Workforce Education

The book begins with the premise that workforce education is a profession. The product is always instruction; the goal to promote learning that leads to individual labour market advantage or solving human performance problems. It is this common product and goal that joins all workforce education into a common professional bond.

This report may be cited or reproduced in whole or in part, without permission, with the proviso that the original source is cited as follows: (2008). Noncredit enrollment in workforce education: State policies and community college practices [Report]. Acknowledgments Funding for the study on which this report is based was generously provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The authors would like to thank the many policymakers and administrators from across the country who graciously shared information and insights with the study researchers. Thanks also to the study' s advisory board members—Jon Slater for their editorial feedback. Finally, we would like to thank the National Council for Workforce Education and the National Council for Continuing Education and Training for their assistance and support of this project. Any errors or omissions are strictly the responsibility of the authors. Introduction Postsecondary noncredit education has become increasingly common; many community colleges now enroll more noncredit than credit students. Much of the growth has occurred in workforce instruction and contract training. These programs are noted for their important role in meeting shifting workforce demands and providing skills in a way that is flexible and responsive to employer needs. Growth in this sector raises fundamental questions about whether colleges are keeping pace with need, using resources efficiently, and providing access to all students. The answers may challenge current state policies and college practices. Methodology The CCRC study, funded by the Sloan Foundation and conducted in collaboration with the National Council for Workforce Education and the National Council for Continuing Education and Training, focused on noncredit workforce instruction and contract training in community colleges. Specifically, it examined (1) the extent to which noncredit workforce education and state policies play a role in workforce development, provide disadvantaged groups with access to higher education, and generate revenue for colleges; (2) how colleges organize their noncredit workforce programs to balance the tradeoffs between the desired flexibility of noncredit education and the integration of credit and noncredit programs; and (3) the extent to which noncredit workforce education provides recorded outcomes for students, such as transcripts or industry certifications, and the extent to which outcome data are available. Two key sources of information were used. First, we reviewed noncredit workforce education policies on funding and regulation in all 50 states by interviewing people in state departments with oversight for community colleges or workforce development. Second, we obtained case studies of 20 …

Postsecondary noncredit education has become increasingly common in recent years, and at many community colleges, noncredit programs enroll more students than do credit programs (Bailey et al., 2003). Courses connected with workforce instruction and contract training account for much of this growth (Dougherty & Bakia, 1999), and such courses are noted for their important role in responding flexibly to shifting workforce demands. Still, the growth in community college noncredit workforce education raises questions about whether the colleges are keeping pace with student and industry needs, using resources efficiently, and providing adequate access to all students. The answers to these questions may challenge current state policies and college practices. The leadership of two major community college organizations — the National Council for Workforce Education (NCWE) and the National Council for Continuing Education and Training (NCCET) — sought to collaborate with the Community College Research Center (CCRC) to conduct a study that would illuminate the implications of recent changes in noncredit workforce education. These councils represent senior community college administrators nationwide who are responsible for workforce development and who have been grappling with their stances on noncredit workforce education when considering which policies to advocate. CCRC’s one-year study, summarized in this Brief, included the examination of state policies in all 50 states and case studies at 20 community colleges. Findings from the study document the empirical landscape of noncredit workforce education and identify issues that warrant attention from state policymakers, community college leaders, and policy advocates.

The future of noncredit workforce education programs looks bright but organizational, funding, and accountability issues remain.

Increasingly, career-technical and workforce education professionals are challenged with determining the best ways to prepare people for work, when many of the jobs those people will perform do not exist yet. Twenty-first-century work is evolving rapidly, with some jobs going away, other types of work appearing, and many people working in jobs that do not maximize their potential. To remain relevant in this emerging landscape, a framework is needed that can structure and guide research and curriculum development in workforce preparation in an increasingly volatile and uncertain future. We examine three key components—career navigation, work ethic, and innovation—that can situate career-technical and workforce education curricula to anticipate rapid changes in workplace demands and ensure student outcomes that will be lasting and durable in the 21st-century workplace.

LBNL-3163E E RNEST O RLANDO L AWRENCE B ERKELEY N ATIONAL L ABORATORY Energy Efficiency Services Sector: Workforce Education and Training Needs Charles A. Goldman*, Jane S. Peters**, Nathaniel Albers**, Elizabeth Stuart* and Merrian C. Fuller* * Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ** Research Into Action, Inc. Environmental Energy Technologies Division March 2010 The work described in this report was funded by the Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Weatherization and Intergovernmental Program and Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Permitting, Siting and Analysis of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02- 05CH11231.

ABSTRACT Over its 100-year plus history the community college has struggled to make clear its mission. As a comprehensive community college its mission has bounced around to focus on liberal arts, developmental, workforce, community, and general education. In today’s increasingly competitive society with shifting values and changes in power it is likely that workforce education/career and technical education will remain a foundational mission of the community college. Workforce education is strongly supported by state and federal legislators who demonstrate that support with billions of dollars. It is strongly supported by business and industry. And it is strongly supported by parents and students. This brief history captures many of the key issues and developments of the continuing evolution of workforce education in the community college.

How can a large scale, multi-state, collaborative workforce development project be evaluated? This article describes the evaluation process of the Midwest Center for Information Technology (MCIT). The project uses “impact threads” to connect the outcomes of the project to strategic evaluation questions. The MCIT project, involving 10 public two-year colleges located in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota, strives to assist partner colleges in enhancing information technology training and related degree programs. The MCIT was funded as a regional center within the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF). This article details the evaluation plan for the center, including how selected data is systematically mapped to impact threads and further illustrates the evaluation process by providing some examples of MCIT's progress. Online Journal of Workforce Education and Development Volume II, Issue 4 – Fall 2007 3 Introduction Workforce development today can be challenging. Workforce development in the information technology (IT) field can be particularly daunting. Few people would disagree that human knowledge and the technologies supporting such knowledge development are expanding at an amazing rate. A quick review of the history of the Internet will represent this rapid knowledge expansion and recent estimates of Internet growth suggest there are now over one billion users (Internet World Stats, 2006). However, even with such impressive expansion, the employment field represented by the information technology workforce has suffered considerably in the past decade (Hagedorn, 2005; Sargent, 2004). Setbacks from various national events, including the terrorist attacks of September 11, the collapse of various dot-com organizations, and an end to work related to Y2K have challenged employment opportunities in the IT field. It is a complex world where needs in the national IT workforce struggle to be heard over other issues such as national security, health reform, and disaster relief (such as with Hurricane Katrina). Yet IT workforce development has been recognized as critical to the overall health and economy of the United States and calls for confronting a “digital workforce crisis” have resonated loudly from our federal and state policy makers (ITAA, 2005; National Policy Association, 2002). The worker who enters the information technology field today finds a profession with a wide range of occupational demands (Hagedorn, 2005). A strong background in selected technical skills is no longer adequate for such an occupation and IT professionals are increasingly challenged in various soft skill areas such as personal communications, leadership, teamwork, and dynamic problem solving (Bailey & Stephaniak, 2002). Although the federal government is working hard to support IT workforce development, it is the individual states that need to most directly address this important workforce development area. Historically, technology based economic development has been the responsibility of state and local governments” (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1999, 2002). Community colleges and other two-year educational institutions are now at the forefront in addressing IT workforce development needs within the states (California State Legislature, 2002; Kerr, 2002). Despite the economic employment recession attributable to September 11 and the other challenges mentioned, employment within the information technology fields is once again growing. Employment projections published by the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (2005), through the year 2014, document that IT careers comprise 40% of the top 10 fastest growing occupations. Despite the demand, student enrollments in IT courses are not keeping pace. Many professional organizations, such as the Information Technology of America (ITAA), are now calling to more than double the IT workforce within the next 10 years and to assist educational institutions at all levels in better meeting this demand (ITAA, 2005). Such calls for workforce development efforts also include addressing an under-representation of women and minorities within the IT field (Congressional Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Biology and Technology Development, September 2000; Margolis & Fisher, 2002). The importance of IT workforce development is growing and some authors are now identifying this increasingly important national effort as an evolving “war for talent” (Kaihla, 2003; Smith, 2006) that is facing our nation. Online Journal of Workforce Education and Development Volume II, Issue 4 – Fall 2007 4 The challenging professional context represents the complexity of information technology workforce recruitment and education. Increasingly, 2-year educational institutions are finding it difficult to go it alone in IT workforce development and realizing that effective collaboration may be necessary. It was in such a dynamic environment that 10 public two-year colleges in the four states of Nebraska, Iowa, North Dakota, and South Dakota came together in 2001 to form a collaborative initiative and organization entitled the “Midwest Center for Information Technology.” The Midwest Center for Information Technology The information technology workforce development crisis has been well recognized in the Midwest, by the Applied Information Management (AIM) Institute. AIM is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Omaha, Nebraska. It is run like a for-profit business and dedicated to assisting economic development related to the integration of information technology and technology innovations across the Midwest region. When the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education program published a call for proposals for establishing Regional Centers related to Information Technology Workforce Development and Education, AIM contacted 10 public two-year colleges within a four-state region (of Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota) and submitted a proposal. Subsequently, NSF funded the formation of MCIT. The 10 participating colleges, ranging from small to large, rural to urban, and vocational/technical to comprehensive and included: Central Community College (NE); Iowa Western Community College (IA); Metropolitan Community College (NE); Mid-Plains Community College (NE); North Dakota State College of Science (ND); Northeast Community College (NE); Southeast Community College (NE); Southeast Technical Institute (SD); Western Iowa Technical Community College (IA); and Western Nebraska Community College (NE). These diverse colleges educate approximately 50,000 students annually. This represents 43% of the public two-year college student population of the entire four-state region. The Applied Information Management Institute serves as the fiscal agent and general project facilitator for the four-state consortium of public two-year colleges comprising the Midwest Center for Information Technology. In order to address the region’s shortage of information technology professionals and the growing needs in this critical career field, the MCIT provides an integrated series of activities that focus on curriculum adaptation, faculty development, workforce development, articulation, and dissemination. A Site Coordinator (faculty member), working under the direction of the Chief Instructional Officers from each participating college, along with the NSF grant’s Principal Investigators and a business-driven Advisory Committee, direct the implementation of project activities. Five aggressive objectives were carefully planned and initiated from the very beginnings of MCIT (2001), which included: (a) to increase the number of MCIT college faculty who held industry-validated information technology certification,( b) to increase the number of high school students articulating to MCIT college IT programs, (c) to increase the number of MCIT college students completing IT programs of study, (d) to increase the MCIT college graduates who articulate to 4-year college and university IT programs, and (e) to decrease the number of unfilled IT positions. Online Journal of Workforce Education and Development Volume II, Issue 4 – Fall 2007 5 An Evolving Evaluation Strategy The Midwest Center for Information Technology proposal to the National Science Foundation included an original objective-based evaluation process that was initially undertaken by the MCIT leadership and used for the first three years of project funding. This strategy sought to examine each objective, collect data relative to that objective, and then to report on the progress of each individual objective and activity. This evaluation process was very common across the NSF’s Advanced Technologies in Education (ATE) program for funded projects and was helpful in starting the project and establishing a formative evaluation process. However, the NSF leadership of the ATE program, as represented by various program officers within that program, observed that such objective-based evaluations were not truly providing the sort of analyses that might lead to refereed publications and more general manuscripts that could inform the professional literature. In addition, such objective-based evaluations did not make it very easy for participating two-year colleges to contribute to the professional literature. Faculty at twoyear colleges (ATE requires some level of two-year college leadership) were generally less experienced in developing research-based publications, and thus less likely to go from their objective-based evaluation report, to the publication of a manuscript based on that report. To address this perceived dissemination need, in the Fall of 2006, the ATE program officers held an evaluation conference for regional and national centers that encouraged each of these centers to establish their own focused research questions of investigative interest. These questions were to be of inter

Preface. The Role of Globalization and Context on Workforce Education and Development, Jay W. Rojewski and Johanna Lasonen. A Conceptual Model of Workforce Education and Development Systems, Ken Gray and Paryono Paryono. Workforce Education and Development in East Asia and the Pacific, Ramlee Bin Mustapha. Workforce Education and Developments Systems in the People's Republic of China, Jia Wang. Vietnam's Technical Education and Vocational Training Sector, Marvin Lamoureux, Michael Kennedy, and Nguyen Duc Tri. Workforce Education and Development in the Middle East, Dorothy Harnish. Focus on Africa: Workforce Development and Education in the Sudan, Sidiga A. Rahim Washi. Workforce Education and Development in Jamaica, Tom McArdle. Workforce Education and Development in the United States, Heeja Kim, Jay W. Rojewski, and Leslie Henrickson. Exploring Investment in Canadian Work-related Training: A Provincial Case Study, Marvin Lamoureux and Paul Gallagher. Comparing Workforce Development Systems in Western Europe: England and Finland, Marja-Leena Stenstrom, Christopher Parkin, and Johanna Lasonen. Workforce Education in the Federal Republic of Germany, Penny Jo Clark. Author Index. Subject Index.

In 2004, the College of Education at Oklahoma State University began the task of building a partnership with the Defense Ammunition Center (DAC) in McAlester, Oklahoma, and implementing research-driven, experience-based workforce education. In this article, the authors describe unique features and challenges of this multi-year University/Government collaboration which is aligned with the mission and goals of NAITTE and provide an overview of workforce education initiatives the partnership seeks to refine. This manuscript can serve as a possible model and catalyst for further discussion and research in workforce education particularly in times of dwindling resources, increased demands on time and the importance of research activities at many institutions.