Examples
Career Academy
Dorcas Place Adult and Family Learning Center
The Career Academy model includes: coursework that builds work readiness and academic skills, weekly meetings that simulate staff meetings, mock job interviews, career counseling, a short internships, and small stipends for getting and keeping a job. The completion rate has been 75%.
Building Basics: ESOL Toolkit for General Construction, Landscaping, Painting, and Plumbing
Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center
This toolkit integrates academic content with construction trades and landscaping. It has been written for beginning ESOL students. The curriculum is organized into four modules, e.g., General Construction; and each module has four to five lessons. Each of these lessons has three components: Facilitator Guide, Facilitator Materials, and Student Handouts.
GED Career Bridge to Hospitality
Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center
This GED curriculum guide prepares students to enter hospitality training programs. It combines GED content with hospitality content, such as current hospitality industry vocabulary lists, lessons and resources, career briefs in the hospitality field, and hospitality-related reading material and lesson plans.
Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST)
Highline Community College
This website described Washington’s statewide program that integrates ABE or higher levels of ESL with college-based technical education. Its hallmark is close collaboration between the technical and ABE/ESL instructors to work on curricula and team teach some portion of the course. The site also cites research and provides resources for planning that are adaptable to contexts outside of Washington State.
National Work Readiness Credential
The Work Readiness Credential is designed to be a valid predictor of competent entry-level work. The assessment is a web-based proctored test. Individuals must go to a certified assessment site to be tested. The WRC Guide for Trainers and Instructors of Jobseekers is based on the Equipped for the Future (EFF) Standards Framework and provides information, links to lessons, and steps that instructors can use to plan instruction with jobseekers.
The National Career Readiness Certificate
ACT
The National Career Readiness Certificate program is based on the WorkKeys® job skills assessment system. The Certificate verifies to employers anywhere in the United States that an individual has essential core employability skills in Reading, Math, and Locating Information.
Research
A Cross-Case Analysis of Career Pathway Programs
National Research Center for Career and Technical Education
The overarching research question for this study was: What programs, policies, and practices, particularly curricular, institutional and support strategies, are currently being implemented to support the transition of low-skilled adults through career pathways that align with postsecondary education and training? Case studies profile three career pathway programs for ABE or ESOL learners.
I-BEST: Program Integrating Adult Basic Education and Workforce Training
Washington Board for Community and Technical Colleges
This is a report on lessons learned from the 10 I-BEST demonstration projects. Overall, I-BEST students were five times more likely to earn college credits and 15 times more likely to persist and complete workforce training than were ESOL students in regular ESOL classes. The report concludes that the I-BEST model is best suited for higher skills ESOL students.
Tools
States' Career Clusters
States' Career Clusters Initiative
This website serves as a clearinghouse for Career Clusters research, products, services and technical assistance for implementation of the States' Career Clusters Framework for lifelong learning.
