Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In this opening presentation on the panel on youth pathways and outcomes, I will provide a broad overview of youth pathways from high school to the labor market.

The overview will begin with a categorization of youth experiences in transitioning from high school to the labor market: These categories would likely include the following:

• Dropping out of high school
• Graduating from high school but not pursuing postsecondary education in the near term (with or without significant experience in career and technical education, or CTE)
• Enrolling in postsecondary institutions but not completing a credential
• Enrolling and completing a postsecondary credential

In all of these categories, young people are likely to participate in the labor market, either continuously or more sporadically, while also in school. Some will cycle out of and into postsecondary programs. At the same time, some might have fairly little formal labor market experience after finishing school, especially in the first two categories (we often refer to these individuals as disconnected or opportunity youth).

For each category, I will present some data on what we know about their education and employment experiences from data sources like the Current Population Survey (CPS) or National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). I will then discuss potential barriers to more skill development and stable employment facing those in the first two or three categories, differentiating by race/gender, immigration/native-born status or family background.

I will use this discussion to motivate a set of programmatic or policy interventions that would improve the skills and employment outcomes of youth, emphasizing the heterogeneity in their circumstances and outcomes that would require something other than a “one size fits all” approach. Among the possible remedies would be:

• High school CTE with pathways into postsecondary institutions (as described by Nancy Hoffman and Robert Schwartz in their recent book) with appropriate supports and services (like ASAP)
• High school pathways (from CTE or not) into the labor market and work-based learning (as in Year Up or apprenticeship)
• Pathways for young adults who left high school (with or without a diploma) and did not enter postsecondary into bridge/developmental programs (like I-BEST or LaGuardia Bridge) that speed movement into skill development and the labor market
• Pathways back into postsecondary programs for young adults who left high school earlier but now seek labor market credentials with value in the fairly short term (like Per Scholas or VIDA)

This last discussion will serve as a segue to other papers on the panel regarding high school CTE and various interventions designed to improve youth pathways to skills and the labor market.