Ohio Cuts High School Credentials to Focus on Job Readiness

Ohio is raising the bar for industry-recognized credentials so students earn credentials that lead to real jobs and career opportunities, not simply a diploma. The 74 examines the new framework Ohio Excels helped develop: https://lnkd.in/eWumAK_P

Battelle's education team is proud to collaborate with Ohio Excels and Ohio Department of Education and Workforce to provide support and resources as districts make the shift to offer these new industry-recognized credentials for their students.

Ohio is working to ensure industry-recognized credentials carry real value for students and employers. “Grappling with divining exactly what value is for an industry-recognized credential is something that the country has been asking questions about for the last 10-plus years. Ohio is really going to take the lead on that,” said Cassandra Palsgrove, Ohio Excels’ vice president of strategic partnerships and government affairs. https://lnkd.in/gRMScP3F

Ohio is tackling an important question that extends far beyond one state: How do we increase the likelihood that what students learn and earn in high school (e.g., a diploma, industry-recognized credentials, college credit, real-world experience) open doors to meaningful opportunities after they graduate? As Ohio raises the bar for what high schools offers students along their journey, our Battelle Education team is working alongside Ohio Excels, Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, school districts, and others across the state to help them navigate some monumental shifts. We see this as core to what we believe is responsive school system design, where we are strengthening the connection between teaching and learning, postsecondary readiness, and the labor-market aligned careers and opportunities that await students into the future. Proud of the Battelle Education team leading this work: Susan R. Bodary, Heather Sherman, Angie H.n, Angie H., Sandra Wilder, Becky Ashe, Ben Di'Chiara, Kelly Gaier Evans, and Brandi Stroecker The challenge Ohio is taking on is a national one, and we're excited about what we're learning from this work. Here's a great piece from The 74 Media for more context: https://lnkd.in/gVX9qzMA #highschool #postsecondary #credentials #workforce #k12 #highered #Ohio

The demographic cliff isn't theoretical anymore. Fewer 18-year-olds means every institution needs new revenue streams beyond the traditional first-time freshman class. Millersville University just showed what that looks like in practice. They expanded Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) into emergency management and education, on top of existing programs in business and nursing and the details are the interesting part: → A new partnership with the Pennsylvania State Police lets students earn a bachelor's degree in emergency management AND a State Police Academy certification in four years: 90 credits in the classroom, the final 30 awarded for completing the Academy. → Current troopers can bank 9 credits toward a master's degree just for having completed the Academy. → Education majors can earn up to 9 credits by completing a PA Career and Technical Education program and passing the NOCTI assessment. This is the enrollment lever institutions need right now: instead of fighting harder for a shrinking pool of 18-year-olds, meet working adults, veterans, and credentialed professionals where they already are, with credit they've already earned. But here's the part that determines whether it actually moves enrollment: a CPL program only works as a revenue stream if the prospective student can see, before they apply, exactly how their credential maps to credit. If that answer takes six weeks and three emails between admissions, the registrar, and a program chair, the adult learner enrolls somewhere else, or nowhere. The institutions that win the next decade of enrollment won't just build more prior-learning pathways. They'll be the ones that give students an instant, transparent answer about what their experience is worth in credit, before the application, not six weeks after it. What's your institution doing to make prior learning credit visible before the point of enrollment? #HigherEd #EnrollmentManagement #TransferCredit #PriorLearningAssessment #DemographicCliff #StudentSuccess

Florida is showing the country that technical education isn’t an alternative to higher education—it’s an essential part of it. https://lnkd.in/df44mJba

“Only about a third of more than 40 topics offered on a short-term basis in Washington cleared the income and employment thresholds that the federal government requires for a program to be considered covered under the new Workforce Pell Grant. “

Working with students in a career and technical education environment has reinforced something I’ve increasingly come to believe—workforce education and four-year degrees should not be treated as competing pathways. Students do not all need the same route to success. Some benefit from industry credentials and direct entry into the workforce. Others will continue into associate or bachelor’s programs. Many will do both over time. That is what makes Florida’s workforce model interesting to me. When technical programs, state colleges, universities, and employers are connected effectively, students gain more than a credential—they gain multiple entry and re-entry points into education and the workforce. Teaching CTE this term has made that argument much more concrete for me. I am seeing how valuable applied, career-focused learning can be, and how limiting it is when we frame education as a choice between “college” and “the trades.” My latest piece for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal explores why I think Florida’s approach is worth following: “Florida’s Workforce Model Is Worth Following” https://lnkd.in/esN2urUT #CareerAndTechnicalEducation #CTE #HigherEducation #WorkforceDevelopment #EducationPolicy #FloridaEducation

For the past two years, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina on a project examining how student performance on the ACT WorkKeys exam relates to students’ college and early-career outcomes. I’m excited to share that we’ve released our research findings! Check out the article on our LEAD Feed to learn more about what we found.

What skills matter most for NC students' success after high school? New joint research from LEAD and the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina finds that strong math skills, whether measured by the ACT or the WorkKeys exam, are associated with positive outcomes across both college and career pathways. But test scores aren’t the whole story. High school GPAs are also strong predictors of college and early-career success, even after accounting for test scores, perhaps pointing to the value of durable skills like communication, organization, and grit. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eeM5--9q