Workforce Development Legislation and Practice Literature Review, Maryland, 2007-2017

development boards, with the GWDB being one of the few entities able to span across all these levels.
The literature reveals the importance of adopting a holistic view of the states workforce efforts in order to
properly understand how workforce development functions.
The literature also reveals some of the limitations of the state’s current efforts around workforce
development. While the efforts appear to be in a period of flux given the continued implementation of the
new federal law, the literature reveals that certain aspects of how workforce developments appear to
happen in practice are difficult to discern from the literature. In the only directly comparative document
in the literature, the joint report done comparing regional WIOA implementation plans, a constant refrain
noted throughout the report was that, while Maryland’s plan was generally given credit for being solid, is
was also noted for being relatively vague, lacking specific are critical areas in implementation. Indeed,
some of the essential information about how workforce development boards operate in practice,
information for example related to the curriculum used in workforce development programming, and
participant evaluations of their experience in workforce development programs, was beyond the scope of
this literature review and largely unavailable in this time period.
Correcting this lack of information becomes especially critical when the literature around Maryland
workforce development is analyzed from a racial equity standpoint. While there is a consistent discussion
of including marginalized populations and those excluded from traditional pipelines to employment, the
vast majority of the literature fails to address the root causes behind the exclusion of vulnerable
populations from the workforce. With notable exceptions, the literature fails to ask fundamental questions
about racial equity. This is perhaps most clearly exemplified by the GWIB’s list of questions discussion
around WIOA implementation. While the institution presented over 50 very specific questions about the
transition in federal law with 10 distinct subgroups, questions specific to the law's impact from an equity
perspective are notable in their absence. When the literature is examined from an equity perspective,
efforts which appear to be perfectly rational and perhaps even progressive are questionable in terms of
their equity impact. For example, when the state legislature expands licensure requirements to barber
services, this appears to be another opportunity for workforce development, with services being deployed
to get individuals certified in their fields. Yet growing bodies of equity-based literature around licensure
regimes show that in many cases these licensure regimes create a bottleneck where individuals are forced
to go through lengthy and potentially expensive training programs for employment opportunities where
the very need for licensure is questionable, a burden found to disproportionately impact people of color. 49
As such, the Skills2Compete initiatives focus on middle-skill jobs where professional licensure rather
than a four-year degree may need to analyzed more deeply to ensure that the licensure regimes themselves
are not barriers to employment. Additionally, one of the recommendations of MCCEI report, around the
development of a new construction management program at a Maryland university, risks duplicating
existing programs at one of the state’s historically Black colleges, a practice which is against state law
49
Rodriguez, Michelle Natividad, and Beth Avery. “Unlicensed & Untapped: Removing Barriers to State Occupational Licenses
for People with Records.” Report, National Employment Law Project, 26 Apr. 2016, www.nelp.org/publication/unlicenseduntapped-removing-barriers-state-occupational-licenses/.
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