Career Pathways & Talent Pipeline Analysis

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ILDS Priority Area
A critical element of Illinois’ approach to the Workforce Data Quality Initiative (WDQI) is to demonstrate the capacity of the emerging system to link education and workforce data.
Producing quality information and reports for stakeholders improves their ability to analyze data and increase performance management. Ultimately, consumers benefit from the availability of complete and holistic information and the ability to make more educated decisions about their future.

Through the years, Illinois engaged in many programs that complement, bridge, and create better alignment between education and workforce systems. Illinois analyzed the historic programs for a more cohesive approach to the WDQI and Illinois Longitudinal Data System (ILDS) ​initiatives. This study is known as the Pipeline Performance Analysis. For decades, individual agencies have collected, stored, and aggregated data ​to improve internal procedures and processes. ILDS and WDQI take individual data sets, combine them where it makes sense, and realize even larger external gains and efficiencies. Managing such large data requires first grouping it into the most logical areas.

Illinois Pathways
​Illinois Pathways Logo

The employment landscape is shifting. Education must be more relevant to the real world, and resources and investments must be coordinated in a way that makes sense to industry partners. Complimentary community and state-level approaches are needed to achieve this​. Illinois Pathways was launched in 2012 to respond to these changing education and employment dynamics.

Key Strategies of Illinois Pathways:

Support local career pathway systems development that empower students to explore academic and career interests in STEM through new and existing community and state networks.

Creation and support of statewide, public-private partnerships known as STEM Learning Exchanges that create partnerships between schools, industry, state government, and nonprofits, better-coordinating​ investments, resources, and planning in a particular industry cluster.

Illinois Pathways is built off the National Career Cluster Framework and supports career pathway systems in eight STEM application areas:
Pipeline Performance Analysis
The Pipeline Performance Analysis supports Illinois Pathways by documenting the cooperation across agencies to develop and analyze information key to understanding Career Pathway outcomes, providing the framework to understand key outcomes for students across all industry sectors, and informing decision-makers at the state and regional level of important education and employment outcomes.

Key Questions Asked to Approach Pathways:

  1. ​How many students in the State of Illinois participate in the pathway?
  2. What are the demographic characteristics of students who are pathway participants and completers?
  3. What are the education outcomes for students considered pathway participants in high school?
  4. What are the education and employment outcomes for students considered pathway participants in community college?
  5. What are the education and employment outcomes for students considered pathway participants at public universities?​ ​