“I see students who have never been engaged in school now buckling down in different disciplines. Where, in a math class, they used to want to hide and not do homework, now they see a purpose.”
– Phil Dinter, Drafting & Design Teacher
Space, Technology and Robotics Systems Academy, Lompoc High School, Lompoc

Platform for Action

Recommendations listed in Multiple Pathways to Student Success: Envisioning the New California High School

  1. Revise the California Education Code and Make Other Structural Changes to Allow High Schools to More Successfully Meet Their Students’ Needs.
  2. Change the School and Program Finance System to Increase Students’ Performance.
  3. Expand the Accountability System to More Accurately Reflect High School Students’ Performance.
  4. Expand Curriculum and Instruction Opportunities to Allow for the Expansion of the Linked Learning Approach.
  5. Enhance Professional Development and Other Strategies to Increase Teachers’ Effectiveness and Ability to Be Successful in the Linked Learning Approach.
  6. Ensure That the Transition from Middle Grades to High School Prepares Students for High School, Including Making Informed College and Career Choices.
  7. Provide Support and Counseling That Students Need to Succeed.
  8. Modify the Mission, Structure, and Functions for Regional Occupational Centers and Programs.
  9. Increase Work-Based Learning in Schools.
  10. Provide State Leadership That Strengthens the Linked Learning Approach.

Linked Learning Policy

The Linked Learning Alliance works in partnership with policymakers, educators, employers, and others to promote state policy that enables the creation and expansion of Linked Learning. The Linked Learning Alliance Policy Development Working Group has established policy goals and objectives to guide our work in the policy arena.

The 2010 release of the California Department of Education’s Assembly Bill (AB) 2648 report, Multiple Pathways* to Student Success: Envisioning the New California High School, was a first-in-the nation study on the feasibility of expanding the Linked Learning approach statewide. With the legislative enactment of AB 2648, California became the first state to codify an explicit definition of this promising high school reform approach.

The report to the Legislature and the Governor grounds its feasibility analysis in research on the development and educational needs of young adults and the challenges California’s high schools face. It examines the practices effective schools utilize to engage students in learning, increase graduation rates, close achievement and opportunity gaps, and prepare all students for success beyond high school – in both their postsecondary learning experiences and their future careers. The report also includes policy recommendations that were formulated based on extensive input received from dozens of individuals and organizations with an interest in the Linked Learning approach.

*The “Linked Learning” Name: Linked Learning is the new name for the educational approach formerly known in California as "multiple pathways." After extensive public opinion research, the schools and organizations implementing this approach selected the Linked Learning name to more clearly convey its unique benefits to students, educators, parents and policymakers.

Read the Report

Click here to read the Executive Summary of Multiple Pathways to Student Success: Envisioning the New California High School.

Click here to read the full report.