In Delaware, Building a Youth Apprenticeship Data System Means Looking to the Future
The Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship Blog Series
The Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA) is a multi-year initiative to support efforts in states and cities to expand access to high-quality apprenticeship opportunities for high school age youth. Through the PAYA Network, the initiative connects place-based practitioners to surface best practices and co-develop solutions to a range of policy and programmatic challenges. Advance CTE, a PAYA National Partner, leads a PAYA Network workgroup of focused on data quality in youth apprenticeship. Over the next several months, Advance CTE will publish a series of blogs to highlight how PAYA network sites are using data to improve youth apprenticeship quality and equity. This is the third post in the series.
Check out the latest PAYA blog post from Kate Kreamer, Deputy Executive Director Advance CTE, about how state leaders in Delaware tackled a series of challenges with accessing quality data for youth apprenticeship.
One important lesson from Delaware is the critical need for qualitative data from learners. Partners are developing a new case management system to ensure qualitative data is collected, considered, and utilized as part of a continuous program improvement process. To fully understand the story behind the numbers, data must be connected to the learners’ voices and experiences.
Delaware also learned that the goal of youth apprenticeship data systems should not be sustainability alone but rather evolution. Data systems should be flexible, always moving towards the next set of questions the state is looking to explore and answer. If states and youth apprenticeship intermediaries can anticipate the questions they will want to answer in the future, they can begin to build data systems that address those needs.
Enjoy what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates on what’s new in Education Policy!
Issues
Programs/Projects/Initiatives
Topics
Related
Celebrating the Education & Work Teams’ Impact at New America
Turning Insight into Action: How Youth Apprentice Voices Shape the Future of Apprenticeship
