Wednesday, January 24, 2018

AV#174 - A new mission for community colleges: to meet the needs of business


#4.  The business of education (is education)


CCCS Strategic Plan 2015-25: “The Colorado Community College System (CCCS) is the largest higher education provider in the State of Colorado, with 13 colleges across Colorado serving more than 151,000 students each year.  Our 13 COLLEGES are statewide economic engines, building the innovative workforce and business partnerships that support a vibrant, growing Colorado economy.”[i]  (Bold mine)

 “It’s the economy, stupid!” 1992 campaign slogan for Presidential candidate Bill Clinton

“Is that all there is, is that all there is?
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing”
(as sung by Peggy Lee, 1969)

In AV#171 - 173 I have shown how “workforce development” threatens to supplant education as the central reason for school.  Last week I portrayed the business community as “needy” enough, and—as it is prone to be—impatient and bossy enough, to do more than step on the toes of educators. It now wishes to take the driver’s seat and steer education in a new direction.   Educators are asked to follow.

This newsletter now asks if this fundamental change has already taken place with our state’s community colleges.  The evidence here suggests their current focus is no longer aligned with the mission of the Colorado Community College System.  If true, Colorado is hardly alone; it is part of a shift nationwide. (Addendum A provides numerous examples from across the country.)

Overstated?  You might have said that a year ago, in my tongue-in-cheek prophecy (AV#156):

 2071 – Department of Workforce Development – A History
Published by the Colorado Department of Workforce Development and Training
(once known as the Colorado Department of Education), January 2071

Was it really so off the mark?  Today, in 2018, at the Community College of Aurora campus, guess where you go for Adult Basic Education and GED prep classes? The CCA’s Center for Workforce Development.

Colorado – CCCS

The mission and vision of the Colorado Community College System (CCCS)[ii] reads:

      Our Mission
We provide an accessible, responsive learning environment that facilitates the achievement of educational, professional and personal goals by our students and other members of our communities, and we foster an atmosphere that embraces academic excellence, diversity and innovation.
Our Vision
Colorado community colleges are unsurpassed at providing quality educational opportunities for all who aspire to enrich their lives.                                   (Bold here and throughout is mine.)

When I was an adjunct faculty at Arapahoe Community College ten years ago, that would have felt right.  That was then. Nothing about training for the workforce, designing courses to meet the needs of business, or carrying out industry’s wishes to bridge the gap between employers and job-seekers.

Exactly what we hear now—as we see in the CCCS Strategic Plan 2015-25.  A clear shift in emphasis from the mission and vision, yes? A brief look back might trace when Colorado’s community colleges began to assume this new—and markedly different—role. The history matters. This did not happen overnight.

“Sing Johnny one note”

This first story speaks of “educational providers” (i.e. community colleges). Not a word about education.  As Gov. Hickenlooper said then—and keeps saying—it’s all about training.   (“Trained” or “training” used six times in the “education” section of his recent State-of-the-State.)

June 24, 2015 – “Help coming for state’s middle skills workers,” The Denver Post.[iii]

Colorado has plenty of people looking for jobs and plenty of employers looking for trained workers. Bridging the gap between the two is the goal of a public-private partnership announced Tuesday to train and place “middle skills” workers.
The Markle Foundation’s Rework America Connected initiative is billed as “an innovative effort to build a 21st century digital labor market that connects job seekers, employers and educational providers….”
But state officials — including Gov. John Hickenlooper; Jerry Migler, provost of the Colorado Community College System; and major employers — said the need is clear for a program that provides workers with training and a conduit to companies in search of their skills.
Grady Cope, CEO of Reata Engineering and Machine Works, an Arapahoe County-based contract manufacturer, said the firm has a chronic shortage of skilled machinists… “Of all the manufacturers I know, the No. 1 biggest issue is finding skilled workers,” Cope said. “We need a pipeline to develop and deliver them.”

“Pipeline”—a perfect metaphor for the tunnel-vision of this brave new world. (It appears 10 times in articles quoted in this newsletter.)


Colorado's plan to enhance workforce development to meet the demand of growing industries in the state took another step forward with the announcement of a new "badge" system for community college students.
Students can earn a "badge" designation during traditional college coursework or on the job that's designed to meet a specific demand or need in an industry, the Colorado Community College System (CCCS) announced Tuesday….
CCCS also developed its badge program through CAMA's (Colorado Advanced Manufacturing Alliance) grant project, which is funded by the Department of Labor.* That program is meant to advance the U.S.'s manufacturing industry and address current workforce needs….
"Developing these badges gives us a tremendous opportunity to partner with business and industry and grow the workforce and the economy," said Nancy McCallin, president of CCCS. "After creating the coursework for the badges, we hope to continue these partnerships and benefit other parts of our curriculum."

*Yes, funded … not by the Department of Higher Education, but by the Department of Labor.  QUESTIONS: Is the U.S. Department of Labor determining what colleges will offer?  In the nation’s capital today, does Labor Trump Education?

Other stories reveal, again (my theme in AV#173) how educators—in this case, community colleges—are expected to respond to the “needs” of business.   And note the euphemism of “partnerships.”  How often do you detect evidence of an equal voice for the colleges?  Government and business are in charge; community colleges are at their beck and call.

Listen to Dr. McCallin suggest a new “mission” – her word – for community colleges.

July 22, 2015 – “Biden discusses economy in visit,” The Denver Post.

     [Vice-President] Biden toured the community college’s new Advanced Manufacturing Center, scheduled to open this fall as part of a $3.5 million federal grant that bought equipment to train workers in advanced manufacturing technologies.
    Nancy McCallin, the president of the Colorado Community College System, said 74 percent of the jobs in Colorado require some education after high school, making the administration’s tuition proposal “so critical.”
    “The community college mission and role is so important to provide the workforce training for us to compete in the world,” she said.
(For another quote from the article – so much for that English degree! – see end note.[v])

When CCCS gives its version of its evolving purpose, it shamelessly defines its mission in the language of the marketplace.  It calls to mind that cynical, reductionist line from the 1992 Clinton campaign: “It’s the economy stupid!”  I guess it is too much, given less than 300 words in an ad, for the college system to use the word “education” more than … once.  

(QUESTION: Does this embarrass anyone?)   

Nov. 15, 2015 - “Community Colleges of Colorado: The CHAMP of the Colorado economy,”
The Denver Post, Advertisement.[vi]  (Not quoted in full, but you get the message.)

   To build the new-generation workforce, the Colorado Community College System (CCCS) – representing 13 colleges across the state – is now leading an important initiative called the Colorado Helps Advanced Manufacturing Program (CHAMP).
    CHAMP, funded by a $25 million federal grant [NOTE: again, from the Department of Labor], is an innovative partnership of colleges, businesses and community partners focused on growing the pipeline of skilled workers for the booming advanced manufacturing industry in Colorado.
    “Colorado is in the midst of a manufacturing revolution, thanks to a surge of innovative technologies and state-of-the-art facilities,” said Dr. Nancy McCallin.... “The industry requires sophisticated skills that translate into rewarding careers and high salaries.”
    Through CHAMP, the community colleges integrate industry-driven content and expertise with the academic programming in manufacturing to provide a skilled Colorado workforce. It provides students with demand-driven skills and knowledge to meet the rapidly changing requirements of today’s business and industry.
    It also promises tremendous opportunities for Colorado’s community colleges to partner closely with business and industry to grow the state’s high-powered workforce and the economy.
…  Colorado’s community colleges … with CHAMP, are positioned to lead the expansion of the advanced-skills workforce to ensure Colorado’s long-term prosperity.

The Chamber of Commerce couldn’t say it any better!  See the “Profile of Partnerships with Chambers of Commerce & Community Colleges,” from the United States Conference of Mayors[vii].  Note two bullets on the goals and benefits of this relationship:
·                  Quick determination and identification of skills gaps and building programs and credentials that meet industry needs.
·            Unified approach to serving business needs by harnessing the resources of the Chamber and workforce development partners.


Care to see how much the Chamber and business community have thought about and planned these efforts? A look at the 130-page Talent Pipeline Management Curriculum[viii] makes it clear:  business will not only plan, it will lead.
(See Addendum B for excerpts.)

News reports – can we please ask harder questions?

Upbeat stories in the media about this new direction have added momentum. To be sure, there are great stories. Only a Scrooge would deny that – especially when read on Christmas morning!  But who ever said nice anecdotes equal good policy?




Dec. 25, 2016 – “Shop is window of opportunities - A record 181,000 Colorado students were enrolled in Career and Technical Education courses in 2015,” The Denver Post.[ix]

These days, CTE (Career and Technical Education) courses span agriculture, skilled trades, business marketing, criminal justice, culinary arts, fashion design and Science, Technology, Energy, or STEM.
     “This is not your granddad’s vocational education,” said Sarah Heath, state director/assistant provost for CTE in the Colorado Community College System.


CTE Headcount for past three years[x]
Students in

High school
2014-15

  96,854
2015-16

100,552
2016-17

101,235
Middle school
  20,721
  23,687
  22,407








Such articles contrast the costs at a four-year university with those at a community college.  Greeley residents, we read, pay only $2,021 a year for classes at Aims Community College, versus $31,745 a year for Colorado residents seeking a   
We tried to understand the value proposition from the student’s point of view,” says Valencia College president Sandy Shugart. “It has to be about the end result—work.” 
(Addendum A, Florida)
business degree at CU-Boulder.   And yet that disparity invites the question: are community colleges— with their financial struggles—finding that a new way to survive is to provide the training businesses do not want to offer? The story continues:

   

Aims is part of the state’s 13-college community college system, which is at the forefront of CTE programming in Colorado. Aims, like the other schools, tries to meet the needs of the community by offering courses that can be useful in the job market upon graduation or help boost skills needed at a four-year institution, Aims president Leah Bornstein said.
   “We embrace our role,” she said. “We pretty much offer everything for everybody.”

Perhaps community colleges are a willing partner. But do they have a choice, given the powers that be-- the Governor, the legislature, and the business community—all pushing in the same direction?

   Colorado is backing the CTE cause in several ways. Lawmakers in 2015 passed legislation to create a “talent pipeline” to quickly train and get students into high-demand industries. The legislature allocated nearly $500,000 to the state’s Department of Labor and Employment to help implement the program.

More on those badges – a national journal features a Colorado district (APS) because….?

“Schools and the Future of Work,” a special issue from Education Week (Sept. 27, 2017), included “Rewarding Fine-Tuned Skills.”[xi] The article opened with a positive account of how one senior in Aurora Public Schools benefited from earning five digital summit badges.  Strange: take a chronically low-performing district, do a puff piece on how it has added digital backpacks—and say nothing as to whether this helps APS improve achievement.  That is beside the point. It’s what’s happening man!

   At the 40,000-student Aurora district, the digital badging program arose from within its college- and career-success department as a way to make students aware of skills—like collaboration and information literacy—that businesses want from employees, while staying rooted in the Colorado Academic Standards.

Education Week might want to ask if earning digital badges has any impact on APS students meeting those standards (academic goals, I would note, once strongly backed by the business community). Or if, in taking guidance from business, those standards even matter. (More on this in AV#175.)



“A better job” - “Is that all there is?”

Community colleges do not have the clout of four-year institutions. Few devoted alumni will protest if they fear their beloved alma mater is drifting off course. They have nothing close to what is referred to as “the powerful higher-education lobby” in Washington.  No wonder community colleges are more compliant when government and business seek to bend and twist their educational mission, just so they can meet the demands of the economy.

To be sure, most people attend community college in the hope their classes will help them with their career.  One – just one – component of the opportunity … (remember the CCCS mission statement back on page 1) … “to enrich their lives.”

But since when did we say the purpose of education equates to “a stronger economy,” or “a better job”? 

As Peggy Lee sang, “Is that all there is?” 

How sad if we cannot define the purpose of education as something greater than that.

**

Business has succeeded in bringing about a change in the mission of community colleges. Next week, the final newsletter in this series, I look at CareerWise Colorado and similar apprenticeship programs.   Is their goal to change the mission of high schools too?  When “career preparation” takes juniors and seniors out of school almost half the time (two days a week as juniors, more than two days as seniors) and into a company, are we raising, or lowering, our academic expectations?  I will conclude with a letter to the business community.  Educators value and need the support of business.  We are glad to be “partners” —when the work is aligned with our mission. But when it is not, we have to say, “No thanks.”

***


Addendum A

Community Colleges – Colorado Mountain College, Florida, Wisconsin


“Hungry to be relevant”

In a similar example in the western U.S., the Morgridge Family Foundation has made key investments in Colorado Mountain College to expand dual enrollment and certification pathways. CMC is a network of 11 campuses spread across the lightly populated towns of the Rocky Mountains. It even allows high-school students to earn an associate degree at the same time they graduate from high school, with zero student debt.
The Morgridge Family Foundation also supports community colleges in Florida and Wisconsin, viewing these investments as both educational and poverty-fighting measures. Carrie Morgridge believes that four-year colleges and universities can learn much from well-run community colleges … “Higher education is going to have to have this huge makeover to catch up with what good community colleges are doing now,” she says. “Community colleges are a powerful tool. We’ve found they are hungry to be relevant in the communities they serve.”

COMMENT: At what point does a hunger to be useful to the community lead an institution to become something other than what it was meant to be … and become what business wants it to be?

Community Colleges - Across the country

“Employers are integral to career tech programs” - Education Week- March 24, 2015[xiii]

Three years ago, budding efforts to bridge the gap between business and education struggled. A close look at the language in this article reveals how these so-called “partnerships” with education look more and more like a desire, from the business community, to control the agenda. 

   The rapidly changing job market and the new wave of career programs taking hold in schools are offering up a new challenge for educators: how to form deeper, longer-term relationships with employers in their communities.
   No longer called “voc ed” or considered an alternative pathway just for struggling students, today’s career and technical education programs aim to prepare students of all academic levels for the option of entering the workforce or going to college….
   As schools strive to keep up with the technology and make their curricular offerings relevant to workforce opportunities, many are looking to businesses and policymakers to take a bigger role than ever before in shaping and supporting those programs.

COMMENT: Even then, however – “looking to businesses to take a bigger role in shaping…”—educators seemed willing to concede a lot of ground.  Why? Because business had more leverage?  Because we were out of our depth, a focus on preparing students for the workplace was quite foreign to us?  

                "Education can't do it alone anymore," said Kimberly A. Green, the executive director of the Silver Spring, Md.-based CTE directors consortium. As students in the new economy need a different skills set, employer feedback is paramount—and not just through the old model of an advisory committee that meets once or twice a year. "It requires more interaction, more regular connection, more guidance to stay abreast of workforce change," she said.

COMMENT: Ask the business community for “guidance”—sure, why not?  The message from all sides was that public education wasn’t cutting it, and if “partnering” could help, well, OK.

   Facing shortages of skilled workers, many businesses are eager for schools to produce more highly educated graduates.
   "The education system always lags behind the labor economy in terms of the jobs created," said Edward E. Gordon, the author of Future Jobs: Solving the Employment and Skills Crisis, published in 2013 by Praeger Publishing. "The problem now is that the changes are occurring so fast that the school system is being left behind in the dust."

COMMENT: “In the dust.” Blind. Is this why business stepped in?  And why collaboration became something more intrusive?  We see frustration rising to the surface in such articles.  The “nimble” world of free enterprise versus the turtle-like education system. Schools and colleges can’t act FAST ENOUGH. Business knows how to GET THINGS DONE, so we can’t just be partners.  We need to push …

"… Employers are in the business of running their businesses," said Debbie Davidson, the vice president for business workforce solutions at Gateway Technical College in Kenosha, Wis., which works with K-12 schools and employers. "They all say there is a skills gap. Our job is to define the skills."
    Rather than asking employers to fill out a survey, Ms. Davidson writes down what they say at the meetings and responds with curriculum ideas. Employers will be more engaged if they feel their opinions are valued, she said, adding that "they are not contributing if they just rubber-stamp ideas."

COMMENT: Do I have this right?  “Our job,” the job of the college, is to define the skills business wants us to teach?  Further on we read of “the college's workforce-training faculty.”  I suppose it helps to define our roles … and to be sure we no longer use words like …  teach.

The article closes with Kimberley Green of the CTE directors’ consortium acknowledging business seeks these ties – for its own good.  No major news here, true?

As employers give more of their time, though, they start to see themselves as "collaborators" and "co-owners" entitled to a return on their investment, said Ms. Green, of the career technical education consortium. "There has to be a value proposition as to why employers are involved in this," she said.


“The Case for Community College” Time Magazine – June 1, 2017[xiv]

Time’s article pointed out the grim financial picture for many community colleges.  It presented two options for their survival, and made clear the direction most two-year programs are headed.

   Across the nation, community colleges–which educate about 40% of all undergraduates in the U.S.–are facing declining enrollment and tightened budgets. Even as officials hold them up as the answer to bridging America’s yawning blue-collar-skills gap, many are ill equipped to deliver on the promise. Less than 40% of community-college students graduate, and many drop out their first year. While more than 80% of two-year students say they want a bachelor’s degree, only 14% get one after six years.
   Today community colleges largely break down into two categories: schools meant to help students transfer to a four-year college, and occupational institutions … that are focused on placing students in jobs. Both grant associate’s degrees, cater to commuters and other nontraditional students and offer a comparative bargain….
       Since the Great Recession, the vocational approach has become the favored model. “Community colleges are now seen as the primary vehicles for workforce training in this country,” says Carrie Kisker, director of the Center for the Study of Community Colleges.

Time pointed to several success stories, including two in South Dakota and Wisconsin. Both indicate that business, again, takes the lead… while community colleges respond.  (Or is it acquiesce?)

Lake Area Technical Institute (LATI) in Watertown, S.D., a relatively inexpensive two-year college … is a model for the growing number of politicians, CEOs and academics who believe that community colleges have the potential to become much needed engines of economic and social mobility. Last year, 99% of its students entered the workforce or went on to four-year colleges. The school has an 83% retention rate, well above the national community-college average of about 50% …. The evolving curriculum is designed with input from more than 300 regional businesses …

Time compared the community college system in South Dakota with that in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania’s 14 community colleges are run as stand-alone shops, without a state-level office to coordinate them. Unlike South Dakota’s LATI, which shapes its coursework around the needs of employers and relies on their donations of heavy-duty machinery for its classrooms, Keystone State schools have been left largely on their own. “The chronic lack of resources makes it more difficult for community colleges to respond to the workforce needs than in a state where they’re better supported,” says Kate Shaw, executive director of the Philadelphia-based education nonprofit Research for Action.

COMMENT: Colorado’s structure sounds more like South Dakota, as our community colleges are all part of one system.  Easier, this way, to shape “coursework around the needs of employers,” and “respond to the workforce needs.” Easier, too, to shift the mission across the state, in all 17 colleges.

Virginia

“More Scrutiny for Community Colleges,” Inside Higher Education, Oct. 17, 2017[xv]

   Take, for instancea recent report out of Virginia that criticized the state's 23 community colleges for failing to get students associate degrees and certificates. The legislative report criticized the community college system, saying that only 39 percent of the state's community college students earned a degree or credential within seven years….
   The report also found that the colleges are struggling to meet employers’ demands. For instance, there is a demand for employees in finance-related fields, but 13 of the colleges don't offer relevant programs. Ten colleges reported being unable to provide all of the work-force programs and credentials that can lead to employment in high-demand occupations such as certified nursing assistants, emergency medical technicians, pipe fitters and welders….
   "People inside and out of the system want to see more people graduate," said Jeffrey Krause, assistant vice chancellor for strategic communications at the Virginia Community College System. "They want to see completions and see people acquire skills and credentials to succeed in the workplace."…
   Scott Jenkins, a strategy director at the Lumina Foundation, said it isn't just attainment goals that are driving lawmakers.
   "For the last 20 to 30 years, state legislatures have been underwhelmed when you look at the traditional completion metrics of enrollment, persistence and graduation at community colleges," he said. "What is new is that you have a lot of states that are investing in community colleges as a primary strategy around preparing people for the work force, and community colleges are more receptive to a small amount of dollars because they're much nimbler."

**

by Tim Pratt, Education Next, Fall 2017
Reynold Essor was sure of two things when he got his high-school diploma last spring: he wanted to get out of Brooklyn, and he wanted to go to college. Earning a degree, his counselors told him, “can help get more money in your pocket.”
So he headed to SUNY Adirondack, a public two-year community college in upstate New York that describes itself as “a leader in the region’s workforce development, preparing the next generation of leaders for a bright future.”

COMMENT: Is this what community colleges should be? When did community colleges assume this role?  Would any of them have made this claim 10 or 20 years ago?


**

“Revving Economic Engines at Community Colleges”- by David Bass, Philanthropy Magazine, Summer 2017[xvi]

(That headline speaks volumes. The subtitle is equally direct: “Want to get America back to work? …”)


Ohio
From the opening paragraphs –
    “Ohio has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs since the mid-1990s, leading to an alarming rise of emptying towns and non-working residents. That’s a problem Karen Buchwald Wright is dedicated to reversing.
   “Called ‘a quiet philanthropist’ by her local newspaper, Wright has made a loud impact on the local economy—through a combination of jobs created at her company and philanthropic investments in the education infrastructure of central Ohio. She has poured millions into area community colleges, technical schools, and trades oriented public colleges, with the aim of helping people acquire the skills they need to become valued employees.
   “Wright’s support for community colleges is closely tied to her workforce….
   “(She) focused on four area institutions—Central Ohio Technical College, Stark State, Zane State, and the Knox County Career Center. She funded the development of courses that workers can take to build mid-level skills that are in short supply today.”

New York
Many corporate givers are also coming aboard, seeing a solution to twin goals: helping disadvantaged people prepare for financial opportunities, and improving the job skills our economy needs to thrive. Goldman Sachs, for example, recently gave $2.2 million to LaGuardia Community College in Queens.

Pennsylvania
Community colleges with a strong occupational focus also have the capacity to energize local economies. The Pittsburgh-based Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation supports community colleges both to boost their region’s productivity and to unleash economic opportunity for disadvantaged high-school students.
Every year, the Benedum Foundation makes about $3 million of grants to job training programs at community colleges and high schools. One of many examples is the Advanced Technology Center they funded at Westmoreland Community College in southwest Pennsylvania. The college has partnered with local businesses to create specialized labs where students can be trained in computer-aided drafting and design, electronics, metallurgy, and other advanced manufacturing techniques. The goal is to train, and re-train, workers so well-paying manufacturing businesses in the region stay healthy. Local firms look to the college as an employment pipeline. They provide new equipment and even instructors on how to use it.
It’s really a nice model of secondary and post-secondary corporate training all in one location,” says James Denova, vice president of the Benedum Foundation. “Its real value is in the proximity to major companies.” That allows a two-way human flow: employees who need skill training can head to campus, and community ­college students who would benefit from exposure to real-world work culture can attend classes at company sites.

Florida
One way leaders at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida, have found to improve completion rates is through condensed offerings. With support from the Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation and other donors, Valencia has created what it calls its “career-express” model— intensive, short bursts of training, in collaboration with nonprofits and companies, that immediately produce a valuable credential…. These classes are focused on the end result most community-college students seek: a better job leading to a better life. “We tried to understand the value proposition from the student’s point of view,” says Valencia president Sandy Shugart. “It has to be about the end result—work—and not about the training itself. …”

For funders
… While top-flight community colleges are still an exception, we are seeing a rapid expansion of the ranks of well-run schools that are aggressively responding to local job demands, addressing America’s rapidly shifting social makeup, and nimbly serving as feeders to the millions of ­middle-skill jobs that will open over the next two decades.



Addenda B

U.S. Chamber of Commerce – Talent Management Pipeline Curriculum (2014)[xvii]

…we have organized a TPM Academy that is focused on developing the capacity of business organizations seeking to organize employer members and orchestrate talent supply chains. The TPM Academy is supported by a curriculum and related software tools that will give staff inside these organizations the knowledge, skills, and ability to implement talent supply chain solutions on behalf of their employer members.
**

Talent Pipeline Management: The supply chain strategies and tools used by employers and employer collaboratives to source and develop talent for positions that are critical to their competitiveness and growth. The TPM Academy is built on three foundational principles that focus on the six major strategies and how to use them to support continuous improvement.  [They include:]

· Employers Drive Value Creation—Employers play a new leadership role as end customers in closing the skills gap for jobs most critical to their competitiveness.
· Employers Organize and Manage Pipelines—Employers organize and manage flexible and responsive talent pipelines in partnership with other employers and their preferred education and workforce providers.

**

Clearer Signals: Building an Employer-Led Job Registry for Talent Pipeline Management (2017) – Explores how employers can improve how they signal their hiring requirements to their preferred and most trusted education and workforce partners by creating more structured data around their job profiles.

Education, Community College, and K-12 Education Agencies
· Align curriculum to meet employer competency and credentialing requirements
· Coordinate feeder institutions and programs to build performance-based career pathways to targeted sectors and employer collaboratives
· Align career guidance, work-based learning, and job placement services
· Provide data on program enrollments and completers to support talent flow analysis
· Engage in continuous improvement efforts with employer partners

Community Colleges - Tension at the top
A spate of resignations and terminations among community college presidents is provoking worries about a shortage of qualified candidates to fill these positions. Community colleges, perhaps more than ever, are on the front lines of policy discussions about rebuilding the nation’s economy and future. (Inside Higher Ed, May 20)


Addendum C

SKILLS FOR GOOD JOBS AGENDA: THE BLUEPRINT[xviii]
by the National Skills Coalition, Nov. 2016

Its “eight visionary proposals” included this:

#2.  Job-Driven Community College Compact for Today’s Students

America’s community and technical colleges play a critical and growing role in ensuring workers and employers have the skills to compete. But our federal policies are not structured to support these institutions or the students they serve. We’ve treated community colleges as gap-fillers between the traditional K-12 and higher education systems even as more students pass through their halls, and more local employers are engaged by their technical training programs. It’s time to establish a new federal policy that invests in partnerships between community colleges and community employers, supports programs that lead to industry-recognized credentials, and allows today’s students to obtain skills for the jobs of tomorrow.

2020 GOAL: America will have a new federal policy—the Community College Compact—that provides dedicated financial aid for working students, industry-responsive investments in career and technical education programs, support services for working students, and accountability measures that track employment and wage gains to ensure that investments lead to results.





[i] https://www.cccs.edu/wp-content/uploads/documents/StrategicPlan.pdf
Also from that article:
“In a discussion after the tour, welding student Arlene Pace told Biden about how she graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in English but couldn’t find a job.  She saw openings for welding and went back to school, working nights to pay her tuition. “Do you think you can make a good living?” Biden asked her.
“Absolutely, I can make a good living,” she replied.
numbers from Sarah Heath, email, Nov. 29, 2017.

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