presentation on career pathways in Chicago, Houston, & Miami

Submitted by Esther Prins on Fri, 02/17/2017 - 12:18
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I'd like to share the PowerPoint slides from a recent presentation on our U.S. Department of Education project investigating career pathways for adult learners in Chicago, Houston, and Miami. https://sites.psu.edu/adultpathways/files/2015/08/IES-presentation-26cwq7b.pdf

We are working on a report of the survey findings & will release that as soon as it's available. A final report on the survey, focus group, and case study data will be available this summer. http://adultpathways.psu.edu/

Best,

Esther

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Esther Prins, Ph.D.

Associate Professor and Co-Director
Goodling Institute for Research in Family Literacy and Institute for the Study of Adult Literacy
http://www.ed.psu.edu/educ/adult-education/faculty/esther-prins

Lifelong Learning and Adult Education Program

Comments

Dr. Prins -

Thanks for sharing this presentation with us.  I have a question about the information on slides 20-21, under Institutional & Program Characteristics.  On slide 20, the graph titled, "Type of Organization" shows that 58% were Community-Based Orgs.  (CBO).  On the next slide, (21), Median Enrollment by Organizational Type, CBOs are said to enroll the fewest number of learners.  Initially, these findings struck me as contradictory, but after some reflection, I thought of several factors which may have contributed to them being true.  Now, I'm wondering whether your survey findings report will offer any considerations around structural differences of different organizations offering career pathways, and how they may possibly affect learners' access to, and enrollment in, these programs?

Thanks,

Mike Cruse

Career Pathways Moderator

michaelcruse74@gmail.com

Thanks for your comment. Yes, what we found is that 58% of the organizations that responded to our survey were CBOs. Nearly half of these CBOs were located in Chicago. By contrast, there were relatively few CBO adult ed providers in Miami, where Miami Dade College and the school district serve the vast majority of adult learners. However, when you look at the median enrollment per organization, CBOs are much smaller than other types of organizations, particularly community colleges. This makes sense because community colleges have the structural capacity to serve thousands (or even tens of thousands) of students, something that most CBOs can't do. 

Our 6 case study organizations do include smaller CBOs as well as larger institutions, so that will allow us to highlight the kinds of CP programming that are possible even in smaller organizations. For instance, of the case studies highlighted in the presentation slides, Alliance and JARC are both CBOs, as are the Chinese Community Center and AVANCE in Houston (they offer CP through a grant with Houston Community College).

Best,

Esther