 Thanks for being here. My name is Taylor White and I'm the director of post-secondary pathways for youth here at New America's Center on Education and Labor. Our work focuses on strategies and policies that have the potential to restore the link between education and economic mobility by strengthening the institutions necessary to connect them. Well designed pathways models by building structured supported bridges between high schools colleges and universities in the nation's labor market can be a high potential strategy for doing exactly that. So we are thrilled to be a part of the launch initiative to advance pathway strategies and to learn alongside a dynamic group of partners from across the US over the coming months. But today we're excited to host this discussion on the future of college and career pathways on behalf of the launch partners. So we're grateful for the opportunity to host. And I'd like to just quickly thank our audience and speakers and the fellow launch partners for giving us this chance to do so. Today together is limited and there's a lot to cover. So I'm not going to delay things any further by extending my welcome. Instead, I'd like to kick this over to one of our partners in crime on this initiative, Matt Gandl who's the CEO of Education Strategy Group, who will share more about the launch initiative before we dive into today's panels. Matt, over to you. Thanks so much Taylor and thanks everyone for joining us today. Again I'm Matt Gandl I'm president and CEO of Education Strategy Group, we work across the US in states and in communities to help improve the education system, both K 12 and higher ed. So it serves as an engine of economic opportunity and mobility. I'm thrilled that we have nearly 2000 other leaders from around the country tuned in today for this important conversation. Leaders from K 12 from higher education employers workforce board selected officials nonprofits really appreciate that you're taking the time to join us. As Taylor mentioned about a brand new initiative called launch and ESG and New America have teamed up with several other national groups advanced CTE excel and ed jobs for the future. You'll be hearing from some of them today. Collectively we hope to dramatically expand quality education to career pathways across the United States. Five organizations have well over a decade of experience working in all 50 states to build more rigorous and relevant pathways for students so they emerge much better prepared for careers and for life. But we've joined forces in this initiative because we think we're at a critical juncture in the US. Coming out of the pandemic the bar has been raised for what young people need to be successful in the real world. And our systems need to work hard to keep to catch up. Hiring is at an all time high. What's needed for today's success in today's economy what skills what experiences will open the doors to well paying jobs and high growth fields. How to read redesign the high school and the college experience to elevate these educational pathways. These are the questions we want to grapple with today. We've got a packed agenda. Lots of great conversation in a few minutes we'll hear from a governor and a speaker of the house and two of the participating states to hear how this work aligns with their education and economic priorities. After that we'll hear from leaders from the higher education K 12 and workforce systems in other states, those who are doing the work on the ground. But before we dive into those conversations I want to tell you a little bit more about the launch initiative. In 1983 back when a nation at risk was released. The vast majority of jobs could be obtained with a high school diploma or less. Today that script has been flipped. The vast majority of jobs today require education or training beyond high school. And we expect that continue that trend to continue into the next decade. But despite the importance of post secondary credentials we've seen severe and ongoing drops in post secondary enrollment. Due to the pandemic. Today nationwide there's a 7.5% decrease overall in higher education enrollment, and those drops have been seen across racial groups. And we know the community college sector has been hit the hardest. Compounding this challenge the pandemic has also set our elementary and middle school students back and they're entering high school less well prepared. Just this past fall the National Assessment for educational progress released the first scores showing what happened during the pandemic and K 12 education. And both reading and math scores in eighth grade declined significantly in nearly every state. So at the very moment that the economy is expecting young people to continue their education past high school, more coming in further behind. Ultimately, learners want to know that they're on a path to long term success to economic stability and mobility. And we know that education especially higher education is a major investment of their time and their money, and they're beginning to ask questions about the return on that investment. The good news is, when students have the support they need to connect their education to their career options, they're much more likely to feel that the investment was worth it. Speaking of investment over the last several years there have been major investments by the federal government and also by states in schools and in communities to try to help with recovery. Billions in federal stimulus dollars went to K 12 schools and to higher education and more resources are being made available to communities to try to help rebuild infrastructure. How can we ensure these resources aren't simply used to backfill budgets and keep doing business as usual when it comes to our schools, how do we make sure they're directed to programs and strategies that will make a real difference. And lasting changes in students lives after they leave school. Now this is not something any of our organizations could do alone. That's why we banded together and locked arms in this initiative. We're also very pleased that a number of the nation's largest education foundations have also joined this effort with us, the Walton Family Foundation, Bill and Linda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Bloomberg philanthropies, the Joyce Foundation, the Annie E Casey Foundation, and more all these foundations all the national partners have realized we have to get out of our organizational silos and build a collective action agenda to drive change. It's bold, but simple. Every young person gets to adulthood able to fully engage in meaningful family sustaining career, because their education has exposed them to career possibilities early has helped them make smarter choices and has armed them with the skills and experiences to pursue their interests. If we do this right we think we'll both help the individuals, and we'll also help the communities in which they live ensuring both are economically competitive. I'm really excited that we have some leading states and communities joining us in this work. 11 states are part of launch, and these are states that have put policies in place already have funding dedicated and reforms underway to dramatically expand student pathways. Our job is to help them scale and accelerate this work together. And within these states over 20 regions have been selected as implementation sites. Urban suburban and rural regions so that we can show that doing this right will help young people no matter where they live across the United States. We have cross sector partnerships in each state made up of K 12 higher education employer and workforce and legislative leaders, because none of us can get this done alone. And the initiative is organized into two cohorts and impact cohort that's driving to achieve greater scale and acceleration in their work. And an innovation cohort that's looking around the quarter and trying to build break the mold models to take us to where we need to go in this country. Across all these states and these sites there's a significant focus on equity, because even in the places that have done the most work to date. To expand these pathways for young people, we still see differences in student outcomes by race and socioeconomic status. So launch will focus on identifying and interrogating and solving these systemic challenges to equity. Success will be measured not only by the number of pathways that get developed, but also whether they're ultimately accessible to and taken advantage of by a diverse range of students. There are national challenges to be sure, but we believe that the solutions will come from these states and these communities participating in this initiative and we're committed to supporting the work they do. They'll be doing to drive change on the ground. We also fully expect the best ideas will bubble up will be embraced and adapted by others. So we're building a strong network and a learning community to allow that cross colonization to take place. By banding together at the national level states and localities K 12 higher education workforce. We believe that collective action will help us accelerate the growth and scale of educational pathways all across the United States. Now it's time to hear from the leaders who are doing the work. I'm going to turn the mic over to Quentin Sufran, who's our partner and Excel and Ed to hear from the governor and the speaker of the house. We're excited today to have two distinguished panelists who are also champions of high quality college and career pathways and who are tackling some of these challenges had on in their states. I'd like to introduce the honorable Daniel McKee governor of the state of Rhode Island, and also the honorable Todd Houston speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives governor speaker welcome and thank you for joining us. Well, so. As I noted, both of your states are leaders in college and career pathways, and these stem from efforts that have gone on for a number of years, but continue to grow and thrive under your leadership. So let's start with each of your states and why you've made such a strong commitment to high quality and equitable pathways. So how do college and career pathways fit into each of your states, economic and workforce development priorities. Governor McKee will start with you. Well, first, thanks for the invite to be here and and listen in on on these really groundbreaking strategies that the launch is putting forward here and the things that Matt just presented we're, we're fully aligned with these issues as governor. We've set a high priority on on learning outcomes, increasing learning outcomes so that we're competitive with the very best in the country and Massachusetts is right next to us who's done very really strong job there so we're setting our priority on meeting or exceeding that those go those reading and math skills by 2030, which is certainly helping on the pathway to higher ed and been very fortunate to have a commissioner higher in our state commissioner Shannon gilkey, along with our K through 12 and Fante green, working with me to kind of align on these issues but yes we have been at it for a while and certainly job training into the so that we're preparing students to get into a path that they can choose right because we want. We want to see our students achieve their potential, whatever that might be and so that they can choose their path on whatever that might be right in terms of whether it's a four year degree or and what what discipline it's in or a two year degree or an associate's degree or some sort of a path into the military wherever it might be we want them to be prepared to ultimately find themselves in a spot where achieving one of our main goals is raising income and families in the state of Rhode Island we're very much aligned and looking forward to continuing to work with this core group and and then as we go on our conversation and be happy to share some of the, some of the things that I believe are going to really help Rhode Island might help other states but we're well on our way to create a strategy that's going to move us from 180 day learning experience to a 365 learning, learning a day learning experience on an annual basis that I love to get more in detail with you as this conversation goes on. Great. Thank you so much. Speaker Houston. Okay, thanks for thanks for having me and thanks for partnering with Indiana. Much like the governor I think we all understand the incredible importance of this I think it is the strategy, frankly, career pathways is the strategy when we think about addressing workforce and economic development issues. You know, we are 100% committed, you know, we, you hear loud and clear from parents and students they want a relevant education. They know we know we've got to do a better job of the blocking and tackling around math and reading and the core subject areas. But as they grow through the system they want to know what's relevant they want to know it has an outcome that's going to be mean for them, meaningful for them. And so that's why career pathways is so critical. And, you know, we're trying to remove as many barriers as possible to supporting the pathways to make sure kids get exposure to the to the types of jobs and experiences that they might be interested in as the governor says we don't want to pigeonhole to do but want to give them the experiences as possible, connect them to employers it has to be an employer, you know, led system, and why I love about career pathways is man that you can easily see the results right so you can hold people accountable for getting certificates and in areas of high demand jobs we are we getting the outcomes that we need that are relevant to improving our workforce and credit type of economic development that that fits our employers needs both our current employers employers are interested in our state so you know we're super excited to partner with all of you on this work. And this is actually critical to the to the long term success of Indiana but most importantly we think it's critical to the kids that we serve. Hey, thank you. Matt alluded to it earlier and speaker Houston you just mentioned you know this idea of barriers to providing high quality pathways. Governor, what do you see as some of the biggest barriers to scaling high quality career pathways that are equitable and accessible to all. And how are, how is your state addressing some of those barriers. Well, I believe that in my past life I've been in small business I've been a mayor I've been a lieutenant governor now governor very involved in boys club work as a member as a board member presidents started the endowment fund coached all those kids over periods of time. And it's very clear, and you don't even need data if you actually have the personal experience that certain families certain young people have more hurdles to jump than others to get to the finish line. So, I think that that's an absolute prior to the pandemic, but the pandemic has put us in a spot where you know we're talking about three to five year. We're talking about economic recovery to get to pre pandemic levels we know that that's a, that's certainly a challenge, Clinton that that we never thought we would face. But we do face that. And so my thought on the issue is that it, we need to be reaching every family every kid, you know, every student, whether they're in a public school private school a child school. And it's not what's called mayoral academies in our state that are really work very strongly to close learning gaps and, and historically over the last nine 10 years 12 years we've done some significant work in that area so you're right on target. My experience at least Rhode Island, but I think it, I think it, you know, carries over into all the states in the country. There are certain families or certain students that have more hurdles to jump than others to get to the finish line. And our strategy in Rhode Island is to make sure that we are working with every family, not slowing anybody down to get towards that finish line or in that first step of the process, whether it's into a career path as we're talking about today. We want to accelerate those take down hurdles, lower hurdles for those that are impacted in a in a way that they're disadvantaged for, you know, no other reason than their economic circumstances and historically underserved type of populations. We want to move them forward rapidly but we also want to move other families in a way that they're not their progress is not impeded but the the pandemic clearly has compounded issues that pre existed. And I think, again, you being aware of that on a national level, being a resource for us here in Rhode Island. And the work that I'm doing right now over the last six months preparing to do my own launch our own launch of a strategy to take us from 180 day learning experience to a 365 day learning experience. And that's going to allow us to get into every home through municipal leadership by the way which as a former mayor that we can actually talk to families every day about making education a priority in the household as one of the top priorities on a daily basis. Thank you for that and we, we at launch will be looking for your launch as well. So, excited to hear about that speaker Houston, I know you're deep in legislative session right now. And this is a topic that with that we've discussed before, but what are some of the obstacles that you feel like learners in Indiana are facing now to to accessing or succeeding in a high quality career pathway, and what's Indiana doing about it. Ironically, you know, you wouldn't think this would be your problem but employers are one significant problem because we need more employers to step up, you know if you walk into my office and you get on the conversation of workforce or economic development. It's the first question I'm going to ask the employers, what are you doing to to make yourself attractive to young people, you know, we talk a lot about high school kids 1418 but how are you to how are you making sure kids, particularly kids that have visibility in the types of careers that maybe that company is offering how are you partnering with us. And most importantly, your local community with your schools and do it so when I think that is a key and you know, Governor Holcomb myself, you know you don't get out of the meeting and what you don't you know we're not going to put the responsibly back on, you know, we're not your HR department we need to prepare, you know we need to prepare kids but the employer has an important role play in giving these kids these types of opportunities and exposure. I think the second thing is, is, you know, the biggest barrier is, it's just we have a whole bunch of systems already in place and those systems are, you know, they've been around for a while is how we're used to doing things and you know we're just trying to disrupt the system and disrupting it by beginning with a coalition of willing right people that see it kids that are interested. School districts are trying to do new things, not you know trying to build from the capacity of what we have and encouraging others to come along with us. But you know it's tough to get people think about you know what's work based learning look like you know how's that replace a traditional math or or science course. How do you make sure it's relevant and how do you make sure you know it has the type of rigor that we would expect so you know, all these things can be barriers I think they're huge opportunities I think it's opportunity to look at things different and the best part about the entire conversation we go talk to the people you talk to parents and you talk to kids, they are super excited about this, because you know what you hear so much from parents right now particularly coming out of the pandemic is. Hey, you know what, you know, we're watching where kids were doing, and we don't do, we don't need to, they don't need to know any of that. You know, we want them to have the exposure to the things that they're going to be doing in their jobs and the skills that they're going to need to be successful so I think it's a huge opportunity for all of us to come together partnering together to to, to, to, to, you know, make the changes and create the flexibility I think matters to families and kids. Thank you and you teed up my my next question actually around this this question of innovation. Obviously launch, we have both the impact and innovation cohort so it's an interesting initiative and that's focused on system sustainability and acceleration, but also this idea of you know, pushing the envelope of that many rethinking some of the systems, some of the silos particularly in many states and our relationships across those, those those those levels and systems as well. So I think we all agree that innovation is needed to rethink programs and opportunities for learners together. Where do you see the greatest opportunities for innovation, where do you feel like in Rhode Island governor that you feel like you can really push the envelope I know you mentioned a great new initiative that is really seeking to kind of rethink how people interact with that school together. Yes, Quinn and and thank you for speaker for your comments please sell tell the governor I said hello next time you run into him all right. And I knew him as a lieutenant governor now as governor as well but I think the greatest opportunities are in expanding the what we consider the learning time right so right now in Rhode Island where the learning time is 180 days. We spend most of our time in that area and as I mentioned at the top of my, my comments with our commissioner and Fonte green. We are very supportive of that. But I think that there's an area that is far exceeds that space. We're setting up a nonprofit in our in our state that is going to initially add a million hours of new learning time a year outside the 180 day school block, working with municipal leaders and business leaders as the speaker mentioned. I think that they need to get a lot more engaged. But the opportunity is really in the space that the kids are not in school ironically right. We need to do the best we can when they're in school. But I'll give you an example. This weekend I attended one of our high schools and there was a major robotics program going on. It was a New England competition. You had hundreds of kids from Rhode Island they were up early on a Sunday morning, participating on work that quite frankly I couldn't do in terms of the high tech nature of it. And I talked to them and I visited they had the, you know, it was like almost an Indy 500 where they had the competition in the gym and then, and another gym they had the, you know, you would you would head into the areas where they did the mechanical work, you know, during after, you know, during the race so I think that identifying things that are already going on that are consistent with the mission of what the launch is doing. Putting that under a statewide effort, including municipal leaders to get outside the 180 day learning timeframe, get it into 365 and actually build the culture of exactly what you're trying to do here. With the launch of really building a culture that supports the idea of career paths on a, on a daily, a daily basis and the communities, mayors can actually do that. They can connect with every family because it's not just about public schools, in my opinion, it's about every kid whether in a parochial school, public school, private school, the Chattah school, the mayoral academy. They actually live in our home school or they actually live in our state and they live out and they attend schools outside the state in that K through 12, 12 areas so I think the major opportunity for us I'll just speak for us in Rhode Island is to move it from 180 day learning experience intentionally into a 365 day learning experience taken that like that robotic program, identifying where the work is already being done, and then add to that work. And speaker Houston. I know you mentioned a lot of the challenges and as opportunities as well and where does innovation fit in the state of Indiana's plans going forward. It's a huge portion of it and but I think we have to talk about innovation to be honest with ourselves innovation also means failure. Right now everything you do and not everything that we accomplish is going to be perfect and, as I try to remind people we talk about things look the existing system in Indiana we seem about 10% decline in our college going rate. At the same point between 1820 year old males we're seeing a 10% decline in our, in our workforce participation rate. So guess what the existing system isn't doing a great job anyway so as we change, there will be things that we don't get right, there will be missed opportunities and there will be things we learn from you can't let innovation we've talked a lot about that. I'll tell you where I think innovation is we've got some employers in our state that are already started schools in their, in their, in their school in their offices, where their kids are doing coursework in the morning doing, you know, apprenticeship type work in the afternoon. They're getting credit, you know, across the entire day we allow the money to follow the kid into those types of scenarios we're creating a counselor game kids flexibility because they have to deal with issues like transportation or hey heck how am I going to buy some boots for, for you know my apprenticeship work, you know, depending on the type of job I'm going to do or the tools I'm going to need and so we're trying to create flexibility for that. And, you know, it and I think the other thing that say about innovation it's interesting the government mentioned robotics as with Toyota, yesterday, tremendous partner of ours. Awesome in the space, terrific partner and working in pathways and and supporting young kids and students, but they were the robotics competition and he was telling me that, you know, the bunch of those kids, they're not going the traditional college, they're going to go to work, go get their associates agree on in the pathway they're going to get a stack well certification there's any of their associates agree and go the bachelor's agree these kids are extraordinarily talented. And they want in the way that they're going to enter in the post secondary is different than, but frankly, you know I entered in the post secondary by many of these people on the call or entering post secondary. And I had to create pathways for them to do that and a lot of that's going to be through an employer led system is Matt noted in his preview. Look, there's, there's concerns about cost of colleges and debt and the return on investment that that families are seeing this this pathway that we're organizing with your partnership. I think he gets to eliminate some of those hurdles that they cause the barriers that that feel like they're too much for a kid to overcome. And, you know, it has to be aligned great partnerships with our higher ed. You know, Commission they Chris Lowry has been outstanding partner in all this, but it means change I mean and we should never forget that innovation. You know, the failures part of innovation and you got to learn from it and accept it, and then and then improve based upon it. That's great. You brought up a kind of an important point here is the resources that are available for learners and pathways. And I'm curious, Governor and speaker, how are you marshaling resources and those can be monetary they can be other supports policies and programs, but how are you marshaling resources to really support the development and sustainability of high quality pathways. So I think on the top level is the communication. I meet weekly with the with our speaker and our Senate President. They, they have everything to do with the budget that finally gets approved. I think budgets are really important. We've got dollars in right now. We're for a strategy where we can complete associate degrees or certificate degrees or four year degrees. So, we're going to need a general assembly of support to do that we've also using our community college to provide pathways into where we're going to be focused on an offshore wind we're going to be able to be offshore where the ocean states so we're putting dollars in right now where we have a significant part of our population that our language challenged. So we put money in the budget this year into the education budget so that we can accelerate the learning of the English language and really collaborate the dual language strategy that I think is going to be important to Rhode Island and over our overall economy. We invest in our CTE operations and take a real personal interest in what that board is doing who's who's on that board how they're working in a positive way with our Department of Education. So it's it's using not only the some of the federal dollars that we have put into school construction so I mean, we need, you need facilities we for us we put a, you know, we got a bond pass additional $50 million of surplus in a small state like that there's a sizable number for school construction and we're looking at what that school construction will look like in advance so that we know that we're meeting the skill sets that are down the line that are decades down the line so I think the intentional investment taking advantage of certain federal dollars that have been in place. We start to really invest in our higher ed in a way where whether it's a college promise that I extended permanently that creates a pathway at no cost to students that need last dollars in we're currently proposing the same thing for juniors and seniors that are Rhode Island College that has primarily been a nurse and and teacher school but now we're going to advance that into areas where higher ed higher incomes could be realized through a cyber technology program that I think is will be announced in the next few months to create a new major there. And then we have our University of Rhode Island again this is specific to Rhode Island everybody has a different route. But we put a bond on to improve the Bay campus which is right on the water that could approve we put additional money in to invest in the blue and the and the green economy which our University of Rhode Island is one of the leading research universities in the country, relative to that so I think you go you invest in where your strengths are that a forward thinking, making sure that you're making those investments in the current structures to get the outcome that you're looking for. But it also again I keep on reemphasizing and I repeat that because I know there's a lot of innovators on this call and really love to share what I think it is about moving from that 180 day learning experience to 365 day learning learning experience, and how that includes all your university presidents public and private includes anybody that includes your C, you know, CTE boards include your, your unions the NEA the F T, bringing them in into a bay into an area that they all can kind of agree about exactly here that pathways are important professionals want to get those pathways in place, so that the young people that we're working with, or even young adults right with with finishes degrees right we're looking at. I was at our community college and I'll just finish up but I was at a community college with age groups that ran from 20 to 55 that we're reentering programs that we have set up to re certify and to and to actually increase their market ability in the job market because they're increasing their skills so I don't think there's really an age group that pathways that you should discriminate against, because I think in the end our goal in Rhode Island like I said is improve academic outcomes, improving comes for families and making people healthier, so they can actually enjoy living in this great country that we live in. So that that would be my overview at that point time. Thank you. Oh, thank you. And speaker, I think the governor makes a great point and, you know, reminding us all that, you know, learners aren't just, you know, navigating one system they're navigating multiple systems. And those resources sometimes are siloed but I'd love to hear how Indiana is kind of marshaling its resources and again those can be financial and otherwise to kind of support pathways and learners along that journey. Well, there's no doubt that frankly funding and the silos is probably one of the biggest barriers to this work. And it's tough because you know you're, you're making people feel uncomfortable because you're not funding things the way you've always funded them you're putting priorities in place and, and so you know for us it's very important that we include it in our standard funding formula I don't want it sitting outside of it I don't want this to feel like an add on. I want this to be something that every one of our schools and every one of our parents everyone our kids knows is extraordinarily important to us. It should be valued it should be measured I believe with, you know, Governor Bush has got, you know, says a line all the time what gets measured gets done. This is easy to measure right we can very clearly see the outcomes on certifications and credentials and social degrees. You know, and I think we're what we're trying to do is align those things to make sure that this isn't like, you know, for some kids or this is an add on or this is just CTE. This is for every kid. I mean this is for every single kid you know I don't go into a community that doesn't talk about this, you know, about, you know, how what skills are my kids going to get that they can have high wage high demand jobs they don't use those terms and see how do I get a good job. We use these those terms but but you know I think that's the key in it and I think you know one of the things I think as policymakers we get wrong. A lot is is that we we say boy this is really important to us, but we want to do it on the margin to we want to add you know a little here a little there and what would I just feel compelled like we believe this is important. And we believe the pathways are extraordinarily important for every kid in the state. Let's build our funding mechanisms to support it. Let's make sure that money can follow the kid where the kid needs the services are being offered not. Not, you know, I think the other challenge and all this has been, you know, well the government's going to figure out what the private sector wants. It doesn't work. It has to be employer led and the money has to go to where the kids going to receive the services and the services that they need. It should be measured, you should hold people accountable and you should adjust the quarrel and because the economy is not going to change I mean the economy is never going to stay static. So you have to be flexible, your systems have to be flexible to adjust to what the economy needs, not on what people like me my thing. Both of you have hit upon the and just, you know, really embody the urgency of this work, I think in both of the sets of initiatives that you're you're working on. We have just a couple minutes left, but I wouldn't like to pose one last question to both of you, and this is in many ways a unique moment, an inflection point for our country and pathways is obviously at the top of the list of a lot of conversations around whether it's learning loss or whether economic and job market tribulations. And I just want to ask, what do you believe is most important that we get right at this moment in time to leverage the opportunities and investments in pathways. Governor. I think that I agree with the speaker that accountability is the is the absolute most important thing and measurement and so I again I'll only speak to what we're ready to do in Rhode Island and certainly take input from around the country and and share anything that people think that what we're talking about is worth listening to but it's accountability but it's not just accountability in the schools, you know, we need to we need to spread that accountability out. And I think when you talk about federal dollars, I got the general sound generally approved a substantial amount of dollars that we're going to partner in with municipalities who partner in with schools who partner in with local nonprofits, with local universities and the business community and bring the families and the students and the and the and the parents into the mix. But I want to be able to set up a system that holds the nonprofit as accountable as I do the schools. So what we can measure reading and math outcomes, because we do a similar test that Massachusetts does and we know that we trail them by double digits at the same time, we can measure that on an annual basis we set a goal to be that level on a before 2030 in Rhode Island, but we can hold, for instance, a new part right now of new part which everybody knows new part that be music and new part the summer by the way come and visit the, the fact that the matter is that we can hold the municipal leader accountable if we're going to invest dollars in those, and you know, in, in facility or programming we can hold the boys and girls as accountable as we can. The, we can hold them as accountable for the outcomes for the kids that they're working with. So, I'm with the speaker on this one. I think you need to actually set up systems where you can hold a broad base of individuals who want to see progress in this our area and improvement and pathways. I think you need to really build in that accountability piece. I think you're Houston 30 seconds or less. Yeah, I just say, you know, employer led and the fact of Mary is that you know we're not going to build a systems. We're not, you know, I've been around government long enough to know I've great appreciation for the tremendous people and government and the fact of Mary is we're going to be slow to develop systems are going to meet these kids needs. We got we got to remove barriers. Yeah, the way be a measurement and adapt. But the ideas, I think the sense of urgency on this is critical. And, and, and again I think sometimes the people that don't feel the urgency are the people in the system, because people outside the system, whether it's the, the families, the families, they feel it right now. And we have to be prepared to act quickly. Great, we'll have to believe it at that thank you both for joining us today. I we are at the launch as launch partners are big fans of the work that Rhode Island and Indiana does, and continues to push forward and we'll be watching. Now I'd like to pass things off to my launch colleague Kyle are done. He's Associate Vice President at jobs for the future who will provide some brief remarks and help us transition to the next panel. As Clinton mentioned, I have the privilege to support the education practice at jobs for the future. We're for nearly 40 years we've been driving transformation of the American workforce and education systems with a focus on equitable economic advancement. A huge thank you to Governor McKee and speaker Houston for lending your voices and your insights to this public conversation about the current state and the future state of the pathways work. And especially those last points you both drove home about a broader vision for accountability in terms of to whom should we be accountable and who can be a broader participant in that conversation. As I'm reflecting on some of the comments that you made. I've tried to organize it to three broad themes that I heard and one of them is a commitment I heard ring out really loudly and clearly about bringing a vision for high quality and equitable education for career pathways systems by removing policy barriers by establishing conditions and committing resources that allow for new types of partnerships and ultimately collaboration across these traditional silos and K 12 education post secondary education and the workforce. And why do I hear you. What seems critical about this in your remarks is that this is going to be what it will allow young people and young adults and I heard even the adults who need this access by design to the academic the technical, and work based experiences that they will need to be able to really live into and shape their best possible futures. Another theme that really resonated with me as I listened to the speaker's remarks today is the intentionality that they are bringing to the design and the execution of their strategies for pathways that, in my opinion are leveraging executive and legislative leadership to signal to others what is important and why, but that on the other side is also activating the important work of storytelling and story co creation about the promise of pathways that includes and elevates the voices and lived experience of youth and their families and communities, and really centers their needs in this conversation. And a third thing that really rung out for me. And I really appreciated hearing was your forward thinking this in these remarks about a willingness to be bold and a commitment to being bold and we need to be able to test new ideas and innovations and I even heard out in this comment about willing to In the name of ensuring that we don't miss a really good opportunity to design or possibly redesign our current strategies and systems in a way that will truly work for individuals for communities for employers and ultimately for economies. So with these reflections in mind, I would like to transition us to the next segment of our events where we will hear additional perspectives from leaders of state teams and launches impact and innovation cohorts in a panel moderated by one of my colleagues in the Kate Kramer. Hello everybody. So glad you're able to join us today and share in the enthusiasm that we all have about this new initiative. As Kyle mentioned I'm Kate Kramer the deputy executive director advanced CTE one of the five national partners and launch initiative. For those not familiar with advanced CTE we represent state leaders across the country who oversee career tech education in all 50 states, DC and the US territories and are thrilled to be here today to speak with three amazing leaders from incredibly strong innovative states to hear about the work they're doing to hear similarly the conversation we just heard where we need to lean in where there's greater opportunity and how we can really move this forward to create the greatest opportunities for every learner. So I'd love to open it up with a brag question I'd love to hear from each of you what are you proudest of that's happening in your state or your communities with regards to college and career pathways. Or another way is what do you most want the thousand plus people listening for this webinar and in the future to know about your state and the progress you have made. So why don't we start with Dr Thompson. Thank you and appreciate the opportunity to brag a little bit about Kentucky. One of the things that there's a lot of things I'm proud of one of the things I'm the most proud of we've stopped pointing fingers, and I heard the earlier panelists talking about has to be workforce led my argument is that it has to be led by all of us. The Commonwealth education continuum is truly not the regular P 16 or P 20 council. It really has experts policy makers employers, higher ed K 12 leaders, as well as those that are in the trenches coming together identifying processes paths and practices to look at exactly how we can build a continuum all the way from early childhood and to the work and to the workforce. Now all of us have input into that. You know it's not just me telling K 12 what they need to do as the head of higher ed, nor is it about employers saying well give us this you're giving us this but you're not giving us this. We're saying what does it take to fulfill those needs that we have that betters Kentucky, and we do identify potholes pathways processes policies. We work hard to do that and that Commonwealth education continuum is chaired by myself, our Commissioner of Education K 12, and also the lieutenant governor, and it's designed to do exactly those items that many p 16 councils and p 20. Councils in the past have talked about but it's designed to actually do that work. So that's, I've got a lot of things I'm proud about, but that those partnerships I am the most proud. That's great well we'll have plenty of chances for you to come and brag about more things. No worries. Commissioner Schwinn, I'd love to hear from you next. I think we're doing some really exciting things in Tennessee. You know we've had a long history over, you know, 12 years of, I think really innovating and leading in the CTE space in particular but a recent note. I'm incredibly excited about a half a billion dollar investment it's the single largest one time investment ever in the state of Tennessee, specific to innovative school models and expanding CTE programs of study for all students I think Governor Lee and General Assembly really wanted to make sure that high school and middle school look different. Eight years from now that we don't have the same types of experiences that we did 1020 years ago but we're actually expanding what those opportunities and programs of study can be for all students. I also think that Tennessee is really leading the nation and a lot of areas related to apprenticeships we've more than doubled work based learning. During COVID in the state which we're incredibly excited about we've increased the number of students who have received industry certifications, even through a pandemic and became the first state to have them for teaching as an apprenticeship profession. It's really exciting for us in terms of really kind of narrowing and limiting the number of vacancies permits and waivers that we have in the state. And then I think the last thing is just we've got a new $5.6 billion for campus that's going to be built in West Tennessee. We're going to create 6000 new jobs. And when we think about bringing industry and bringing labor opportunities into the state of Tennessee really having K 12 be that funnel, where we can actually create programs that attract businesses into the state and I think we've done a really great job of that with our schools and districts who have been leading this work. That's great and we're going to touch on a lot of the innovation you talked about the collaboration you talked about so I think a lot that will come back to. And finally Dr love it love to hear from you more at the local level. And for for Texas we're really excited about first that there is a policy framework that really supports a pathways option for Texas that being there are bonus funds for school districts to make sure students are career and college ready. And those bonus funds give a lot of incentive to high schools to innovate and actually advanced programming that's going to get students more connected to that through line for a pathway. On the other end of the spectrum there are policies already in place around work based learning and incentives for that to make that happen as well so employers can engage and we can be mindful that it's not career or college but it's career and college. And so what we're really excited about in Texas right now is the Community College Finance Commission's recommendations that right now are being discussed which is House bill eight. What that does for Texas is for our community colleges. It puts it changes the way in which funding happens where it's not enrollment based, but outcomes based, but more importantly the focus is around work for us development and also the focus is around supporting or recognizing all the great work that happens through dual credit whether it's early college high schools or P tax. And so with that being in play I think what you heard from the speaker and from the governor is that when you can put the policy conditions in place, you know local communities and students can all start start to work on strategies that are going to help expand and improve pathways for the students that they serve. And it's important to know and I think for Texas is true for Kentucky and Tennessee. You know where the reason why pathways are so important is we're not making assumptions that successful programs can lead to successful systems because sometimes there's a disconnect. We're not also making we're also not making the assumption that outputs lead to outcomes, we can all hit our numbers and claim success but isn't really getting and driving the numbers that we need to see to make sure that everyone is successful in our state so love the comments from the governor and speaker as well as from the panelists here on on this session. What I love about all of your responses that they're really systemic like none of you mentioned we have this program we have this one off but talking about funding accountability collaboration governance right these are the foundational pieces and frankly why all three of your states are involved in this initiative right that really those as as Dr. Levitt said those kind of those foundational kind of play pieces in place right you can build build from the building blocks. What came up a lot is some of your comments now but also certainly from the governor and speaker earlier was about this need for shared shared collaboration share commitment across sectors, certainly K 12 and post secondary but also of course workforce private sector. So I'd love to talk to hear from you first about how Tennessee is fostering this type of cross sector collaboration and what lessons you've learned along the way. Absolutely and I think that the launch opportunity actually helps us to strengthen that even more and so our pathways have been made possible because we have such incredible alignment between local state and district partners. And that's exemplified by the number of diverse funding streams that support the work we integrate with Department of Labor we just signed an MOU with them for some of our apprenticeship work we really partnered with our colleges and universities in terms of dual credit opportunities, etc. But I think, through this opportunity, we've been able to take a number of folks so that's not just the Department of Labor, higher education, our school district leaders but also community partners who've been able to come in and understand that this is a joint effort. And one of the things that our superintendents have said, we've been participating in this effort in particular, have really articulated that seeing the connection between labor and workforce and K 12 and this being an opportunity has been critical in their lens and how they then approach the work. And so I think one of the things that's made Tennessee programs of studies so strong that we're seeing academic achievement whether you're on CTE program study or not a CT performance is the same we're seeing that there are different ways for students to move through their various pathways in order to get to the career of their choosing a lot faster is because we've got community supports on the ground helping districts to create and foster the communities in collaboration with the post secondary space to move students through faster on the number before so it's been exciting to see just that net get a lot broader and frankly see more of the state agencies work in closer collaboration so that our local communities and partners are able to accelerate the work much much faster than they have. Thank you. And Dr Thompson I mean you you kind of spoke I think you spoke to how you're fostering collaboration through your your continuum but love to hear about the lessons learn what some of the challenges and how you've been able to move forward and continue to drive your system forward. Thank you. Let me be clear and answering that question point out the premise by which we operate. We believe that for Kentucky to be a powerful economic sustainable thriving state, you have to have a highly educated workforce to do that you have to have a strong Harriet system, and to do that you have to have a strong P 12 system. I take this as it's about career and 90% of the jobs that we're creating can take away their largest forward battery plan or any of the others will require a post secondary credential of some sort. And to look at it from that aspect what it means is there are community colleges, technical colleges and our four year institutions are all workforce systems, getting them there. To do that we're going to have to work with K 12 in alignment, not just with dual credit having dual credit, having an affordable statement to me, but it's making sure that we're aligned that they have the information they have, like we're doing we're up another folks in the seventh eighth grade to start thinking about decisions where they need to go and how they need to get there, and how they need to perform as a partnership. We also have to have a workforce on the front end, you know one of the, I know you all seen this that my goal is to have at least 100% of people either in high school or college with a work based learning experience as a student success statement, as well as helping them to understand that they can be in sustainable for having employment, and we do this around quality and equity, we can leave anybody behind, no matter what geographic region or what income or what race or ethnicity that they belong to. So the idea that such as we've done with our healthcare collaborative workforce we got 10 million last year as an example, as a pilot from the legislature. And as to that we have 49 healthcare partners who are putting in multiple times that to build our workforce and we just got a bill passed so well it will go to the floor we hope it passes today now to create that public private partnership in the long run. We've shown that this works as a return on investment that's greater than anything we've seen we've shown that partnerships without pointing fingers and without taking this what I call exclusive elitist role about what we are we can do it all ourselves. That didn't get us where we need to go now I'm gonna run out of time there's a whole lot more examples that I can give you, but the biggest statement that I can make is really creating the kind of dialogue process and interactions that it takes to have all of us toward that target of creating a strong Kentucky. Thank you. And I think that that dialogue that process and the shared values the shared commitment right that's really that you're coming together and that finger pointing is is always a challenge we're trying to bring and I'm so glad you brought in the middle grades as well and really moving into those early which creates more complications but has to be part of the broader system. So I you brought in a lot about also I thank you for addressing brain and workforce and other kind of partners that that's moving hearing throughout the day Dr love it I love to go to you because increasingly part of any collective impact model around career pathways requires some non governmental intermediary to coordinate and in some cases even put pressure on that public sector. So someone who actually used to work at a state agency in one of the states represented on today's panel. But now is what has made a shift that third party organization in Texas and love to hear your perspective on the role and responsible as intermediaries as we really elevate and accelerate pathways. Sure. And we all know now that the public private partnership framework, you know is the cornerstone of any successful pathways strategy or design. You have to have an individual or an organization that's not necessarily the implementer but the connector to make sure that all the assets within a region come to bear. We want to give a shout out and kudos to Commissioner swim during my time at the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development and partnering with us and it was good to be in the early conversations of the concept of a teacher apprenticeship which is now played out really well and inspiring work even in Texas from that partnership but back to the intermediate intermediary conversation. You know when I managed a group of regional directors and apprenticeship intermediaries at the state level. I literally had to retrain them to be more entrepreneurial to understand that if you lean heavily on K through 12 or an higher ed or even an employers you're missing the point you know your role is to bring all these partners in together and let them figure out how they want to build that solution and then help them figure out how they're going to measure success but more importantly how are they going to make sure that they can sustain these efforts through public and private funding. So intermediaries are a critical part of pathways design and I would say honestly we need more resource to build up more intermediaries. It's interesting during my time even in Tennessee and in Texas. You know sometimes they're informal individuals that really care about their region and they're the ones that are making the meetings happen and bring people bringing people together and figuring out the solutions. Other times if they're trained up well if they have the resources you know you can find public even private entities that can serve in that role but we do need more resources around it because if we're talking about pathways design and path you know and pipelines. We have to make sure that we have individuals that get at the heart of what's true what's common across all the different assets in a region and figuring out how to guide them in a non prescriptive way to creating those solutions. I think most communities welcome that it does you know each community is totally different and how they connect with those different resources or that intermediary, but I do know once you have a successful intermediary in your region. We can think about all the different communities across the nation that have been really successful in bringing everyone to the table to make things happen for our students. I love that I mean I can't imagine this day and age or many districts institutions state agencies that are not looking for more capacity and help right and connecting these dots given all the district systems and just how much, how much is on the plate and how much the challenge and the opportunity ahead of us. So I want to open this question up to all of you and this is actually something that Dr Thompson. We have to be eloquently set up right which is about when designing and learning pathways quality and equity need to be constantly balanced and attended to. So we've definitely seen states that have incredibly robust labor market aligned pathways, but don't necessarily have the students entering those or don't have representation right of students entering those that reflects their broader communities. And so we can't really succeed if we're not actually creating those access and those opportunities with that. So here in each of your states, which, which of the students or learners are have those biggest barriers or hurdles as doc as the governor earlier mentioned. And how are you designing pathways and supports with them in mind to make sure that truly, these are open to all learners, even those who might have the greatest barriers to participation and success. So, I'm going to start with Commissioner Ashwin on that. Sure, and I think there's so many different ways to think about this is certainly in Tennessee, one of the things that we think about is really kind of urban suburban and rural. The transportation gap for many of our students is really significant and the cost to districts are astronomical in some cases. And so we think about that we also think about the difference in kind of gender which students are going into which programs of study we think about income. And so we're making sure that regardless of the zip code that you're in that you have opportunities to enter the program of study that is most aligned to your interest in terms of future workforce and so there's a couple things that we're doing to address that. I think first is this half billion dollar innovative school models grant. Essentially every high school mistake gets a million dollars every middle school gets half a million dollars and our mixed model schools get half a million dollars to reimagine time, space and modality of the traditional students. And so we started with just a very small number, just about 20 to 24 pilot grants to see how this program could work. And just with those 20 to 24 programs in the first two years, we saw over 2100 students enrolling in over 117 courses over almost 2500 industry credentials were earned. And that was in partnership with over 150 organizations statewide. So just that redesign process in just two years, what that did for access and opportunity kids are getting pilot license building planes and flying them, taking high school courses on industry work sites and it's a completely different way of getting students at all levels at risk all the way through current higher performers to be engaged and excited about the careers that they will eventually move into. But the second example I want to use in Tennessee is AP access for all. I noticed that there was a real gap between the rigor of courses and the access and opportunity for students to have post secondary credits if they didn't have a T cat or a community college nearby if there wasn't an opportunity to go on to a post secondary campus to earn those. And so with AP access for all we partnered with the nice longer foundation, and we've been able to now offer 14 online AP courses taught by certified Tennessee teachers to any student in the state no matter where you live. And that has 142% increase in access in Northwest Tennessee is 71 in South Central 71% increase when you're looking at Northwest but essentially almost 95% of our districts are participating. We have higher pass rates in those courses than we have in any of the other than kind of a traditional program, because our rural students in Northwest Tennessee who can't their district just can't afford to have a full time AP calculus teacher. We now have access to AP calculus or an AP science course AP English. And that's just one example we can broaden that across all of our CTE programs of study and we're seeing our districts do that through more of a mixed model and these innovative opportunities so no matter where you live. You can go to workforce, you can learn, you know, do high school credits on workforce you're able to then get access to work based learning, and you can get those rigor post secondary credit that are absolutely necessary in order to get a jumpstart like everybody else. Right, I mean I definitely think the geographic barrier is a real one for access and so it sounds like there's some some creative and keep our eye and see what happens as this really money hits the ground innovation takes off. Why don't we go to Dr Thompson next and love to hear kind of who some of the hardest to reach students are and what you're doing to make sure they've got access and supports. And if you don't know you have opportunities really don't have. I could list. We have a great data system in Kentucky KY statue know about it we've got data from any place you want to look at it. Great analytics but I will look at analytics that it really can tell me exactly where I need to go to create policies and practices that allows me to get where we need to go. And so what we found out is we expanded our dual credit we even have free community college in the five big sector areas which covers a lot. So it looked as if we had opportunity and access but you look at our data, our kids from Eastern Kentucky Appalachia room from our black kids and look like me. They were not going in it now in aggregate we will provide you 12 dual credit courses for you will do a lot for you looks like you have access but if you don't have people going into it. Based on where they're from then we argue whether or not you have opportunities so we look at it from that standpoint for an example we also did data on all our kids that had dual credit courses and AP courses and how well did they do in college. Once they got there and we found out if you're a black kid, you actually had access to this you did better than the cohorts that were in better privileged roles. So the, what we are saying clearly then we are working with P 12 as our advanced Kentucky is done with with AP to show that if we can build a better pipeline. That's very focused very targeted on those that are not included. We're going to have a bigger output. I'm proud to say that Kentucky we're closing gaps and how it is faster faster than other states because we've been focused on all of those that haven't been well served, while at the same time raising a bar for everybody. So the gap is being closed by everybody going up and not by keeping someone steady so the argument is not to have suffered loss of those that have historically done well, but it's also making sure that we're not losing those that haven't had access or opportunity. So we're going to look we're focused heavily in that way we'll have a new dual credit policy already have one that's pretty good that's coming out soon that's going to focus really heavily on equity and quality because we got a lot better data than we've ever had to be able to help us to make those prescriptive policies based on the analytics that we have so pretty quick things I'll say that this is about intentionality. It's not just about Rob doing every we need to do as much as we can offer access, but it also is about creating something that allows them to think that they can do many of our students where they're from based on geography based on income based on race ethnicity believe that they don't belong there. Thus, they don't get their many teachers honestly that help them to get there based on that. So one intentionality and building that pipeline number two is truly being able to that once we get them in that pipeline that we're not a barrier when they get to college. We got rid of every developmental ed course for zero credit hours but we built wraparound services for all those kids coming in from P 12 and adult learners to get the help that they need number three is that we don't look at that then as our job well done. We have to also see if they're in a line alignment with the talent that our workforce needs, because that's very much part of seeing relevance in the work that they are aligned with the best path to allow them to afford to get there. And number three that really they see the quality that's included if it's a dual credit course and AP courses at college course. It's not just the high school course so it should be a college rigor, but they all should have that wraparound service that they need in order to do that rigor. And there's a lot more to say about that obviously but that's how we are approaching that in contact. That's great and I love coming back to the central question of it's got about balance quality and equity have to be equally balanced and attended to at all times can't sacrifice one for the other. So Dr love it love to hear your perspective on on that balancing and what this is looking like in Texas. Sure, I mean one group that has barriers that really were exacerbated during COVID-19 would be single mothers. And when you think about the impact on the workforce, their ability to enroll and also what options and opportunities are available to them. It's one group that I'd love to lift up as a population that if we can solve for that we could probably solve for other issues in the system. And then San Antonio the city of San Antonio as sort of an intermediary for our workforce partners there, we took them through a journey mapping exercise to solve for single mothers and essentially, this was higher ed workforce development employers local government, K through 12 to look on a board and just lay out the programs that are available for a successful pathway to to a career and a promising career. What we noticed once everyone laid it all out was, you know, you can name these programs and you assume that they can apply for that population. But when you specifically solve for a single mother, and to get even more in detail to solve for it for certain industries like advanced manufacturing or healthcare it. Other programs in this post it's on the board really didn't apply specifically to single mothers and so what we noticed was there were there were significant gaps across that continuum in the pipeline, where what the group is working on now is an approach to collaborative advising that includes high school counselors college advisors, private advisor private sector advisors nonprofits in the communities, and most importantly, employers even as advisors as well, so that they can help with transitional advising from one system to the next system. And so I think it's important note that what's been stated today and it's something that I always sort of preach is that we built, you know, linear models for non linear realities and so when we looked at that journey mapping board, you know the question really for everyone is, based on the model in the system you build, what type of student is ideal for getting through successfully is it the one with resources and supports and they you know that is that what is built for or is it built for the barriers that we've just mentioned today. And if it's not which one is the, the larger share of the overall population that you need to be serving. My guess is it's probably not going to be what you've designed it for because not that they will be okay, but we're seeing a large and larger number of students with barriers to success that that we need to address and so the best way I can think about it in the backwards way is, you know, what if we had for our postal service that they could deliver the mail as long as you had a mailbox on the side of the street that they could access straight from their, from their Jeep right, not many people would get their mail across the nation, right and so they found ways to connect in different ways, we have to build models like that as well for those with barriers but I think when we start talking about pathways. I think it's important for us to always talk about, or have specific conversations about those with barriers, because if we design these systems for someone who's going to get it, have the supports and efficiently get through the system. You're probably only talking about 10 or 15% of your population, not the lion share which really needs to help and the support of a good pathways design. I love that specific example and often when you're building those wraparound supports for single mothers, a lot of other people will benefit from them right I think that's what's really important when you design on the margin for those with barriers. There's a lot of hidden barriers that may not be like two parent households may still have similar barriers right that'll benefit from those those additional supports I think that's such an important and great example well we can keep going I wish we could keep going you all have so much expertise and enthusiasm and I'm sure there's so much more we could brag on but we are pretty much at time. So thank you all so much. Thank you again to Governor McKee thank you to senior Houston thank you to Dr. President Thompson Commissioner Schwinn Dr. Love it really fantastic voices perspectives on just expertise to bring to this conversation as we think about not just what what we want to be true today. We want to be true in the future and that's really what this is all about. So thank you. Thank you to everyone who joined us. Please stay involved. We're so happy and excited that you wanted to be here today you want to learn about this initiative the work happening across the states but the work is just beginning for launch we literally launched a month ago. Please go to our website launch pathways.org. You can sign up to stay involved all of you who have joined this webinar registered for it will have an opportunity to kind of sign up and stay in the loop. And we look forward to the continued learning engagement and opportunities for for you. So thank you all so much.