Basic Skills and Workforce Education: Better Together

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Basic Skills and Workforce Education Better
Together

• presentation for
• Minnesota Adult Education Transitions Conference
• Julie Strawn
• Center for Law and Social Policy
• jstrawn_at_clasp.org
• October 30, 2008

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Your work is part of a national movement

• At least 11 states have initiatives to improve
  effectiveness of dev. ed. and/or adult ed./ELL
  services (CO, CT, KY, IL, IN, MA, MD, MI, NJ, OR,
  WA)
• At least 7 states (AR, KY, MA, OH, OR, WA, WI)
  have career pathway efforts
• Half a dozen states have workforce bridge
  initiatives (IL, IN, MN, KY, OR, WA)
• Many states have region/sector initiatives that
  include career pathways

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The context an aging, more diverse, less skilled
workforce

• Between 2004 and 2014, 24 of the 30
  fastest-growing jobs are expected to be filled by
  people with postsecondary education or training
  (either a certificate or degree). Many are
  middle-skilled jobs.
• Yet nearly half of the U.S. workforce has only a
  high school education or less.
• About two-thirds of our 2020 workforce is already
  beyond the reach of our elementary and secondary
  schools.
• Nationally the current potential pool of skilled
  workers among prime-age adults is equal to the
  next 17 years of high school classes.

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The context adult education at a crossroads

• Current system was created 40 years ago
• How well does it meet the needs of our students
  and our communities now?
• Time for a reality check
• who do we serve?
• where do they want to go?
• whats the best way to help them get there?
• how long will they stay with us?

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Students goals are economic, postsecondary
credentials key for reaching them

• 2001 survey of why people took GED, 30 said
  employment, 66 said further education. WA
  state86 of adult ed students have employment
  goals.
• For low skilled adults, thats where largest
  economic payoffs are. 1 year of college 10
  increase in earnings (as true for GED grads. as
  for h.s. grads)
• Getting a GED alone does increase earnings but by
  less than a high school diploma. (Only pays off
  significantly for dropouts with lowest skills and
  for immigrants.)
• Vocational certificates and degrees pay off more
  than academic ones at the Associate level and
  below
• Up until now, assumption by programs and by adult
  ed. students has been that GED is the best route
  to good jobs and to postsecondary education

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Too often, education ? economic opportunity for
low income adults

• Why not? Services not aligned with each other or
  with labor market needs
• Adult basic ed./ELL disconnect with job training
  and other postsecondary ed.
• Developmental education disconnect with college
  occupational programs
• Non-credit workforce education disconnect with
  for-credit certificate and degree prgms.
• Workforce ed. not connected closely enough to
  employer workforce needs

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For lower skilled adults the basic skills
disconnect looms largest

• Adult ed. focused on GED but majority do not earn
  one, and few GED grads. ever complete postsec.
  credentials.
• Most adult ed. students stay for 30 to 80 hours
  of instruction. (100-1501 grade level)
• Only 12 completed gt 1 year of college in first
  decade after earning GED, 3 earn at least AA
  degree.
• Bottom line Over several decades, of 100 adult
  ed. students, about 8 go on to postsec. and 2 get
  a BA. Very few English Language Learners
  transition.

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Developmental education has similar problems

• Nationally a majority of community college
  students need help with basic skills
• 61 of first-time students in community colleges
  enrolled in at least one remedial course in the 8
  years after high school.
• Students in dev. reading half as likely to
  complete cert./degree within 8 years after high
  school, vs. those not needing dev. ed. (30 vs.
  69).
• Paradox students who complete dev. ed. are more
  likely to succeed than students with similar
  skills who do not take dev. ed. Similar story
  for adult education students.

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Why arent outcomes better?

• Basic skills content is a poor match for many
  students interests and goals, which typically
  are focused on entering and advancing in careers
• One size fits few rigid sequence of basic
  skills coursework means it takes far too long to
  move into workforce education
• Overburdened lives of low skilled, low income
  students, e.g. juggling work, college, parenting.
  Personal/family challenges, lack of confidence.

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If expand goals beyond GED, what should adult ed.
programs focus on?

• Create more options in adult ed/ELL that reflect
  students workforce goals and offer faster, more
  targeted ways to get there, even without a GED
• Think about low skilled/limited English
  population in your regionwho are they? what
  kinds of postsecondary and job opportunities make
  the most sense for them?
• Build coalition of the willing in your
  regionWIBs, CBOs, comm./tech. colleges. Focus on
  career/tech partners, not just academic ones
• Be careful not to close one gap only to leave
  students falling through another one

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Washington state and the tipping point

• WA study found that the tipping point for a
  substantial earnings increase from community
  college is at least one year of vocational
  credits plus a credential. These results are
  consistent with national research.
• 2,700 and 1,700 more per year (respectively)
  for workforce students entering with high school
  or GED
• Even larger increases for lower skilled students
  and those with limited English ESL students earn
  7,000 more per year and ABE students 8,500 more
  per year
• The tipping point represents the same mid-level
  skills and credentials that WA employers find in
  short supply

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Washington State Projections
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WA Community College Adult Basic Skills Education
Outcomes (Prince and Jenkins, 2005)
Source Prince Jenkins (forthcoming).
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Addressing wage and skills gaps WAs story

• Getting more adults to the tipping point
  becomes a key state goal, backed up by
• Fundamental change in content and goals of adult
  ed. for upper levels of ABE/ESL Integrated Basic
  Education and Skills Training (I-BEST).
• New state need-based aid program aimed at helping
  low income adults Opportunity Grants to student
  plus 1,500 to college to support success.
• Creation of performance bonuses to colleges for
  helping students to reach momentum points
  Student Achievement Initiative.

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Tracking outcomes across services
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What Are Career Pathways? (aka Stackable
Credentials, Programs of Study, etc.)

• Linked education and training services that
  enable students, often while they are working,
  to advance over time to successively higher
  levels of education and employment in a given
  industry or occupational sector. Each step on a
  career pathway is designed explicitly to prepare
  students to progress to the next level of
  employment and education. (Oregon)

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What Are Career Pathways?

• Ideally CPs are not a separate program but a
  framework for integrating systems and services
  and for connecting education and training to jobs
  of importance to local economies. Aimed at
  plugging leaks in the pipeline of skilled
  workers
• Key is to provide incentives and tools for
  programs to work together jointly to achieve
  success

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HEALTH CARE CAREER PATHWAY
Patient Care
Medical Administration
Allied Health
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What Are Workforce Bridge Programs?

• Occupational or workforce bridge programs
  typically cover soft skills, pre-college
  academic skills, and specific job skills, ideally
  one that is part of a career pathway.
• Workforce bridges tailor and contextualize the
  adult ed/ELL content to general workplace needs
  and to the knowledge and skills needed in a
  specific occupation.
• E.g. bridge programs in manufacturing cover
  blueprint reading, statistical process control.
  Those in health care cover intro. to human
  biology, vocab. and math for health careers.

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What Are Workforce Bridge Programs?

• Often use co-instruction involving adult ed/ELL,
  dev. ed., career/tech. faculty, academic faculty
• Involve rewriting or creating curricula, offering
  staff/faculty release time to do this and
  extensive professional development. Ideally
  technical job content is integrated with adult
  ed/ELL content..
• Often involve dual enrollment in adult ed./dev.
  ed./career and technical courses. Critical for
  qualifying bridge for college FTE, student aid
  which funds team teaching and comprehensive
  services.

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Chicago, IL Carreras En Salud

• Carreras en Salud helps limited
  English-proficient individuals advance to LPN
  positions. Latinos 26 of pop. in Chicago, but
  less than 2 of RNs and LPNs.
• Partners include 11 major employers, 2 CBOs
  (Instituto del Latino Progreso, Ass. House of
  Chicago), community colleges (Wright College and
  affiliated Humboldt Park Voc. Ed. Center), local
  WIB, National Council of La Raza.
• Offers students seven levels at which they can
  enroll, each level 16 weeks long, beginning with
  ELL bridge
• Since early 2005, over 700 students enrolled, 89
  retention in prgm., 84 advance to next level. 85
  bilingual mostly Latina students have attained
  LPN. Graduates earning on average 40,000 per
  year.

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LPN Wright College
RN schools
12 months
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GED, Placement test
BIO 226, Math 118 ENG 101, PSY 201
16 weeks
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16 weeks
Pre LPN B IDPL
ESL level 10-12 Pre LPN-A or CNA
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PCT
EKG, Phlebotomy
Pre LPN A IDPL
16 weeks
ESL level 8-10, CNA
CNA / GED HPVEC
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VESL CNA context IDPL
ESL level 6th
16 weeks
ESL Health Context IDPL/HPVEC
Prepared by Dr. Ricardo A. Estrada, Project
Coordinator, Carreras En Salud, A Chicago
Healthcare Bridge Partnership
16 weeks
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Oregon VESL Welding Pathway
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Washington States I-BEST Program

• WA state goal Increase number of adult ed/ELL
  students who reach tipping point
• State offered colleges 1.75 FTE to expand I-BEST
  to take into account extra costs of two
  instructors, coordinating instructions,
  additional student support
• To do this have to rethink content/goals of adult
  ed/ELLnot GED, not entering dev. ed, but rather
  skills needed for job and next education step in
  pathway.
• All I-BEST programs must be part of 1-year
  certif. program or other occup. prgm. with proven
  ability to place grads. in higher wage jobs.
  Std. was wages gt 12 an hour (gt than 14 an hour
  in Seattle).

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Washington States I-BEST Program

• I-BEST pairs ABE/ELL instructors with prof./tech
  instructors in the classroom to provide
  integrated basic skills and job training.
• Goal is to earn a for-credit occupational
  certificate AND raise basic skills/English to
  level needed to take next career and educational
  step.
• Instructors co-teach 50 of the time, other half
  of the time teach the same students
  contextualized basic skills and occupational
  skills separately. Pilot programs ranged from 1-3
  quarters.
• In pilots I-BEST students earned 5 times more
  college credits and were 15 times more likely to
  complete training than traditional ELL students.

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Washington States I-BEST Program

• Now have 1600 students in I-BEST
• 70 programs at 32 of 34 colleges
• More than half of the programs focus on Health
  Care or Office Support/ Technology
• Other career pathways range from Early Childhood
  Education to the Trades

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Increasing Student Achievement for Basic Skills
Students- continued

• Students who combine college content with
  basic skills through I-BEST and other ways
  increase their basic skills at higher rates than
  students enrolled exclusively in basic skills.
  (Source Israel Mendoza, WA State Board Comm. and
  Tech. Colleges)

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Increasing Student Achievement for Basic Skills
Students - continued

• Much higher percentages of I-BEST students
  earn their first 15 college credits than do basic
  skills students who attempt college coursework in
  other ways (53 vs. 23 for ELL and 61 vs. 32
  for ABE/GED students). (Source Israel Mendoza,
  WA State Board Comm. and Tech. Colleges)

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I-BEST Brings In New Resources

• Kathy Cooper, WA Adult Ed. I-BEST is the center
  of the largest historic increase in the community
  and technical college operating budget.
• 500 FTEs I-BEST -7,350,000
• 1250 FTEs ABE -11,438,000
• 600 FTEs High Demand -5,280,000
• Opportunity Grants -15,000,000
• Additional funding for general enrollment.

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2007 KY Adult Ed./Dev. Ed Bridges into Career
Pathways

• Builds on statewide Career Pathways which began
  in 2003 and focuses on the basic skills piece of
  the pathway
• Local teams submit proposals these teams must
  include at least 1 instructor each from dev. ed,
  adult ed., general ed., and career/tech. ed.
• Grants fund curricular redesign and integration
  of basic skills, workforce dev., and academic
  transfer coursework.
• E.g. contextualization, chunking, flexible
  delivery, on-line learning, workplace learning.

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2007 KY Adult Ed./Dev. Ed Bridges into Career
Pathways

• Funding covers professional dev., TA, and faculty
  stipends
• All aimed at creating integrated remediation
  customized to specific occupational career
  pathway.
• 2006 grants focused on dev. ed. (6 pilots) for
  2007 grants, local teams had to also include
  adult ed./ELL (7 pilots).
• Pilots mix of dev. ed., adult ed, and ELL.
  Sectors include construction, health care,
  manuf., and HVAC.

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Madisonville, KY Dev. Ed/Workforce Ed. pilot

• Waived dev reading requirement for 2 cohorts of
  Anatomy and Physiology students who loved science
  but not reading
• Created integrated curricula of 3 courses--dev.
  reading (030), a college success course (GE 101)
  and Anat./Phys.
• Overall focus contextualize, create a learning
  community, use active learning, and team teach
• Used state grant for release time for instructors
  to create curricula in Spring 2007 and to
  implement it in Fall 2007
• Meets T-TH from 8-1215 for class and F from
  9-11, study groups F from 8-9.
• One semesters results so farthe pilot cohort
  outscored the regular Anat. Phys. class on all
  three exams

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Other examples, KY Dev. Ed/Adult Ed. pilots

• Lexington, KY (Bluegrass College)
• 16 week Learning Community for Construction
  Technology students in first semester.
  Curriculum integrates construction tech. content
  with GED/Workplace Skills curriculum delivered by
  ABE personnel. 
• Maysville, KY (Licking Valley Campus)
• Modeled after WAs I-BEST model, KCTCS and Adult
  Basic Education co-developed and implemented
• Blends dev. math and English lang. (MT055,
  ENC090, ENC091), workplace skills, and Practical
  Nurse (PN) prgm.
• Other pilots deliver integrated basic skills and
  workforce ed. at worksites, in public housing

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Key tasks for bridge programs

• Align adult ed/ELL and college remediation
  content with postsecondary content
• Crosswalk assessments (eg TABE with COMPASS,
  ACCUPLACER) and curricula, contextualize, and
  integrate if possible, make the end goal of adult
  ed/ELL the skills needed for next job or next
  level of education in career pathway.
• Shorten the timeline for enrolling in workforce
  ed., boost intensity of instruction
• Dual enrollment/dual credit, integrated programs,
  accelerated programs. Typically 15-20 hours.

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Key tasks for workforce bridge programs

• Build partnerships with WIBs, CBOs, colleges, and
  others.
• Have close, ongoing, personal connections with
  employersbut be selective about partners.
• Input into program design and content
• Internships, workplace learning
• Company employees as faculty
• Support success
• Proactive advising linked to academic/tech.
  faculty, career exploration, college success
  courses, academic advising, financial aid, child
  care, transportation, peer support.

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Oregon Pathways for Adult Basic Skills

• Initiate adult ed. systems change that is
  sustainable with formal links to postsec. ed. and
  to One-Stop Centers vision is for this to become
  the way the whole system operates
• Six Development Sites currentlycurriculum and
  module development, pilot testing, curriculum and
  module revision, more sites will be added
• Integrate occupational information that is
  focused on OR high-demand occupations
• Health Services (e.g., medical assisting, medical
  records)
• Industrial Engineering Systems (e.g., welding,
  construction)
• Business Management (e.g., marketing/sales)

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AR Fast Track bridge into health science

• SEARKs Fast Track targets lower skilled students
  (9th grade and below) interested in one or
  two-year health science certificate and degree
  programs. (Also have WAGE adult ed. bridge for
  lowest level students.)
• Intended to help students become college-ready in
  one semester (This typically takes 2 or more
  semesters)
• Curriculum is reading, writing, and math
  contextualized to health science careers, taught
  jointly by dev. ed. and health science faculty in
  a learning community format
• Students in class Mon.-Thur. from 8 a.m. to 12
  p.m. times that were convenient for students
  work schedules.
• Completion rate for the first two cohorts of
  students has been over 80 percent.

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IL and IN Shifting Gears pilots

• ILs bridge pilots 3 integrate dev. ed. with
  occup. prgrms, 5 integrate adult ed./ELL to
  occup. prgrms.
• Black Hawk College, with partner Quad Cities
  Logistic Roundtable (employer assoc.) providing
  workplace-based skills training, GED prep. and
  contextualized ELL leading to Warehousing and
  Distrib. Certificate.
• Lewis and Clark College integrates basic skills
  and manufacturing content, uses team teaching,
  and a counselor. Blended format of on-line and
  in-class learning, required internships, leads to
  Entry level Water and Wastewater Operations
  Certificate Manufacturing Technician Certificate
  program

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IL and IN Shifting Gears pilots

• INs Embedded Skills Pilots
• Contextualized remediation for specific
  occupational programs where feasible, combining
  this instruction with part-time paid internships
  work in field of study.
• Five pilots underway in Evansville, Muncie, South
  Bend, and Columbus in automotive, early
  education, industrial technology, and
  manufacturing occupations.
• Evansvilles Early Childhood Education program
  integrates instruction in developmental reading
  and writing within a four-course sequence leading
  to the Child Development Associate credential.

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WI Shifting Gears Bridge Programs

• Chippewa Valley 16 week welding certificate,
  team teaching, transferable to tech. diploma
• Lakeshore 3 course manuf. bridge, focuses on
  shared math and reading competencies for
  Industrial Maintenance, Machine Tool Operation,
  and Welding.
• Northcentral Integrate ELL instruction into
  nursing assistant curriculum, while maintaining
  industry skill standards and state licensing
  requirements.

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WI Shifting Gears Bridge Programs

• Moraine Park, Gateway Milwaukee
• Career ladder in Industrial Maintenance with 3-5
  embedded certificates
• Welding career pathway with integrated ABE/ELL
  and career/tech. team teaching.
• Northeast Two certificate programs, General
  Manufacturing and Welding, with integrated,
  contextualized curriculum.

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Transition models for out of school youth

• Integrated adult education, dev. ed. and/or job
  training for out of school youth
• Center for Employment Training
• Career Academies (including new CA academies)
• Models such as WA I-BEST also work for youth
• Dual hs/college for out of school youth
• Gates Foundation initiative to replicate
  Portland, OR model in Gateways to College. Goal
  is to complete high school and earn Assoc.
  degree at same time. Combines K-12 ADA s with
  college FTEs to enrich services.

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Three key elements for states to fix leaky
pipeline, increase success

• Track student outcomes across services, over
  time, and into the labor market use this data to
  set goals for improvement and to reward success.
  
• Integrate basic skills services with workforce
  ed. to help lower skilled students earn
  credentials leading to family-supporting jobs
  more quickly.
• Adapt financial aid policies to the needs of
  lower-skilled, working adults, and support their
  success in adult and postsec. ed. and training.