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Military Transition: A Report of the National Visiting Committee |
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| A Visiting Committee of experts in workforce preparation and military leadership traveled to Hampton Roads, VA to visit Opportunity Inc.'s NEXStep Training for Transition program and to San Diego, CA for San Diego Workforce Partnership's Career Advancement Centers on and around MCAS Miramar, MCB Camp Pendleton and the Naval Training Center. Both sites had worked on projects to help smooth the transition of discharged military personnel and their families into their respective local labor markets. This report summarizes the site visits and the Visiting Committee's findings on the benefits of military transition programs and recommendations. |
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Responding in a Turbulent Economy: Creative Roles for Workforce Investment Boards |
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| In the context of dramatic economic changes such as globalization, technological innovations, demographics, immigration, and terrorism, the Ford Foundation funded NCEE in partnership with the Hudson Institute to assess and understand ways in which Federal government investments in workforce development can respond to the needs of workers and communities in turbulent economic times. The project identifies and shares effective strategies for addressing the demands on the workforce investment system, explores ways in which the publicly-funded workforce system can act proactively, and shares information about effective practices and the policies that support them. The report is organized around individual case examples that illustrate the strategies employed by several state and local workforce areas and partners. The case examples document how public investments in workforce development can provide a smoother ride through the challenges, illustrating some important structural arrangements and innovative strategies. |
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Towards a National Workforce Education and Training Policy |
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| Demographers are projecting severe shortages of skilled workers in the coming years. To help meet this challenge, Ray Uhalde, the co-director of NCEE's Workforce Development Program, collaborated with three other national workforce experts to produce a series of recommendations for the creation of a national workforce education and training strategy. Their report includes recommendations for both incremental improvements in workforce education and training and proposals for several far-reaching "system renovations". |
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America in the Global Economy |
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| In this paper for the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, Ray Uhalde asks what it would take for the U.S. to maintain and even substantially improve its standard of living in the decades ahead? Is this a realistic scenario given the intense competition we face as we look to the future, even though we have done it before? In America In the Global Economy, the response to this question is organized around the two actions the authors believe are necessary to maintaining a high growth, high wage and high employment economy, that is: (1) improving our educational attainment and quality, and (2) nurturing and unleashing our innovation capabilities. In the paper, the authors review the literature, prepare original empirical estimates on those skills that employers value in the marketplace, and recommend both supply side and demand side strategies for regional economic growth and opportunity. |
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| Economic Development |
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Under One Roof: New Governance Structures for Local Economic and Workforce Development |
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Across the country, there is a growing interest in aligning economic development and workforce organizations, which is motivated by numerous factors. These factors include increasingly scarce resources, intensifying competition for company attraction and retention. Alignment is seen as one important component to ensuring that political jurisdictions'communities, counties, cities, regions, and even states'are able to design and execute data-driven initiatives and jointly allocate resources to grow the economy using all available tools.
This publication is intended to provide insights for local government decision makers considering structural realignments of agencies and organizations. |
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Under One Roof: New Governance Structures for Local Economic and Workforce Development - Volume II |
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| This document is a follow-up to NCEE's Under One Roof Volume I which highlighted examples of new governance structures aligning workforce and economic development. Like its predecessor, Volume II is intended to provide insights for local government decision-makers considering structural realignments of agencies and organizations. In this case, we profile in detail three jurisdictions: Boston, Phoenix, and St. Lawrence County, New York. They represent a few of the pioneers in the effort to use changes in governance structures and organizations as vehicles to enhance alignment of functions, strategies, and resources. These case studies are intended to provide interesting models for other communities who are considering similar paths. |
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Under One Roof III: "Non-Traditional" Partners Collaborating for the Benefit of Economic Development |
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| Under One Roof Volume III is part of the popular series featuring workforce organizations that collaborate to grow their regional economies. While Volumes I and II were intended to provide insight and guidance for structural realignment of agencies and organizations, the purpose of this volume is to identify the tremendous potential that exists when workforce boards engage in partnerships that do not involve organizational restructuring, but instead reflect innovative and mutually beneficial collaborations with organizations that typically do not work with the public workforce system. Such "non-traditional" partnerships include alliances with venture capital firms, national research laboratories, public and private universities, port authorities, manufacturing extension centers, foundations, and utility companies. |
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Building Successful Relationships in Economic and Workforce Development: Manufacturing Extension Partnership Centers and the Workforce Development System |
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| Over the past few years, numerous Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers and state and local Workforce Investment Boards have developed working relationships that are models for others to follow. Mark Troppe, Director of Economic and Workforce Development for the Workforce Development Program at NCEE, prepared this report (along with Martha Reesman of the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce) at the request of the US Department of Commerce/National Institute of Standards and Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. This paper details the nature and extent of those relationships and illustrates practical ways in which workforce and economic development organizations can generate value in their communities. |
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The US: Managing Different Levels of Accountability |
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| A paper written by NCEE's John Dorrer that appeared in the publication Managing Decentralisation: A New Role for Labour Market Policy. Reproduced with the permission of the OECD. |
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General Obligation Bonds as a Financing Mechanism for Regional Economic and Workforce Development Authorities |
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| Alternative Education |
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What State and Local Leaders Need to Know about Improving Literacy Skills for Out of School Youth |
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| An alarming number of youth in the United States lack the basic literacy skills they need to succeed in good jobs and in their adult responsibilities. This short guide documents this problem and summarizes the research about how to improve literacy (reading, writing and mathematics) skills of young people who are far behind and who may have dropped out of school. |
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An Overview of Adult Education |
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| This paper is a collaborative effort by NCEE and the Urban Institute. The main focus of this review is community or district based programs that have a primary focus of re-engaging out-of-school youth in learning in order to better prepare them to successfully enter high growth occupations and careers. This summary of literature defines alternative education in the context of out-of-school youth, provides a profile of the student demographic, and discusses the scope of alternative education through available research, program, and policy considerations. |
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Academic Programs in Alternative Education: An Overview |
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| This paper is an examination of academic programming in alternative education through two sources: a review of relevant literature and the synthesis of data gathered from surveys of fifteen alternative education programs around the country. This paper provides an overview of program types, learning environments, curricula and assessments, teaching and instructional leadership, effectiveness measurement, and the strengths and challenges of academic programming in alternative education. |
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Federal, State, and Local Roles Supporting Alternative Education |
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| NCEE and the American Youth Policy Forum examine the roles of various levels of government through legislation, policy, and initiatives that support quality alternative education programs to reconnect out-of-school youth to education and the workforce. It raises issues for policymakers at all levels to consider in facilitating the development of expanded alternative education pathways. These pathways reduce the number of students dropping out of school and provide well-lit reentry points for those who leave school before obtaining a diploma. |
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