affects postsecondary education and underemployment amongst college graduates.

This report identifies type of high school enrollment (e.g., traditional public schools, charter schools, and private voucher schools) for Indiana students enrolled in grade 9 in 2010/11–2013/14 and examines their performance on indicators of college and career readiness and early college success.

This journal article discusses a qualitative study of a college coach program introduced in 12 nonselective Chicago Public Schools in fall 2004. It describes how the coach program works and analyzes key aspects that may explain its positive relationship with college enrollment outcomes.

This journal article uses longitudinal data from Washington state to investigate the relationships among career and technical education (CTE) enrollment, inclusion in general education, and high school and postsecondary outcomes for students with learning disabilities. Researchers replicated earlier findings that students with learning disabilities who were enrolled in a "concentration" of CTE courses had higher rates of employment after graduation than observably similar students with learning disabilities who were enrolled in fewer CTE courses.

Projects

AIR’s College and Career Readiness and Success Center launched the State Work-Based Learning Initiative to help support states in designing, scaling, and implementing work-based learning (WBL) efforts as a strategy to improve student college and career readiness. This initiative is based on four state-led, peer-to-peer networks that focus on specific WBL priorities, promote cross-state learning, and engage external WBL experts. The goals of the initiative are to collect and share emerging strategies, identify common challenges, and develop resources related to the implementation of WBL.

To strengthen students’ pathways through postsecondary education and into in-demand careers, employers and colleges must work more closely together. Industry-led public‒private partnerships have tremendous potential to build and grow these employer‒college relationships, but little information is available on these partnerships and their postsecondary initiatives. This project aims to fill this gap and foster the growth of these initiatives by highlighting the features of industry-led public‒private partnerships’ initiatives with postsecondary institutions and providing lessons and opportunities for developing, sustaining, and scaling these initiatives. The project website hosts a report, geographic map, directory, and recorded webinar to foster information sharing.

Researchers from AIR conducted an evaluation of CareerSource North Central Florida's Opportunity Quest program. The program leveraged U.S. Department of Labor Strengthening Working Families Initiative funding to simultaneously address the job training needs and childcare barriers among low-income, low-skilled parents, giving them the flexibility to train toward a sustainable career path. Through partnerships with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), education and training providers, community-based organizations, and local employers, Opportunity Quest linked custodial parents with flexible childcare resources and supportive services and aimed to provide them with an innovative training program offering occupational and entrepreneurial skills training to help participants develop employability and information technology (IT) skills.

The purpose of this evaluation is to gather formative feedback about the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography Multicultural Program (ASLOMP) and its components, as well as to assess participants' short-term outcomes (e.g., self-efficacy).

The Center for Applied Research in Postsecondary Education (CARPE) at the American Institutes for Research held a webinar focused on the use of behavioral science ‘nudges’ in postsecondary settings. The webinar featured presentations by Professor Eric Bettinger of Stanford University, Principal Researcher Christina LiCalsi of AIR, and Associate Professor Lindsay Page of the University of Pittsburgh about the opportunity to leverage text messaging interventions and other virtual ‘nudges’ to increase college enrollment, persistence, and attainment.

The Texas Comprehensive Center collaborated with the Texas Education Agency to implement and sustain a systemic approach for the ASEP. The aims of the project were to create a reporting system that is useful to a broad audience in the state and engage in best practices for data management, analysis, and reporting.