Digital Promise is launching a new center focused on connecting K-12 students to postsecondary success, workforce opportunities, and economic mobility, a move that highlights the growing emphasis on career and technical education in K-12 schools.
The Center for Learner Pathway Innovations combines the nonprofit organization’s two initiatives—the Center for Inclusive Innovation and the Center for Learner Pathways—and “will work to support learners, families, educators, postsecondary institutions, employers, and community partners to identify barriers, design solutions, and scale practices grounded in evidence and lived experience,” according to the press release announcing the initiative.
More organizations that work in K-12 education are investing in helping K-12 students see the many postsecondary pathways available to them. For instance, the College Board announced a partnership to expand the teacher pipeline for career-connected coursework and acquired a work-based learning company.
In a video interview with Education Week, Digital Promise CEO Jean-Claude Brizard discussed the role of the new center and the challenges and opportunities for improving the career readiness of K-12 students. Digital Promise is a nonprofit that works on helping schools improve their use of technology.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Why do you think more organizations are investing in career pathways?
[It’s] a national recognition [of] where we are right now politically as a nation. It goes back to the fact that we have so many people who are underemployed, who’ve been left behind, especially middle America.
You can see this galvanizing force around the question of: How do we play a big part in informing systems and what they need to do to better support folks? There’s all this kind of technical stuff being done, but [the work Digital Promise is doing is] also about the kind of understanding that we need to have, not necessarily to prepare people for a job, because we have no idea what 2030 is gonna look like, let alone 2050. How do you prepare young people for what may come?
We need to step up our game as a nation if we really want to be competitive again. Look at what AI is doing, which is why I push this idea of the age of human intelligence. What does it mean to be a learner, an earner in the age of the machines?
What work will the center focus on?
We try to solve for two things. One is this idea that no one has a linear path to success. What begets success very often are the kinds of non-academic development that we often don’t explicitly teach in school, but it’s done and it’s taught well in many places. Half this nation is focused on the portrait of a graduate. … When you look at the portrait, yes, there are the kinds of [academic] skills required, but also the kinds of nonacademic development that ultimately begets success. I’m talking about things like collaboration, curiosity. Our definition of powerful learning really supports this idea of the portrait, supports this idea of: How do we make sure that we are teaching young people or learners the right kinds of skills that beget success?
The second thing we try to solve for is the expectation that AI is going to revolutionize the workforce. … How do we really inform both learners and educators and create systems to support that kind of transformation? … It’s all the kinds of stuff that we see, including, for example, the better connection between K-12 and post secondary. That kind of dynamism that must exist within systems or across systems right now is really fragmented, and the learner is forced to navigate. Can we better stitch systems together to create seamless pathways to success?
So this center will work at the state and local levels mostly?
Given where we are right now with the administration, that level of centralized effort is really not there anymore. So we really believe [in state and local] education agencies [coming] together. … Workforce is regional. And it’s contextual, which is why this inclusive innovation piece is so critically important, because you have to come close to the contextual nature of a particular community and have them at the table in the design process. Without that, you lose the nuance. You don’t forget the global topic, like AI, but you also have to be really mindful of what folks care about locally, and what they’re willing to engage in.
What is missing from the current conversation around career pathways?
It’s either/or—either you’re in CTE or you do academics. I still hear that sort of bifurcated conversation. It’s both/and. It’s not an either/or. … We all go to work at the end of school, so how do you prepare for that? The skills we’re talking about here permeate all the above. Being a plumber is a wonderful career. Being an engineer is also a wonderful career.
This idea of creating opportunity is important, and we can leverage CTE to create the kinds of global opportunities for kids, whether they want to be an electrician or an airline pilot.
