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Children and youth have benefited from afterschool programs in terms of academic, physical health, school attendance, promotion, graduation, and social and emotional outcomes. Afterschool programming in general—and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) afterschool programming in particular—is also popular among school officials and parents. To obtain a national picture of why and how principals and district leaders partner with external organizations as STEM afterschool providers, the authors administered a survey to a nationally representative sample of public school principals (kindergarten through grade 8) in November and December 2022. Schools have direct access to youth and families and, therefore, have great potential to influence afterschool choices. The authors surveyed and interviewed school and district leaders to understand their STEM afterschool needs and interests, including the details on how these leaders go about partnering with STEM afterschool providers. The surveys and interviews illuminated how administrators learn about potential afterschool partners, what they look for in a partnership, and why they renew them.

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Federal, state, and local initiatives have encouraged education and training providers to build stackable credentials, a series of postsecondary credentials that can be earned over time and that build on each other to prepare individuals for different needs for knowledge and skills throughout a career. By offering flexible pathways that allow individuals to earn credentials incrementally and work as they earn credentials, stackable credentials can advance economic and educational opportunity for low-income individuals and other groups that have not been well served in traditional degree programs. However, there is limited evidence on whether low-income individuals are benefiting from stacking credentials and whether low-income individuals face systemic barriers to equity within stackable credential pipelines. In this report, the authors take a mixed methods approach to examining stackable credential equity in Colorado and Ohio, two states pursuing stackable credential initiatives. The authors analyzed administrative data to describe patterns in credential-stacking and in earnings for low-income individuals relative to middle- and high-income individuals. They identify four potential systemic barriers to equity within stackable credential pipelines and interview key stakeholders to learn more about factors contributing to these barriers and discuss options to ensure equitable opportunities to stack credentials across fields of study and institutions.

Vocational education --- Postsecondary education --- Low-income students --- Colorado. --- Ohio.