State Roadmap for Preparing the Future Workforce Now

In May 2017, Governor Inslee established the CareerConnect Washington (CCW) Taskforce to address a growing skills gap -- at the time, 70% of jobs in the state required a credential but only 40% of Washingtonians had completed any education past high school. Governor Inslee tasked this group with identifying policy recommendations to lead the state towards the ambitious goal of placing 100,000 students in career connected learning opportunities by 2021.  The taskforce was comprised of 21 members representing major employers, state legislators, relevant state agencies and labor organizations.

In his 2014 campaign, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson made expanding K-12 computer science (CS) education a key component of his platform.  Soon after taking office, he set a goal to increase the number of students enrolled in courses from 1,104 in the 2013-14 school year to 7,500 by the 2019-20 school year in order to meet state computer science and technology workforce needs.

In 2017 Governor Ivey launched the Strong-Start, Strong Finish Initiative with the vision of creating an education-to-workforce talent pipeline that leads to employment in an occupation that pays a family-sustaining wage regardless of demographic or geography. Governor Ivey observed the silos between governmental and non-governmental entities with a stake in education and workforce development as a significant barrier to accomplishing progress toward this vision. In response, she established the Governor’s Office of Education and Workforce Transformation (GOEWT) in 2019. The GOEWT Advisory Council is made up of representatives of 22 member agencies who provide the GOEWT with policy recommendations that align with the governor’s education and workforce development strategic plans.

A month after the CareerConnect Washington taskforce was established, several members of the taskforce joined Governor Inslee on a trip to examine the nationwide apprenticeship model in Switzerland. Participants were struck by the country’s systematic approach to workforce development and were convinced that industry-informed work-based-learning opportunities should be scaled not incrementally, but systematically and statewide. This buy-in from policymakers and industry leaders was paired with evolving public sentiment -- statewide polling indicated that students and families were increasingly open to post-secondary opportunities other than 4-year bachelor’s degrees.

Governor Hutchinson’s computer science education policy agenda was met with support by the Arkansas legislature, which passed a law in 2015 declaring the lack of digital skills in Arkansas a state of emergency.  The bill allocated $5million for schools to rehabilitate school facilities and train teachers to implement CS curriculum, and $2.5million annually thereafter for teacher training. Through this bill, Arkansas became the first state in the nation to mandate that CS be offered in all high schools and count as one of the math or science courses that are required for graduation. To help all districts meet this requirement, Virtual Arkansas, an online learning platform implemented through a partnership between the Arkansas Department of Education and Arkansas Education Services Cooperative, began to offer the state’s CS curriculum online.

The Governor’s Office of Education and Workforce Transformation was tasked with three key goals:  1. Increase labor force participation and decrease un/underemployment 2. Surpass the AL post-secondary goal 3. Create pathways across 16 career clusters For each of these goals, specific goals have been set for populations that face skills and attainment gaps, including racial minorities and rural communities. To achieve these goals, the GOEWT has identified and begun work toward policy priorities including targeting braided federal education and workforce development funds towards students who need it the most, expanding work-based learning opportunities in key sectors, and developing a data system to track program effectiveness and progress towards the Governor’s goals.   

Based on recommendations from the CareerConnect Washington taskforce, the legislature passed a bill in April 2019 that allocated $25 million from FY19-21 to support CCW and created the CCW Advisory Team. The Advisory Team began to establish the infrastructure that would support their vision that “Every young adult in Washington will have multiple pathways toward economic self-sufficiency and fulfillment, strengthened by a comprehensive state-wide system for career connected learning.” CCW works toward that vision by providing exposure opportunities to careers and career options, career-specific instruction at a worksite or in a classroom for academic credit, and paid work-based programs with aligned classroom learning that culminate in a postsecondary credential. CCW was built by creating lines of communication between and increasing capacity of existing institutions including employers, community colleges, K-12 institutions, local workforce boards and community organizations. CCW funds nine regional network coordinators which are community-based organizations selected by a competitive process to coordinate with school districts, colleges, and employers to align pathway opportunities with the real jobs in the local economy.  The pathways offered are in coordination with prominent regional employers in the building trades, healthcare and IT industries.  Through the regional network, those employers work with educational institutions to develop a curriculum that includes on-the job training paid for by the employer. Once a curriculum is established, the regional network coordinators work with coordinators in other regions to identify opportunities to scale the curriculum across the state.  Industry leaders who are engaged in CCW leverage their networks to engage new employers in this process. These intentional lines of communication create a system that rapidly scales the capacity for CCW to serve students across the state with educational experiences that employers value.

At the 2016 National Governors Association Winter Governors Meeting, Governor Hutchinson and Governor Inslee of Washington announced the Governors for CS Initiative.  This initiative established a partnership of governors committed to promoting CS education in their state. Today, Arkansas is one of 10 states that have met the initiatives’ three key standards:  1. Enable all high schools to offer at least one rigorous computer science course 2. Fund professional learning opportunities so teachers can be prepared to teach these   courses 3. Create a set of high-quality academic K-12 computer science standards to guide local implementation of courses  

In addition to identifying policy priorities, the Governor’s Office of Education and Workforce Transformation also oversees the collaborative development of state plans for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Perkins V (Career and Technical Education) and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). This coordination enables the state to align programs and resources across the education and workforce system toward the state’s broader objectives. As a result, the state submitted its first WIOA Combined Plan, including Perkins, in 2020. Within this plan are specific, measurable steps to further align Alabama’s public workforce system in order to offer in-demand career pathways and supportive services for those with barriers to employment. As a key step in achieving its objectives, the GOEWT is working to strengthen apprenticeship programs across the state. In 2019, with strong support from the GOEWT, the state legislature passed the Alabama Industry Recognized and Registered Apprenticeship Program Act, a bill which established the Alabama Office of Apprenticeship. This office will be responsible for expanding registered apprenticeship and developing industry-recognized apprenticeships that provide high-quality, demand-driven career training. This new centralized office will institutionalize and centralize career pathway planning and offers a one-stop-shop for employers engaging in state workforce development. To incentivize more active employer engagement in this process, the previously mentioned bill also expanded incentives and flexibility for employers engaging in apprenticeship, including doubling the apprenticeship tax credit.

Since 2019, over 75,000 students have participated in CareerConnect Washington programs, including about 10,000 who have enrolled in paid work-based learning that culminates in a postsecondary credential. CCW is working with employers and educational institutions to expand this work to ensure opportunities for continuous lifelong learning throughout participants’ careers and to ensure that they can continue to meet the rapidly changing needs of employers in the state.

As a result of the efforts led by Governor Hutchinson, Arkansas now has the second greatest percentage of high schools teaching CS and one of the most rapid rates of growth in CS education in the nation.  The governor’s initial goal of 7,500 was far exceeded, with over 9,000 students enrolled in CS courses in the 2019-20 school year.  These increases have disproportionately benefitted female students, who have historically been underrepresented in CS education.   In December 2019 Governor Hutchison issued an executive order to build upon the progress that the state has made in K- 12 CS education since 2015. This executive order established the State Computer Science and Cybersecurity Task Force and proclaimed December 9 – December 15 Computer Science Education Week in Arkansas. The task force is comprised of industry leaders responsible for assessing the state’s CS and cybersecurity education programs and making recommendations as to how the state can improve postsecondary alignment, provide relevant work-based learning opportunities for students, establish meaningful credentials for teachers, better incorporate data sciences and cyber security in CS curricula, and ensure sustainable funding to support these efforts.    Through Governor Hutchinson’s leadership, Arkansas is demonstrating bold, transformational leadership to ensure that every learner has access to a baseline of technological and digital skills required for the future. Today, the state is levering this new capacity to engage employers to identify the future skills needs, develop training programs to meet demonstrated demand, expand work-based learning (including apprenticeship), for learners of all ages, and intentionally align postsecondary curriculum across fields, including cyber security.  

To improve workforce and education data collection, coordination, reporting and analysis, the Governor’s Office of Education and Workforce Transformation has initiated the development of The Alabama Terminal for Linking and Analyzing Statistics on Career Pathways (ATLAS).v Meanwhile, the state has taken steps to improve data collection and strengthen connections, illustrating how states can work within existing systems in the short term to build or improve data collection and connections across systems. These efforts allow the GOEWT to track progress towards the Governor’s goals in real time and to build their capacity to collect and leverage information for continuous improvement of programs over time.