Bright and Early: Building Pathways from Classroom to Career (Recording)

MetaMetrics’ Vice President for Government Relations and former Secretary of Education in South Dakota, Melody Schopp, moderated a discussion at the ASU+GSV Summit 2026 on what it really takes to build career pathways for students.

Panelists Amanda Peterson, Assistant Superintendent at the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction; Andy Rotherman, Co-founder and Senior Partner at Bellwether; and Seth Gerson, Education Program Director, National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices surfaced key points related to workforce readiness, including:

• Successful, career-connected learning must integrate K-12, higher education, and employers in a connected system where pathways are designed to be cohesive, not fragmented.
• Success depends upon having shared, universal measures that can answer questions such as “What does ‘proficiency’ actually mean?” and “Are students prepared for in-demand careers?”
• We need clearer transitions from classroom to career that go beyond graduation, enabling students to follow viable, well-aligned post-secondary pathways to college, career, and life.