Alabama Workforce Transformation

The Strong Start, Strong
Finish Education to
Workforce System
Governor Ivey launched the Strong, Start Strong Finish education initiative in July
2017 to integrate Alabama’s education and workforce development efforts into a
seamless educational journey for all Alabamians. The first phase, Pre to Three,
is focused on securing state-wide saturation for the Alabama First-Class Pre-K
Program and ensuring that all of Alabama’s third graders are proficient readers
by 2022. The second phase, CS4AL, will ensure that a rigorous computer science
course is offered at all of Alabama’s middle and high schools by 2022. The third
phase, Success Plus, will prepare 500,000 more Alabamians to enter the workforce
with high-quality postsecondary degrees, certificates, and credentials by 2025.
With the passage of the Strong Start, Strong Finish legislative agenda (Act 2019-523,
Act 2019-389, and Act 2019-506), Governor Ivey has delivered on the most sweeping
and transformative education agenda since the Brewer Administration. (Please find
links to each of the Strong Start, Strong Finish acts, as well as supporting analysis,
here.)
Governor Ivey has also established five Strong Start, Strong Finish benchmarks. The
five benchmarks are: (1) pre-k readiness by age four, (2) school readiness by age five,
(3) being literate and numerate before the fourth grade, (4) exploring each college
and career pathway before ninth grade, and (5) diverging into a rigorous college or
career pathway leading to a career or matriculation into a postsecondary education
program at the time of high school graduation. Dig deeper into the Strong Start,
Strong Finish Initiative and each of its components here.
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Alabama’s Key Strategies to Align the
Workforce System in the Combined 2020
WIOA Plan
Governor Ivey has set a postsecondary education attainment goal of adding 500,000
credential holders to Alabama’s workforce by 2025 and a goal to increase Alabama’s
labor force participation rate of 57.6 percent to the national average by 2025.
Through the Alabama Statewide Consolidated Statewide Workforce Development
Strategic Plan, Governor Ivey has set a unified vision for reaching the attainment
and labor force participation goals. By braiding federal and state workforce and
education funding streams to produce an education-to-workforce pipeline that
begins with literacy and numeracy, career exploration and discovery among all 16
clusters, seamless transition from secondary to postsecondary education, multiple
entry and exit points for special and disconnected populations, and alignment
between secondary and postsecondary CTE and co-enrollment between adult
education and postsecondary CTE, Alabama’s workforce development system will
permit entry into an in-demand career pathway for Alabamians in all seasons of life.
The Alabama Combined Workforce
Development Strategic Plan
Governor Ivey will submit a new four-year Workforce Innovation and Opportunity
Act state combined plan in 2020. The timing for submitting the combined state plan
will allow for submission of the final state plan by no later than February 2020. The
combined plan will meet the requirements of section 122 of Perkins V section 103 of
the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (29 U.S.C. 3113).
The Governor’s Office, the ALSDE, ACCS, the state workforce development board,
and the partner agencies to the combined state WIOA plan will participate in joint
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state planning meeting beginning in June 2019. The Governor’s Office will work to
achieve consensus on needs assessments, plans to reach special and disconnected
populations, stakeholder input, local and state performance targets, program quality
and performance indicators, and alignment of programs in the combined state plan
to achieve a unified workforce development system for the State of Alabama.
• Combined Planning Toolkit—Please follow the link here to find high-quality
resources that describe the role of local stakeholders in the development of
the WIOA 2020 Combined Plan.
• Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment Toolkit—Please follow this link to
find a spreadsheet with the dates and locations of the 14 CLNA meetings that
will be held between July and October 2019 across the state.
The Alabama Workforce Transformation
Toolkit
The ACCCP will provide credential sequences, competency models, and career
lattices for each in-demand career pathways. The ACCCP became operational
on September 1, 2019, and it will begin creating the Compendium of Valuable
Credentials so that it is ready for release in 2020.
The Alabama Office of Apprenticeship (AOA) and the Alabama Community College
System (ACCS) will partner with the ACCCP to create the competency-based
programming for registered and industry-recognized apprenticeship programs
in Alabama. The Alabama Terminal on Linking and Analyzing Statistics (ATLAS)
on Career Pathways will provide data for the ACCCP to determine the in-demand
career in each region. The ATLAS will become operational on June 30, 2020.
• Click here to learn more about the two-pronged Alabama Career Pathways
Model, the Alabama 2020 Combined WIOA Plan, the ACCCP, the AOA, and
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the ATLAS on Career Pathways.
• Check out this video that explains how the 2020 Combined WIOA Plan,
ACCCP, AOA, ATLAS on Career Pathways, and the two-pronged Alabama
Career Pathways Model will provide you with the resources to do your part in
helping reach the attainment goal by 2025.
• Take a look at this video of a presentation delivered by Mr. Michael Brustein, a
leading expert in WIOA and Perkins V, that provides additional context on the
eligible uses of WIOA funding and Perkins V.
• Click here to learn more about how the ACCCP will determine which career
and credentials have the most value in the labor market.
The 2020 WIOA Combined Plan will take effect on October 1, 2020. The plan will
allow you to braid funds and create career pathways for your special populations,
in-school youth, and adult learners based on the two-pronged Alabama Career
Pathways Model.
The work of developing competency-based career pathways within in-demand
occupations begins at the local level. Individuals, high schools, and community
colleges must be empowered with the tools needed to interact with labor market
information to learn which occupations are in demand.
While the Combined 2020 WIOA Plan
will not take effect until October 2020,
here are five steps you can start TODAY
to implement the two-pronged Alabama
Career Pathways Model at your college.
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STEP ONE
Review Your Labor Market Data to Determine the
In-Demand Occupations in Your Region
• Follow this link to your county, regional, and career cluster attainment and
labor force participation goals. This information will help give you a better
idea of how to ensure that the CTE programs at your school will prepare your
students to enter in-demand occupations.
• Visit the Alabama Department of Labor, Labor Market Division website to
obtain data about the top 40 in-demand jobs in your area and other relevant
statistics.
• The Alabama Department of Labor partners with the Alabama Department of
Commerce and the University of Alabama Center for Business and Economic
Research (CBER) to produce rigorous statewide and regional reports on
workforce development. Click here for CBER’s statewide report; click here for
the Region One report; click here for the Region Two report; click here for the
Region Three report; click here for the Region Four report; click here for the
Region Five report; click here for the Region Six report; and click here for the
Region Seven report.
STEP TWO
Braid Funds to Develop Career Pathways for In-Demand
Occupations
• After you determine which occupations are in demand in your region, use the
US Department of Labor Career Pathway Toolkit found here to develop career
pathways for in-school youth and adults by braiding Perkins, WIOA, and other
education and workforce funds.
• Follow this link to find a career pathways training series, based on the US
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Department of Labor Career Pathway Toolkit, that will help you develop
career pathways in your region.
• Check out this career pathway checklist to keep your career pathway
development efforts organized and efficient.
STEP THREE
Identifying Credentials of Value
• After you have developed career pathways for the in-demand careers in
your regions, it is time to figure out which non-degree, industry-recognized
credentials can be stacked to create a credential sequence that is aligned to the
career pathway. Check out this memo to understand more about Alabama’s
process for determining whether a credential has value in the labor market.
• Ensuring that non-degree credentials associated with your career pathways
are transparent and understandable by the students earning them and the
employers who may choose to require them or reward the attainment of
them with a wage increase is vitally important to spreading acceptance of
competency-based career pathways. Take a look at this Credential Engine
report on how to get started with making a credential registry for your school.
• Developing a credential currency that allows students who earn credentials
to move up their career pathway ladder and earn a wage increase, while
also signaling the attainment of demonstrable skills to employers will incent
more employers in your area to require credentials in job descriptions and to
provide raises for attaining credentials. Review this Education Strategy Group
report on developing best practices for creating a credential currency in your
region. This credential currency toolkit from the Education Strategy Group
will help you work with employers in your area to identify and incentivize the
attainment of credentials of value that are aligned to in-demand occupations
in your community.
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• You should work to align your workforce programs to develop career
pathways that allow for you to include the program on your region’s eligible
training provider list (ETPL) for the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity
Act (WIOA). Click here to access the Alabama ETPL.
STEP FOUR
Develop Competency Models
• After you have identified the in-demand occupations in your region, braided
funds to develop career pathways for those in-demand occupations, identified
stackable credential sequences aligned to those in-demand occupations,
you should develop competency models and career lattices aligned with the
Competency Model Clearing House provided by the US Department of Labor,
which will also be used by the ACCCP. Click here to begin building your own
competency models today.
STEP FIVE
Building Human Capital Development Through
Apprenticeship
• Apprenticeship is the best catalyst for bringing your competency-based career
pathways to life. Once you have developed your competency models, use this
apprenticeship toolkit developed by the Governor’s Office of Education and
Workforce Transformation (GOEWT) to expand apprenticeship programs
in your region. You will find additional resources here to help you scale your
apprenticeship programs.
• Use this human capital development toolkit to ensure that your apprentices
are able to persist through their programs and enter into an in-demand career
pathway by accessing supportive services.