Equitable Resilient WF System Archives - National Skills Coalition

Legislative Agenda for the 118th Congress

Brittany Cannady — Mon, 13 May 2024 11:33:10 +0000

Launched during the 2024 Skills Summit, the Legislative Agenda for the 118th Congress provides skills training policy recommendations that will drive an inclusive economy for workers and businesses.

This agenda will guide the strategic work of the organization, and our networks, aligned to our four issue campaigns that prioritize the ways that federal and state policymakers can most effectively expand high-quality skills training and drive toward an inclusive economy. Our 2024 legislative agenda also features NSC’s new Public Perspectives series:

84% of voters want to make federal financial aid available to anyone seeking skills training, not just those seeking college degrees
90% of voters want to provide access to digital skills training for workers throughout their careers so they can adapt to new technologies at work
91% of voters want the creation of closer partnerships between training providers and businesses to train people for the jobs that businesses need to fill.

Join NSC in calling on Congress to prioritize an inclusive economy where workers and businesses who are most impacted by major economic shifts, as well as workers hindered by structural barriers of discrimination and a general lack of opportunity, are empowered to equitably participate in — and benefit from — a growing economy.

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Creating an Equitable, Resilient Workforce System: New Ideas for WIOA

Nicky Lauricella Coolberth — Wed, 10 May 2023 19:00:19 +0000

Over the past two decades, funding for the The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) has been in decline. WIOA — the primary law that establishes the structure, programs, and funding for our nation’s workforce system — is intended to be our nation’s main vehicle for workforce training. Yet Congress has never appropriated full funding to WIOA, nor has it invested in critical workforce strategies that are key to advancing working people’s careers, supporting small businesses’ talent needs, or promoting racial equity and pathways to quality jobs. To contribute to an inclusive economy, we need to turn WIOA from an underfunded system to one that is adequately resourced to deliver high-quality skills training that supports the assets and aspirations of working people, helps small businesses who hire locally and invest in their workers, and advances racial equity and pathways to quality jobs. This discussion brief & WIOA recommendations lays out a set of ideas that taken together, can improve WIOA in this way.

Specifically, in our WIOA Recommendations, NSC calls for three types of reforms:

■ Invest in programs that provide equitable high-quality skills training, economic supports, and pathways to quality jobs by guaranteeing training for more workers, developing a national network of high-performing industry/sector partnerships and career pathways, supporting digital skills training, and expanding Integrated Education and Training (IET) models.

■ Provide accountability for our workforce system to contribute to an inclusive economy by requiring WIOA state and local plans and boards to incorporate racial equity goals and workers’ voices and by expanding outcome measures, disaggregating data, and supporting evaluation and data systems.

■ Strengthen the delivery of equity-advancing WIOA career services through funding career navigation services, training frontline workers who deliver them, and piloting service delivery partnerships with culturally responsive, equity-focused service providers

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Developing a More Inclusive and Equitable Workforce System

Nicky Lauricella Coolberth — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 15:05:48 +0000

Despite the urgent need for workers, many businesses are unable to hire individuals seeking work because applicants lack equitable access to necessary workforce education and training. States play an important role in creating inclusive and equitable workforce systems by ensuring all jobseekers can access high quality training, good jobs, and career pathways. To advance equity, workforce systems should examine institutional structures and barriers to participation that contribute to employment and economic disparities. This panel will share what it takes to understand structural and systemic barriers; intentionally engage community partners; center worker and business voices in shaping policies and programs; and align programs and resources that support the whole person in training for and advancing in a career.

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Advancing Equity and Job quality through Industry Partnerships

Nicky Lauricella Coolberth — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 14:59:30 +0000

Developing industry partnerships that promote equity, quality jobs, and economic mobility is the recipe for success. Workforce partnerships can help employers explore hiring and retention challenges, understand workplace culture, diversify talent pools, and ensure there are community-based pathways to employment and careers in their company and industry sector. T

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Data for an Inclusive Economic Recovery

Nicky Lauricella Coolberth — Wed, 25 May 2022 13:30:49 +0000

A truly inclusive economic recovery means that the workers and businesses who were most impacted by this pandemic, as well as workers who have been held back by structural barriers of discrimination or lack of opportunity, are empowered to equitably participate in and benefit from the economy’s expansion and restructuring.

But we need data on how different workers and businesses are faring in the recovery, so

we can hold policymakers accountable to equitable outcomes. Disparities and inequities in skills training programs can only be eliminated if there is high-quality information on program outcomes available to practitioners and policymakers to assess and address equity gaps.

Once we have the data – we can use it to drive the change we need!

Data for an Inclusive Economic Recovery provides recommendations on how to measure and report on what really matters to help diminish structural inequities and to shape implementation of federal recovery investments as well as new state and federal workforce investments.

NSC’s recommendations would allow us to

Monitor outcomes by disaggregating data to close equity gaps and eliminate structural racism in skills policies;

Measure what matters by establishing enhanced outcome metrics across skills investments and measure the impacts of our interventions and hold ourselves accountable;
Make visible who is better off by reporting the economic outcomes of skills policies including types of jobs, wages, credentials with labor market value, long term career progression, and

Move towards accountability. Better data can leads to better skills policies if we have public data and accountability regarding who is being included in this recovery.

Recommendations Include:

Requiring that all education and skills training programs include collection of self-reported demographic characteristics of workers and learners so outcomes can be disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender, English language proficiency, income, and geography ;
Ensuring participants of skills training programs know what demographic characteristics are being collected about them, who will have access to personally identifiable information, and how their data will be used;
Establishing common outcomes metrics across federal skills training programs;
Expanding outcomes to include those that allow policymakers to assess the quality of skills training programs and measure economic mobility along a career pathway;
Ensuring equitable access to administrative data;
Mandating public reporting on skills training and workforce investment outcomes; and
Providing sufficient funding for linked education and workforce data systems.

In the next few months, NSC will continue to promote and discuss these recommendations through conversations with federal, state, and local policymakers, national partners, and coalition members. We’ll also be exploring with state policy leaders and advocates further development of public data and accountability frameworks, tools, and practices that are aimed at closing racial and other equity gaps in workforce related investments. And, we’ll continue to create opportunities for our network to shape federal, state, and local data policies that lead to better data and more equitable skills policies and investments.

This report was made possible by generous support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We thank them for their support and acknowledge that the findings, conclusions, and recommendations presented in this report are those of National Skills Coalition alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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