Only a small number of people actually follow a linear path to finding a job. For most, educational choices and career paths are complicated, fragmented, and circuitous. In most communities, information about local career opportunities and the education required to qualify for them is not organized and readily available. This paper describes a new approach to identifying, following, and obtaining quality careers. We envision a strong, integrated set of high tech and high touch tools that enable individuals to access and receive real-time, tailored information and supports to make truly informed decisions about career and learning opportunities.

It is time to start talking about alternative models for the One-Stop system. We posed a starting point for this discussion in this working concept paper, which explains how One-Stops can be transformed into places where work and learning intersect to help transitioning workers obtain needed skills, knowledge, and market-relevant credentials.

We developed this paper as part of a call for ideas on job creation from the University of California Berkeley Institute for Research on Labor & Employment…

CSW authored this report on behalf of the Commission on Community Action and Economic Opportunity, summarizing testimony from a series of statewide Poverty Forums and outlining an entrepreneurial approach to addressing economic challenges.

CSW developed the M-PaTH Learning History to help other communities, both in Michigan and beyond, prepare to address the complex and pressing needs of dislocated workers through strategic partnerships…

CSW and United Way Worldwide provide an overview of sector-based workforce partnerships and their value to a community, and makes suggestions for growing and sustaining these partnerships. For this report, CSW conducted a series of interviews with staff, funders, and community partners from 10 United Ways, all of which participated in the seven month readiness process and are involved in regional funder collaboratives with the National Fund for Workforce Solutions.

Co-authored by CSW’s Senior Fellow Keith Bird and Evelyn Ganzglass, Director of Workforce Development at the Center for Law and Social Policy, this report  highlights the disconnect between the nation’s postsecondary and education and training systems, underscoring the need to create a system that uses competency rather than seat-time as the standard measure of learning.

Skills2Compete Maryland (S2C Maryland) is a campaign aimed at increasing postsecondary success to strengthen the skills of Maryland’s workforce. The strategy requires aligning diverse public programs so that individuals are given the opportunity to complete a job-relevant vocational credential, an industry certification or academic preparation for a two- or four-year degree that will lead to a middle skill or better job…

A new report, researched and written by CSW and released by the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund, highlights the number of workers in Detroit who are challenged by limited basic skills. The report, Addressing Detroit’s Basic Skills Crisis, identifies several key issues around the need to expand access to services to improve basic skills.

This report, sponsored by the Lumina Foundation for Education, highlights the workplace as an asset for increasing access to post-secondary education and training, especially for working Latino adults. Specifically, the research discusses five key principles for shaping policy…

This report, written by Larry Good, cofounder and chairman of CSW, in partnership with the National Skills Coalition, explores the reasoning, process, outcomes and lessons learned by Michigan— a state that has significantly changed statewide workforce policy through their groundbreaking No Worker Left Behind (NWLB) initiative…

CSW assessed the current state of manufacturing in the U.S. The report highilghts success factors of today’s manufacturing firms, and offers opportunities for federal policy action and was released by the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) at the national Institute of Standards and Technology.