Multiple Pathways is an approach to high school education that has captured the imaginations of major philanthropy, school reformers, and a growing number of policymakers. Today’s high schools do not offer all students the programs and classes necessary to prepare them for college, career, and responsible participation in public life. The purpose of Multiple Pathways reform is to correct this failure.
Multiple Pathways would end the tired debate about whether high school students need more rigorous academics or a more relevant career-focused curriculum. Instead, Multiple Pathways offers students and their families choices among a variety of high school programs that provide both the academic and the career foundations students need for advanced learning, training, and responsible public participation. These choices are based on students’ interests and on the unique strengths and opportunities in their communities. Every pathway would prepare all students for both college and careers, and it would place civic responsibility at the core of its programs.
“Multiple Perspectives on Multiple Pathways” consist of a collection of fifteen essays written by distinguished California scholars. The papers in this collection provide multiple perspectives in their reviews, synthesis and interpretations of existing research on Multiple Pathways. They report research that examines the intersection between California’s changing economy, its population diversity, its widening social and economic inequality, and its patterns of school failure across racial and ethnic communities. They explore the link between current structures (structures that maintain a divide between Career and Technical Education and academic education) and inequity. They also provide analyses of alternatives that can provide multiple pathways to high school graduation and postsecondary options that include both college and career.