Education-to-Workforce Whitepaper Series
Arizona Has the Pieces. Now We Need to Connect Them.
Arizona’s economy is changing quickly. Turning that growth into opportunity for more people will take stronger connections among education, skills, credentials, support services and jobs.
Education Forward Arizona’s five-part Education-to-Workforce Whitepaper Series examines what stronger alignment could make possible for Arizona and what it will take to move from individual efforts to shared progress.
Shaped by statewide conversations and research, the series explores how Arizona can strengthen coordination while keeping student success, economic mobility and quality of life at the center.
Arizona already has strong leaders, institutions, data, local innovation and the Achieve60AZ goal. The opportunity now is to connect those assets around a clearer statewide direction.
Arizona’s Education-to-Workforce Challenge: Moving from Dispersed Efforts to Shared Direction
Arizona has strong work happening across regions, but without shared goals, clear roles, or common measures of success, and this paper maps the current education-to-workforce landscape while identifying opportunities to create clearer statewide direction that builds on existing local leadership and innovation.
Developing Arizona-Specific Solutions to Common Challenges: What We Can Learn from How Other States Approach Education-to-Workforce Coordination and Alignment
Arizona can learn from other states’ approaches to statewide coordination, regional action, and data use to better connect education and workforce systems in ways that improve outcomes for students, families, employers, and communities. The second paper examines examples from Washington, Texas, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee.
Stronger Alignment Should Produce Stronger Outcomes
Arizona’s future depends on whether students and adult learners can clearly see and access pathways from education to opportunity.
Education helps people build knowledge, contribute to their communities and create more stable futures. Stronger alignment can connect that foundation to valuable credentials, meaningful careers and greater economic mobility.
This series is designed to help Arizona move from disconnected efforts toward clearer direction and shared action. Arizona has the pieces; it’s time to connect them.