{"id":3695,"date":"2024-06-20T14:49:29","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T14:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/?p=3695"},"modified":"2026-01-28T21:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T21:07:11","slug":"unlocking-career-pathways-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/unlocking-career-pathways-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlocking Career Pathways Summit: A Special Event Hosted by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE)"},"content":{"rendered":"

On June 3, 2024, the U.S. Department of Education\u2019s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE), in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Labor, hosted an invite-only summit in Washington, DC, focused on creating pathways to well-paid careers not necessarily requiring a four-year college degree. The event, part of the <\/span>Unlocking Pathways Summit<\/span><\/a> series, aimed to advance state-level education to workforce pathway systems, aligning with the Biden-Harris Administration\u2019s <\/span>Investing in America Agenda<\/span><\/a>. Language Testing International was honored to participate to bring insights on the value and economic benefits of multilingualism and credentialing of language skills with industry recognized credentials, such as ACTFL assessments.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Summit Goals and Objectives<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

This summit was a continuation of the <\/span>Unlocking Career Success initiative<\/span><\/a> that began last year and represents over 40 states as well as the US Departments of Education, Labor, Commerce, Transportation, and Energy. The summit sought to reimagine how high schools prepare students for thriving future careers. The initiative aims for all high school students to graduate with four keys to success: dual enrollment, work-based learning, workforce credentials, and career advising. A crucial aspect of this initiative is the involvement of employers to support career-connected learning at scale.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pathways to Careers\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

The summit emphasized creating viable career paths for students, regardless of whether they choose to pursue post-secondary education. Credentialing, K12 to career pathways, CTE programs, and apprenticeships offer high-paying, quality career opportunities for students who are not necessarily college-bound. Multilingualism was mentioned throughout the summit as a superpower and as a leverageable skill that is becoming increasingly invaluable.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The summit underscored the need for robust partnerships between employers and educational institutions to create effective onramps for students into the workforce. Employers and educators were urged to build bridges between the workforce and academic institutions such as K12 schools, CTE programs, and community colleges. Collaborations in advanced manufacturing, clean energy, infrastructure, tech, entertainment, and healthcare sectors were featured. The need for human-specific skills which can be enhanced with features of AI was underscored throughout the summit. Portability of skills and credentials will support career mobility; those entering the workforce today are projected to have 12-15 jobs on average during their career.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Event Highlights<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Welcome and Keynote Address <\/span><\/b>featured notable speakers, including Dr. Amy Loyd, Assistant Secretary for the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education; Neera Tanden, Domestic Policy Advisor to the President; Julie Su, Acting Secretary of the Department of Labor; and Dr. Karin Kimbrough, Chief Economist at LinkedIn.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Exemplars Panel<\/span><\/b> featured representatives from K12, higher education, and industry, discussing successful partnerships that advance career-connected education. Panelists included April Arnzen from Micron, Cheryl Carrier from Ford Next Generation Learning, Alonzo South from Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia, Deborah Marcus from Creative Artists Agency, and Rob Magliaro from Grow with Google.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Breakout Sessions <\/span><\/b>allowed attendees to learn from industry leaders how they are building partnerships with K12 and higher education, maximizing investments in career and technical education (CTE), supporting intermediary roles, and promoting skills-based hiring practices and credential transparency.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Industry Roundtables<\/span><\/b> included sessions in which participants discussed workforce trends and shared best practices within their specific industries, such as semiconductors, infrastructure, entertainment, healthcare, and tech.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Student Panel on Apprenticeships<\/span><\/b>, moderated by Manny Lamarre from the Department of Labor, featured student apprentices who shared their experiences, highlighting the impact and relevance of apprenticeship programs.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The summit concluded with remarks from Paul Kihn, Deputy Mayor for Education in Washington, DC; Roberto Rodriguez, Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Dept. of Education\u2019s Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development (OPEPD); and Amy Loyd. The event stressed the critical role of career and technical education as part of the education-to-workforce continuum and the importance of ongoing collaboration between industry leaders, educational institutions, and policymakers to achieve scalable career-connected learning.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The summit reinforced the commitment to preparing students for successful careers through innovative and inclusive educational pathways, ensuring that all students have the opportunity to thrive in high-demand, high-wage fields.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Interested in bringing official language credentials to your CTE program? An official ACTFL language certificate is a career asset, recognized by academic institutions, government, and commercial organizations in the US and globally. <\/span>Contact us<\/span><\/a> today.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On June 3, 2024, the U.S. Department of Education\u2019s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE), in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Labor, hosted an invite-only summit in Washington, DC, focused on creating pathways to well-paid careers not necessarily requiring a four-year college degree. The event, part of the Unlocking Pathways Summit series, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":3699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[183],"tags":[257,48,30,33,99,240,154,401,423,424,421,419,42,32,28,285,197,40,39,44,249,27,7,145,31,263,155,420,422],"class_list":["post-3695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic","tag-adult-education","tag-bilingual","tag-bilingual-employee","tag-bilingual-employees","tag-bilingual-employees-job-market","tag-bilingual-professionals","tag-bilingualism","tag-career","tag-career-education","tag-career-succcess","tag-continuing-education","tag-department-of-education","tag-determining-proficiency","tag-employee-language-assessment","tag-employee-language-skills","tag-hiring-bilingual-employees","tag-hiring-multilinguals","tag-language-assessment","tag-language-assessment-for-business","tag-language-in-the-workplace","tag-language-is-your-superpower","tag-language-proficiency","tag-language-testing","tag-multilingual","tag-multilingual-employees","tag-multilingual-professionals","tag-multilingualism","tag-octae","tag-technical-education"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/1717462342172.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3695"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5288,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3695\/revisions\/5288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}