Featured Work: TalentReady: Expanding Career Pathways in the Greater Washington Region

Education Strategy Group (ESG), with generous support from JPMorgan Chase & Co., is partnering with the Greater Washington Partnership (GWP) to expand access to economic opportunity for thousands of young people and help meet the growing demand for talent in and around the nation’s capital.

The partnerships developed in the TalentReady initiative will connect more young people—particularly those from underrepresented populations—to economic opportunities and provide employers with the talent they need to thrive and strengthen the broader regional economy.

TalentReady brings together K-12 and higher education leaders from five communities — Baltimore City, MD; Fairfax County, VA; Montgomery County, MD; Prince George’s County, MD; and Washington, DC—to partner with employers in designing pathways that connect early postsecondary opportunities, high-value credentials, and real-world work experiences.

During the first phase of TalentReady, between 2019 and 2023, the five participating communities collectively launched or expanded 19 technology-related pathways serving more than 25,000 students. In November 2023, JPMorgan Chase announced a $5.3 million investment in a second phase of the initiative, during which the jurisdictions will focus on expanding beyond IT to career pathways in other high-growth, well-paying career fields like healthcare, building trades, and more. The second phase of the work also includes an explicit focus on increasing the number and quality of opportunities for students to learn in the workplace through internships, capstones, or other experiences, and thus improve their access to and preparation for high-growth, family-sustaining wage careers in the region.

Through our work in TalentReady, ESG is providing support to participating K-12 and higher education systems to use this information to scale high-quality career pathways that are more tightly aligned with the regional labor market. ESG is also establishing a regional collaboration network, empowering initiative partners to build cross-cutting regional strategies to expand and align pathways.

TalentReady leverages the assets that come from belonging to a dynamic regional economy. ESG believes that collaboration across regional boundaries and sectors to develop and scale new career readiness strategies has the power to create better supports for students and a stronger talent pipeline for employers.

On November 30, 2023, to formally kick off the new phase of this initiative, education and workforce leaders from across the Greater DC region joined Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin for a roundtable discussion about a collaborative, regional approach to developing and retaining talent in the region.