From the Penn IUR and Penn GSE sponsored conference: “Preparing Today’s Students for Tomorrow’s Jobs in Metropolitan America: The Policy, Practice and Research Issues" May 25-26, 2011 Organized by Laura Perna, a professor in Penn GSE, and Susan Wachter, a professor in Penn’s Wharton School, “Preparing Today’s Students for Tomorrow’s Jobs” explores the most effective institutional and public-policy strategies to be sure high school and college students and adult learners have the knowledge and skills required for future employment. “The conference addresses such critical questions as: How do we define success with regard to the role of education in preparing students for work?” Perna said. “How well are different educational providers preparing future workers? What is the role of public policy in improving connections between education and work? “It seeks to improve our understanding of several fundamental dimensions of this issue through insights from federal, state and local policy leaders, college administrators and researchers.” Guest speakers include Eduardo Ochoa, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Education; former Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell; Lori Shorr, chief education officer to Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter; Charles Kolb from the Committee for Economic Development in Washington, D.C.; Claudia Neuhauser from the University of Minnesota; Bethany Krom from the Mayo Clinic; and Harry Holzer from Georgetown University. “Much recent attention focuses on the need to improve high school graduation and college degree completion. But, relatively less attention has focused on whether graduates and degree recipients have the skills and education required by employers,” Perna said. The event is sponsored by the Penn’s Pre-Doctoral Training Program in Interdisciplinary Methods for Field-Based Research in Education, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences in collaboration with Penn’s Institute for Urban Research.

1. Preparing Students for the Workforce:A Data Wish List Katherine M. Barghaus Eric T. Bradlow Jennifer McMaken Samuel H. Rikoon

2. A Talk Full of Dreams Federal Funded and Nationally Coordinated Student Preparedness and Measurement Program State-level/Local Municipality Assessment with Little National Coordination Dream Reality Is this the solution?

3. What Are We Trying to Optimize? 20% Students are Very Ready 70% Students have Basic Preparation 10% Students are Unprepared 5% Students are Very Ready 95% Students have Basic Preparation 0% Students are Unprepared Which of these two scenarios is “societally optimal”?

4. What is Meant by Preparedness? A B

6. Generic skills are defined as skills that can support study in any discipline and that may transfer to many contexts and are modeled as 4 broad management skills of one’s self, others, information, and task.

8. Discusses reasons for the growing interest in this topic including,

9. increasing demand for graduates with such skills, and

10. economic and technological shifts that make skills necessary.

12. Multiple pathways refers to a strategy where students simultaneously enroll in traditional academic coursework along with one or more electives concentrated on the acquisition of career/technical skills.

13. Based on a review of the literature, found that multiple pathways may:

14. enable students to connect material learned to the working world

15. lead to a wider range of possible postsecondary opportunities

16. lead to higher wages

18. PE methods provide traditional academic coursework along with electives focused on the acquisition of career or technical skills.

19. Administrative and survey data on approximately 4,000 students was collected. ANCOVA was used to compare mean group outcomes controlling for ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender, and campus.

21. Randomized field trials as a gold standard

22. Often impossible given logistic, financial limitations

23. Rigorous observational studies as next best method

24. Statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDS) already in development across majority of U.S.

25. 42 States funded via IES grants

26. Multifaceted quality controls already in place

29. As a result, there is little to no framing on how to measure readiness

31. Iterative—like all good science, this will be a process of testing, evaluating and rejecting/revising measures

32. Increased scope—opportunity to shift readiness as solely an outcome to a variable that can be examined in relation to other life course outcomesPost Pre-K-12 Education Income Happiness Societal Outcomes

33. Thank You Sam Jen Katie