America's workforce development system is frequently charged with overlap, waste, duplication, and sheer confusion. Ten states are now reforming their workforce development programs. These programs include postsecondary vocational education, short-term job training, adult education, specific programs for welfare recipients and dislocated workers, state-funded training for specific employers, and the training that employers provide themselves. Through interviews with state and community officials, this report examines and assesses these states' strategies and progress, the challenges they've encountered, the effects of welfare reform, local responses to state policy, the complex roles of employers, and implications for state and federal policy. This is the first comprehensive evaluation of state efforts at reforming workforce development.
MDS-1249 / January 1999
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