1Workforce Development in Boston: RFPs for Policy Advocacy, Workforce Partnerships
The Boston Workforce Development Initiative is an innovative
response by local and national foundations, together with the
City of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to an increasingly
wide skill gap: too many job seekers and workers are in poverty,
while employers cannot meet their needs for a skilled workforce.
The initiative brings major new investment to help build and expand
partnerships between Boston's employers and workforce development
providers. Jobs for the Future provides planning, design, and
oversight for the funders and coordinates the implementation the
initiative’s public policy advocacy.
The initiative has announced RFPs in two areas:
Public Policy Advocacy: The initiative seeks an organization
or collaboration to develop and implement a public policy advocacy
campaign designed to improve the workforce development system
in Massachusetts so that it provides a more effective means for
low-income individuals to enter and succeed in the workforce.
(Bidder's conference: June 5; Letter of Intent deadline: June
12; Proposal deadline: July 22)
Workforce Partnerships: The initiative will make substantial,
multi-year investments in industry-sector or occupational partnerships
that offer multiple points of entry to basic education and vocational
skills training leading to career-oriented first jobs and advancement
opportunities. (Bidder's conference: May 27; Letter of Intent
deadline: June 9; Proposal deadline: July 22)
2Pathways to Advancement: Pilot Projects in San Francisco, Seattle
Jobs for the Future has developed Pathways to Advancement, a
model for expanding career opportunities for low-wage workers
and job seekers while meeting employer needs for a skilled workforce.
This strategy for current and former welfare recipients builds
on relationships among employers, the One-Stop system, Workforce
Investment Act programs, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families,
and other workforce development providers.
The model is being piloted in Seattle and San Francisco. Both
sites have diversified their funding and are committed to sustaining
the programs indefinitely. Yet each is taking its own approach
to finding pathways to advancement, based on the strengths of
the local workforce development system.
3The Employer's Voice I: Frontline Workers and Workforce Development
In March 2003, employers from Annie E. Casey Foundation Jobs
Initiative sites—Milwaukee, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Seattle,
and St. Louis—addressed the challenges of recruiting, retaining,
and promoting frontline workers. Organized by Jobs for the Future,
the conference was held in Washington, DC, and provided a forum
for a voice rarely heard inside the beltway: small and mid-sized
employers committed to entrepreneurial success AND the success
of frontline workers.
TheEmployer's Voice draws on their experiences
around hiring low-wage workers from Jobs Initiative sites. It
includes the keynote address by former congressman Steve Gunderson,
who described a crisis that is serious, and widening: the gap
between the skills that U.S. employers need to compete in our
global economy and the skills possessed by America’s workforce. Click here
to download The Employer's Voice
Also, now available from the Jobs Initiative is Advancing
Workers: Achieving Business Success, a video on intermediary
workforce efforts to collaborate with employers to help low-wage
workers succeed and advance in their jobs. This 15-minute documentary
shows bottom-line benefits to employers, including reduced turnover
costs, higher worker morale, and increased productivity. Click
here for more information about Advancing Workers
Education Policy and the Jobs Initiative, a new issue
brief, looks at findings from the initiative and the implications
for public policy, including reauthorization of the Higher Education
Act. Click
here to download Education Policy and the Jobs Initiative.
Is business using the publicly funded workforce development
system? Progress has been made, according to a survey conducted
by the Center for Workforce for Preparation, an affiliate of the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce. However, employers find it difficult
to hire the right workers. The reason: no, low, or the wrong skills.
Rising to the Challenge, released in May, summarizes
the key findings of the survey of 3,700 employers from 77 chambers
of commerce across the country. Survey results indicate that employers
do not use One-Stop Career Centers simply because they are unaware
of them. The survey indicates a continued need to improve outreach
to employers, focus on those services that meet employer needs,
and provide value to employers.
Jobs for the Future partners with the Center for Workforce for
Preparation, as well as the Center for Workforce Success of the
National Association of Manufacturers, in Workforce Innovation
Networks—WINs. This multi-year collaboration is creating
partnerships that can address the workforce development needs
of businesses and communities. Rising to the Challenge was funded
through a grant from U.S. Department of Labor.
5The Workforce Advantage: An Audio Conference on Successful Practices
In March, Jobs for the Future and the Initiative for a Competitive
Inner City co-hosted an audio conference to discuss employer strategies
for simultaneously advancing low-income workers and creating competitive
advantage for companies. The audio conference included perspectives
from experts and practitioners, as well as a live demonstration
of www.workforceadvantage.org,
a Web site featuring innovative, entry-level workforce development
practices pioneered by fast-growing, inner-city companies.
6College Credit in High School: Postsecondary Credentials and Underrepresented Students
In recent years, opportunities have expanded for high school
students to earn college credit, and such programs are no longer
limited to elite schools. Students from a wide range of backgrounds
are showing that the academic challenge of college courses is
an inspiration, not a barrier. In College Credit in High School, Nancy Hoffman, Jobs for the Future's director of the Early College
High School Initiative, describes a bedrock of "reform"
fragments that result from a dual focus on raising student achievement
levels and getting more young people into and through postsecondary
education. The article will appear soon in Change magazine.
7Closing the Graduation Gap: Preparing All Students for College, Work, and Citizenship
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, lead funder for the
Early College High School Initiative, is committed to helping
all students graduate from high school ready for college, work,
and citizenship. This commitment is based on a vision of a secondary
education system built on rigor and relationships—a system
of high-quality, small high schools that offer rigorous preparation
for any postsecondary education or employment pathway. Closing
the Graduation Gap outlines the foundation's thinking on these
issues, the evidence and research underpinning them, and a policy
agenda that supports this vision of high quality high schools
for all students.
8Multiple Pathways I: State Policy and Education Beyond High School
"The future of individual citizens, communities, states,
and the nation will . . require public policies assuring that
most Americans benefit from at least two years of education and
training beyond high school," according to Patrick M. Callan
and Joni E. Finney of the National Center for Public Policy and
Higher Education. In a report commissioned by Jobs for the Future,
they describe the economic and social imperatives for significantly
increasing higher education access and attainment in the population. Multiple Pathways and State Policy: Toward Education and Training
Beyond High School also identifies the elements of a new public
policy infrastructure needed for educational reform on this scale.
9Multiple Pathways II: Expanding Learning Options for Urban Youth
In "Multiple Pathways to Adulthood," JFF's Adria Steinberg,
Cheryl Almeida, and Lili Allen discuss emerging structures and
organizational arrangements that challenge notions of where, how,
and when learning happens. Drawing on several years of study through
JFF's From the Margins to the Mainstream Initiative, the authors
offer a picture of the common characteristics of effective learning
environments for urban youth.
"Multiple Pathways to Adulthood" appears in When,
Where, What, and How Youth Learn: Blurring School and Community
Boundaries, edited by Karen J. Pittman, Nicole Yohalem, and
Joel Tolman. This new book presents innovative programs for bringing
together schools, community organizations, policymakers, and the
general public to create learning-centered communities.
10Update on Adult Basic Education: JFF Finds Progress, Remaining Hurdles
A Jobs for the Future report notes that 41 percent of all adults
in New England are unprepared to succeed in today’s knowledge-based
society. Updating a 2002 study of literacy in the region, the
second edition of Rising to the Literacy Challenge indicates
some progress: New England states and communities and the federal
government all increased the resources they devoted to adult basic
education. Yet the need increased even more dramatically.
The new report, released by JFF and sponsored by the Nellie
Mae Education Foundation, the largest public charity in New England
devoted exclusively to education, features a regional analysis
of the need for adult basic education in New England and the region’s
capacity to meet it. Based on that analysis, Rising to the
Literacy Challenge makes recommendations designed to transform
adult basic education in New England into a more professional
delivery system that has effective partnerships with other educational
and skills training institutions.
11The Schools We Need: Creating Small High Schools That Work
What's so different about a small high school? When school leaders
decide to create more small schools in their districts, how do
students themselves experience the change in their everyday routines?
In their sense of power and possibility? In The Schools We
Need, a joint effort of What Kids Can Do, the Bronx New Century
High Schools, and the Carnegie Corporation, two dozen students
talk about their experiences planning and attending small schools
and breaking down large high schools.
Workforce Development in Boston: RFPs for Policy Advocacy, Workforce Partnerships
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