From Planning to Delivery: How TalentReady Is Strengthening Regional Career Pathways

Yet regions across the country are grappling with a familiar challenge: how to move from well-intentioned planning around career pathways to real, high-impact experiences that change students’ trajectories. TalentReady—a multi-jurisdictional effort spanning the District of Columbia, Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, Baltimore City, and Northern Virginia—offers a powerful example of what it looks like to make that shift.

To support jurisdictional and regional-level work, Education Strategy Group partners with the Greater Washington Partnership to identify and reduce barriers that keep employers from partnering with educational institutions. This includes convening state-level K–12, higher education, workforce, and economic development leaders across DC, Maryland, and Virginia to share lessons from pilots and identify where cross-state alignment can accelerate pathway expansion and access.”

The work of the TalentReady communities throughout 2025 tells a clear story: when regions invest simultaneously in student experiences and the systems that support them, career pathways become more durable, scalable, and impactful.

A Foundation for Scale

The TalentReady jurisdictions have been focused on piloting new initiatives in work-based learning, with the hope of dramatically increasing the scale of these efforts over time. Over the past year, TalentReady jurisdictions and their partners, including local workforce boards, K–12 school districts, two- and four-year higher education institutions, and backbone intermediary organizations, supported more than 135 students in direct work-based learning programs including internships and apprenticeship activities, facilitated nearly 3,900 hours of work-based learning, and distributed almost $95,000 in stipends to reduce barriers to participation. Students earned industry-recognized credentials—with real labor market value—in fields like construction and IT.

Local Innovation, Regional Progress

While united by a shared vision, each jurisdiction advanced its work in ways that reflect local context:

• District of Columbia Public Schools integrated dual enrollment and virtual internships, partnering with Work-Based Learning Alliance and Marymount University, enabling students to earn college credit while participating in paid, structured work-based learning. Students logged more than 1,150 hours and reported strong gains in employability skills, underscoring how stipends and scaffolding expand access for learners enrolled in CTE and non-CTE pathways.

• Montgomery County Public Schools delivered intensive STEM-focused work-based learning by pairing students with industry partners on real projects. The program achieved a 92 percent completion rate, high student satisfaction, and universal reports of skill gains—while also strengthening employer engagement infrastructure through new staffing, shared CRMs, and parent networks.

• Baltimore City Public Schools operationalized multiple pathways across construction, IT, AV, and more. Students earned NCCER (construction) and AVIXA (AV) credentials, transitioned into registered apprenticeships, and even overcame transportation barriers through driver’s education—an example of how addressing non-academic obstacles unlocks opportunity.

• Prince George’s County Public Schools also built new momentum in 2025, expanding career awareness, launching inclusive student storytelling, and piloting apprenticeships in healthcare, IT, and education with intentional student supports.

• Northern Virginia Community College focused on long-term scale, embedding work-based learning into a required student development course. This redesign will create a credit-bearing, normalized entry point to career-connected learning for thousands of dual enrollment high school students beginning in 2025–26.

What TalentReady Is Teaching the Field

Several lessons stand out from this regional effort:

Barrier removal is not optional. Stipends, transportation, and licensing supports are essential if work-based learning is to be widely accessible. Baltimore’s investment in driver’s education is a concrete example of how addressing real-world barriers opens doors to family-sustaining careers.

Employer engagement requires infrastructure. Dedicated staff, strong relationships, and clear “front doors” for employers matter. Jurisdictions that invested in this infrastructure are already seeing more sustainable partnerships.

Embedded, credit-bearing models normalize access. When work-based learning is part of required coursework—as in DCPS and NOVA—it becomes the expectation, not the exception.

Iteration improves quality. Partners adapted models in response to student feedback and engagement data, strengthening both program effectiveness and long-term sustainability.

Looking Ahead: Scaling What Works

As this phase of TalentReady enters its final year, the focus shifts from piloting to scaling: expanding apprenticeships and work-based learning opportunities, strengthening cross-jurisdiction employer partnerships, and broadening access to career pathways through course redesigns and awareness efforts.

Perhaps most importantly, TalentReady is demonstrating how regions can learn with and from one another. By aligning policy, professionalizing employer engagement, and sharing lessons across jurisdictions, this work is building a collaborative ecosystem—one poised to extend its impact well beyond the initial pilots.

For regions seeking to strengthen career pathways, TalentReady offers a clear takeaway: real progress happens when student outcomes and system capacity advance together.