An Opportunity to Influence Department of Education's 

The following provides further background on this initiative, steps your organization should take to participate and what MSSC can do to assist. 

Background: In the fall of 2013, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released the results of the Survey of Adult Skills, which found that adults who have trouble reading, doing math, solving problems and using technology find doors closed to them in the 21st century workforce.

In response to the OECD findings, the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) has launched a national engagement effort to explore ways to increase our capacity to improve the foundation skills of adults in the United States. 

Throughout January 2014, Dr. Brenda Dann-Messier, Assistant Secretary of OVAE, will host several regional engagement events that will bring together state education officials; leaders in businesses, industry, policy and labor; researchers and data experts and philanthropists to develop a national plan to up-skill adults

In an effort to strengthen the feedback from the regional events, OVAE is inviting local stakeholders to hold Time to Reskill engagement events.  The purpose of the Time to Reskill events is to engage multiple stakeholders in a community or organization in a conversation about adult skills systems and to discuss how those systems can be strengthened to reach more adults with low skills.  More information about the adult skills outreach initiative is available here.

Your Participation:  MSSC encourages any of its partners that have developed an efficient and effective solution to address the skills gap and up skill adults to consider hosting a Time to Reskill event.  Events must be conducted and feedback sent to OVAE by no later than March 14, 2014, in order to be considered for the national action plan which will be released in spring 2014. 

OVAE would like your feedback to include examples of how communities/organizations have addressed or plan to address the following:

• Expanding opportunities for adults to improve foundation skills by scaling up proven practices and using emerging technologies to personalize and accelerate learning for America's low-skilled working population.
• Building stronger partnerships among business, industry, labor, state and local governments, and others, in order to sustain the nation's workforce capacity, economic vitality and democratic values.
• Strengthening the connection between foundation skills and workforce readiness in ways that help adults gain basic skills, particularly in the STEM fields and pursue specific occupations and credentials more rapidly.

Feedback can be submitted through an online submission form.  The form asks for an attendees list, the top three issues discussed and any best practices and solutions that address the skills gap and comments on what is needed to strengthen the U.S. skills system so that more adult learners can build their skills.

MSSC Assistance:  As noted above, one of the goals of OVAE's national plan is to use these enhanced foundational skills to enable adults to secure credentials in high-demand occupations more rapidly.  MSSC's extensive experience in training and assessing adults corroborates this strategy.  For example, we have learned that adults securing ACT's National Career Readiness Certificates (NCRC) before entering MSSC programs are more successful in obtaining MSSC certification.  

We have also learned that community-wide efforts involving multiple stakeholders are successful in enabling a large swath of the adult population to secure MSSC certification.  MSSC has provided OVAE a copy of the attached Best Practice paper titled, "Southwestern Ohio: Use of MSSC by Multiple Organizations within a Region to Credential Diverse Populations". Making NCRC a prerequisite for full MSSC Certified Production Technician (CPT) training and certification, this region secured a job placement rate of 71% with an additional 19% of CPT certificants continuing on to higher education:  a 90% success rate. 

Next Steps:  If you wish to organize a Time to Reskill engagement, please use the provided links for more detailed OVAE instructions.  If you notify MSSC about your plan to do so, we will be pleased to provide a more detailed background paper with data on MSSC's experience with adult training and the importance of work readiness skills, which you would be free to circulate at the event. 

MSSC Point of Contact on this OVAE initiative:  Tina Driessen, Manager of Communications and External Affairs, at tdriessen@msscusa.org or 703-739-9000, ext. 2223.