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Coming Up
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Look for us at the American Association of Community Colleges Workforce Development Institute January 30 - February 2. CSW's delegation includes Senior Policy Fellow Keith W. Bird, Senior Policy Associate Nancy Laprade, and Chairman Larry Good.
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Recent Publications
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State Sector Strategies Coming of Age: Implications for State Workforce Policymakers, jointly released by CSW, the National Governors Association, and the National Skills Coalition, offers a fresh look at the roles sector strategies are playing in state workforce policy, including numerous examples of a powerful strategy that is being used by more than 25 states.
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Community College Transformation: Staying Relevant in a Changing Economy
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 Nearly half the nation's college students are enrolled in community colleges. Policymakers and employers have come to realize that these colleges play a crucial role in a changing economy and have placed more pressure on them than ever before to innovate and transform.
Colleges across the nation are rising to meet these increasing demands. At every level, from the president's office to program directors and faculty, leaders are emerging to demonstrate the courage and creativity to innovate and create lasting outcomes for students, employers, and regional economies.
We're working with many of these bold new leaders to transform their policies, structures, and programs. We are committed to helping colleges better respond to the needs of regional employers and to enhance student success in obtaining the credentials that result in family-sustaining wages.
We're sharing some of the most important goals and strategies that college leaders are embracing today, as they work to increase graduation rates and employment outcomes.
Deepening and Broadening Employer Engagement
Assuring that students get jobs after college requires real, deep, sustained employer engagement. Colleges are learning that advisory committees aren't enough and that they need ongoing strategic partnerships with employers to ensure that programs align closely with industry needs. Many colleges are working as part of industry sector partnerships, which engage multiple employers in an industry to bring their collective expertise to bear on issues such as determining core skill needs, aligning curriculum, assessments, and credentials, and identifying work-based learning opportunities to contextualize and integrate their coursework with real world experience.
Expanding the Use of Competency-Based Learning and Credentials
Community colleges have an opportunity to be a leader in greatly increasing the use of industry-validated and competency-based credentials as a complement to existing degrees. Currently, as many as 50% or more of the courses and training offered at community colleges are non-credit. Colleges have the opportunity to work with industry to define relevant certifications and provide them based on competency attainment, as well as to expand the use of prior learning assessment to accelerate student success by measuring competencies they've already acquired. We are working with partners to support large-scale growth of quality competency-based credentials. Together with CLASP, we co-published a well-received report, Giving Credit Where Credit is Due: Creating a Competency-Based Qualifications Framework for Postsecondary Education and Training, which examines the role of non-credit education and calls for establishing a national competency based qualifications framework for post-secondary education and training.
Undertaking Transformative Change
Leading colleges are concluding they must make fundamental changes in their business models and strategies in order to increase credential attainment and employment results, while also increasing substantially the scale of their student enrollment - all in an era of tight budgets. Colleges are experimenting with ways to accelerate learning, make effective use of online learning, and to offer contextualized, competency-based instruction to improve both efficiency and effectiveness. They also are confronting the question of what they should discontinue in order to free up resources that can enhance student performance outcomes. One particular area of high interest is rethinking community colleges' business models for their workforce divisions. We're providing strategic advising to colleges about their choices for optimizing this important function and interconnecting it with the other components of the college. We see linking workforce development with the student success agenda as crucial, as well as tightening its relationships with economic and community development strategies and partners. For further details on these efforts, contact Dr. Keith Bird at kbird@skilledwork.org.
Improving Collaboration Among Workforce Partners
It truly takes a village to create strong community college career and technical education programs that are relevant to the local labor market and provide clear paths to employment for learners. In a thriving regional economy, the business, education and training, and social service communities share an understanding of the type, level, and quantity of skills and credentials needed by the workforce. Progressive institutions recognize that this alignment can only be achieved by truly engaging workforce organizations as strategic partners, such as workforce boards, in postsecondary planning and action.
Strengthening Career Navigation Supports
In most communities, information about local career opportunities and the education required to qualify for them is not organized and readily available. Colleges are uniquely positioned to develop a strong, integrated set of high tech and high touch tools that enable individuals to access and receive real-time, tailored information and supports to make truly informed decisions about career and learning opportunities.
At their best, colleges embrace these opportunities to create institutional change, and they shouldn't have to face these challenges alone. Contact Holly Parker at hparker@skilledwork.org to learn more about how we can support your efforts.
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Highlights from Our Work with Community Colleges
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 Across the nation, community colleges are looking for ways to better connect with business and industry and improve student outcomes. Here are highlights from our recent work with colleges.
Integrating Community Colleges and Workforce Agencies
During the latter part of 2012, in partnership with the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Collaborative Economics, Inc., CSW convened a set of community colleges to focus on integration of community colleges and the workforce system to improve employment outcomes for students. In November, the group met in DC to dig into topics such as specific participant tracking strategies in use by community colleges and linkages to state administrative data, employer engagement in both curriculum design and tracking graduates, and examples of effective partnerships. There was also extensive discussion of internal structural changes that community colleges must undertake to ensure their systems more effectively support learners as well as improve employment outcomes for graduates. The group identified three areas of change required for this kind of success: institutional change, improved employer engagement in curriculum and job placement, and continued movement toward contextualized, cohort based learning for students. This workgroup's activities are part of a broader technical assistance effort funded by the federal Department of Labor to provide technical assistance to American Reinvestment and Recovery Act grantees.
Expanding Business Engagement in Credentialing Processes
Supported by the Surdna Foundation, we have been exploring the intersection of competency-based credentialing efforts and industry sector partnerships. In the course of our research, we conducted literature reviews and personal interviews with leading experts in credential validation and convened a group of policy makers and practitioners to discuss and sharpen the resulting recommendations. CSW will soon publish a report that offers a roadmap that will guide educators, businesses, and workforce development professionals as they develop and implement credentialing systems in their regions. We plan to share our findings with a broad set of national stakeholders who are interested in this topic from both a policy and practice perspective.
Offering Workshops on Employer Engagement
In December, we worked with the Arkansas Association of Two-Year Colleges to conduct a workshop on employer engagement, virtual engagement, and how to link with career centers. Dr. Keith W. Bird's presentation covered driving forces for institutional and instructional transformation, disconnects between employers and educators, employers as strategic partners, employer engagement in curriculum restructuring and instructional delivery transformation.
Redesigning Workforce Development Services
CSW has advised several community college systems and individual colleges about employer engagement and redesigning college workforce development structures and services. As an example of that work, CSW worked with the West Virginia Community and Technical College System to create a model for sector partnerships in their state and to begin implementing it through a statewide Sector Strategy Institute.
Offering TAACCT Grant Technical Assistance and Evaluation Support
CSW also has assisted several colleges and consortia in developing proposals to the U.S. Department of Labor for Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College Career Training (TAACCCT) grants. Those multi-year grants are supporting evidence-based, systemic changes in college policy and practice. CSW is now serving as an evaluator for some grantees and offering strategic advising to some others. A set of resources is available.
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| Implementing the Findings of AACC's 21st-Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges |
 The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) established the 21st-Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges and charged it with comprehensively examining the challenges and opportunities facing the fasting-growing sector of higher education. Its membership included representatives from an array of constituencies and experts from education, business, policy, and communications.
Last spring, the commission released Reclaiming the American Dream: Community Colleges and the Nation's Future, a candid report on the challenges facing community colleges and a blueprint for addressing them. The report highlights the role of open-access community colleges, from encouraging civic engagement to meeting workforce development needs and lays out an urgent case for community colleges to demonstrate leadership by making a range of important changes. Many colleges are using it as a framework for their strategic planning.
AACC is in the midst of implementing key recommendations laid out in the report. AACC President Walter Bumphus appointed eight work teams to develop action plans around various Commission recommendations. Senior Policy Fellow Dr. Keith Bird and James Jacobs, president of Macomb Community College, are co-chairing the implementation team focused on "Closing the Skills Gap." This team is focused on how AACC can support member colleges in effectively engaging employers, expanding the use of competency-based credentialing, and improving the use of real-time labor market information to respond effectively to employer needs and to ensure students obtain crucial skills.
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About CSW
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Corporation for a Skilled Workforce is a national nonprofit that partners with government, business, and community leaders to develop good jobs and the skilled workers to fill them. For more than 20 years, we have been an effective catalyst for change by articulating opportunities and models for innovation in work and learning and provoking transformative change in policy and practice.
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