These are the next generation, post-pandemic iteration of earlier work on early warning and on-track systems, where many PAS partners played foundational roles.  Student Success Systems combine a focus on supportive relationships between all members of an educational community, with progress monitoring all students on key predictive indicators of success, including both of the ABCs—attendance, behavior, course performance and agency, belonging, and connectedness.

The pace of change in the nature of work, has accelerated rapidly in the 21st century. As a result, students and families may not be fully aware of which careers are most likely to flourish in the coming years.  Thus, more than ever middle, high school, and college students need a thoughtful series of career exposures, applications, experiences, preparations and the access to guidance informed by local and national job market information to make informed choices about the type of postsecondary schooling and/or training they will partake.

Today, high schools are no longer an endpoint of formal education. It is essential the local K-12 systems, the institutions of higher education to which the majority of their students flow, and leading local employers collaborate closely to create strong and supported pathways from K-12 schooling into and through postsecondary schooling into a career with family supporting wages.

In order to create pathways to adult success, communities need to know where and why students are falling off-track to high school graduation prepared for adult success.  They need to know how many high school graduates have access to strong pathways into and through postsecondary schooling and training.