About the Pathmaking Substack
Spencer Sherman, author of Pathmaking.
What my deal?
Before I started writing about career pathways, I spent years building them.
I began as a high school science teacher and administrator in post-Katrina New Orleans. Then I served as Chief for Innovation at the Rhode Island Department of Education, where I led PrepareRI, a cross-agency initiative that dramatically expanded career and technical education, dual enrollment, and industry credentials statewide. I also launched other statewide initiatives, including a student-centered unified course platform and a post-COVID tutoring program.
After leaving Rhode Island, I moved to nonprofit and consulting roles, supporting pathways initiatives across the country, such as Indiana’s high school redesign effort and California’s $500M college and career pathways legislation.
Now I’m a principal consultant at Education First, where I advise states and foundations on how to build systems that prepare young people for the future economy. My clients include major national organizations in the career pathways space, such as the Gates Foundation, Britebound, Arnold Ventures, Advance CTE, NACEP, and others.
What’s this newsletter about?
I write about how state policy can build pathways to economic mobility for young people. I’m interested in the intersection of education and workforce systems, and how they can work better together. I’ve helped build a statewide career pathways system myself and advised many other states on the topic. So I’ve got some thoughts about what actually works.
In this newsletter, I focus on how our economy and politics are changing, and what that means for states that want to help young people achieve the American Dream. I write about what state leaders need to do now to prepare students for an AI-infused economy, and what the Trump Administration’s policies mean for states.
I try to make complicated things simple and clear. (I’m still a high school teacher at heart.) My goal is not to dwell on the problems that today’s policymakers face, but instead of provide pragmatic advice on possible solutions.
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Pathmaking will come out roughly once or twice a month. I’m going for a “quality over quantity approach.” I’ll only post when I wrote something that I think will be helpful.
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