Governors around the country are calling for better pathways to careers— but are running into barriers standing between the education and training systems needed to carry that out.
K–12, higher education, and workforce development each bring strengths to career preparation, but none can deliver the depth and scale today’s economy needs alone. Regulatory silos keep them from forming more coherent models. Governors across the country are asking the same question: we know we need more work-based learning and career pathways, so what actually has to change to make that real?
This five-part series offers an answer. It explains why career-connected learning stalls inside individual institutions and how states can remove the barriers without breaking the purposes those rules were built to serve. Every recommendation is grounded in case studies, providing a guide built from what’s already working.
The introductory report frames the opportunity and challenge. Download here or click the image below.
Each subsequent report takes on one of the five priorities states need to get right:
- Priority 1: Getting a View and Setting a Vision Across Systems. State policy shouldn’t just hand providers a roadmap. At its best, it works like a GPS: shared vision and shared data that help every system navigate toward the same destination. Download here or click the image below.
- Priority 2: Revise Requirements to Recognize Learning Across Contexts. Graduation credit, college credit, and licensure rules are the keys that unlock work-based learning (or the locks that keep it out). Download here or click the image below.
- Priority 3: Changing How Funding Flows. Funding is the fuel. Even the best-designed program stalls without a financial formula built for career-connected outcomes, not seat time. Download here or click the image below.
- Priority 4: Create Statewide Infrastructure to Power Local Programs. States can build the shared operating system—data, tools, expertise—that lets local partners build together instead of reinventing the wheel alone. Download here or click the image below.
- Priority 5: Strengthen the Pull of Career-Connected Pathways. None of it matters without demand. This report shows how policy becomes a magnet, pulling students, families, and employers toward these pathways instead of away from them. Download here or click the image below.
Together, the five not only make the case for cross-system collaboration but also reveal its mechanics, with the logic behind every recommendation spelled out so any state can adapt it to its own context.
