For advice on how to help youth get on track to employment, why not ask—the youth themselves? The National Council of Young Leaders recently took finding solutions into their own hands with the release of their Recommendations to Increase Opportunity and Decrease Poverty in America. This blog post outlines some of their top recommendations, including expanding private internships, expanding national service and increasing all forms of mentoring.

How do youth with disabilities navigate the road to employment? The U.S. Dept. of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy partners with experts in disability, education, employment, and workforce development to answer that question, via the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth (NCWD Youth). The NCWD Youth website features the latest white papers, briefs, strategies and resources to help youth with disabilities find work.

http://www.ncwd-youth.info/

This report by the organization Young In­vincibles explores what the youth job market might look like over the next decade, comparing the number of present youth jobs with how many jobs would exist in a healthy economy. The result? A “youth jobs gap” in which 2.7 million jobs are “missing” from the American economy. Read the full report for suggested solutions (including ramping up programs such as AmeriCorp). 

In this opinion piece, Dr. Charles Handler, president and founder of recruiting company Rocket-Hire.com, explores the potential of Smarterer, a company with online, crowd-sourced skills tests that are open source to both students and employers. While Handler outlines the “window to the future of testing” via Smarterer’s credentialing badges, he also presents a critical question: Would student employability tests be more accurate if artificial intelligence was supported by more human oversight?

Companies are taking notice of the recent upsurge in popularity around MOOCs (massive open online courses). This Huffington post piece highlights a historic first: online education platform, EdEx’s recent announcement that it has partnered with a leader of industry, MongoDB, to offer education in skills leading directly to employment.

In an effort to help students “learn by doing,” non-profit Enstitute turns startups and small businesses into classrooms. In two-year apprenticeships, students are paired with entrepreneurs and innovators. The in-person training is coupled with online and off-line coursework, and students also build a digital portfolio. Check out the Enstitute website for more info on this unconventional method of training students to become tomorrow’s workforce.

A team of adult educators at Newport-Mesa USD Adult School have united to produce “Adult Education Matters,” a blog dedicated to featuring “posts on the unique issues that matter most to adult educators.” Readers have access to current research, useful ways to put that into practice, digital tools and the support and ideas of their fellow teachers.

http://adultedmatters.wordpress.com  

Where can educators look for materials on how to better teach adults to read? Teachers Domain offers this collection of videos, featuring both curriculum ideas and professional development resources for teaching literacy in the adult education classroom. Take a look for lessons on such topics as “Fluency: Context Clues” and how to check for understanding. Video clips include a printable accompanying essay and helpful discussion questions.