Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The career pathways framework represents an important and influential approach to increasing successful completion of post-secondary training and credentials by low-income individuals.  The framework embodies a number of signature strategies--including curricular reforms, academic and non-academic supports, and connections to employment--to increase the attainment of skills and credentials in occupational sectors in which there is high demand and a shortage of skilled workers.

Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE), sponsored by the HHS Administration for Children and Families, is a random assignment evaluation of nine promising programs that embody key elements of the career pathways framework.  The evaluation includes impact and implementation study components.  This presentation would provide implementation and early impact findings for the three programs that completed random assignment first.  All are programs that focus exclusively on health care professions—Bridges to Employment in Health Care, operated by the San Diego Workforce Partnership, California; Pathways to Healthcare, operated by Pima Community College, Arizona; and the Patient Care Pathways Program, operated by Madison Area Technical College, Wisconsin.

The data sources for the evaluation, varying somewhat by program, include: a participant survey of both treatment and control group members completed approximately 15 months after random assignment, enrollment and related information from the National Student Clearinghouse, local college records, administrative data from the programs, surveys of program staff, and qualitative information collected during two site visits to each program. The participant survey includes outcomes concerning education and training, measures of psycho-social skills, employment and earnings, family structure and household income, and economic well-being.  It will provide the basis, along with administrative data, for estimating a wide array of potential impacts. For each program there is one confirmatory hypothesis related to education and training that is tailored to the program’s particular logic model. For some measures based on administrative data, the follow-up for impact estimates will be longer than 15 months. Analysis has begun for all three sites and draft reports are due to the project funder this summer.