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With better policies – and a little help – career-relevant education can move from the exception to the rule in schools
This blog orginally appeared on the Center on Reinventing Public Education website. If there ever was a time for our schools to embrace career-relevant learning, it is now. With the future of the U.S. economy increasingly unclear, the idea of college as the ticket to financial stability dimming,...
HTI: Reflecting on Three Years of Progress
For the past three years, Homegrown Talent Initiative (HTI) communities have been models of collaboration, innovation, and resilience. Setting a new standard for career-connected learning in rural Colorado, these districts have been bringing education and economic development together in a local...
Homegrown Talent is One Approach to Labor Crisis
This piece originally appeared in SkyHi News, Grand County, Colorado's news outlet. Featured here courtesy of Patrick Brower. It’s no great secret that Grand County and much of the United States are facing a severe labor crisis. As in, there aren’t enough people out there either filling open jobs...
How districts can get serious about career-relevant learning, even in the midst of a pandemic
This piece is from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, HTI's evaluation partner.The original blog can be found here. Over the past fifty years, K–12 education in the U.S. has increasingly focused on one narrow goal: preparing students for college. Vocational programs and career-oriented...
Three Ways to Build Stronger School-Community Partnerships
This blog is part three in a three-part series in collaboration with Giving Compass.With 77% of Colorado employers reporting that it was “very or somewhat difficult” to find qualified candidates for jobs — and 34% stating that schools have not properly prepared students for jobs – a solution is...
Small Changes With Big Impacts: Exploring Change Beyond State and Local Education Policies
This blog is part two in a three-part series in partnership with Giving Compass.The COVID-19 pandemic presented innumerable challenges to school districts across the country. Colorado district leaders, educators, and students managed school closures, hybrid learning, mask mandates, and countless...