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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: From Isolation to Integration: Occupational Education and the Emerging Systems of Workforce Development

by W. Norton Grubb

What do we, as citizens and employees, policy-makers and employers, want of our educational and workforce development systems? We clearly want a great deal, since we continue to expand and elaborate education and training, trying various reforms every few years. So there is not a single answer to the question of what we want, as shifts in federal and state legislation reveal. Nor is there, in a diverse and pluralist society, a single voice or constituency that can frame the answers by itself. However, examining these debates, and their influences on the education and training provided our citizens, is crucial to understanding our ambitions for education and training, and to understanding the particular role of vocational education within a larger complex of programs. Over the past decade, the National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE) has conducted a series of studies that examine the shifting roles of education and training and the efforts to create more coherent and effective "systems" of workfaorce preparation. The following article is excerpted from a CenterPoint summarizing that research.

Background

Education. In the United States, an imposing system of public and private education developed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The term educationhas usually encompassed a variety of intellectual, political, and moral goals as well as relatively broad conceptions of occupational preparation. The resulting complex of schools, colleges, and universities, larger than in any other country, is marked by substantial regularity. Specific institutions--high schools, for example, or community colleges--have many similar characteristics across the country. There are well-established patterns of progression, from elementary school to middle school and high school, through various kinds of colleges to post-graduate study. Much of the funding for this system is public, even at the post-compulsory level, since access has been a persistent concern. The process of developing our educational system has been complex, with local institutions starting and stopping, fifty states developing their own approaches, and the federal government providing much smaller amounts than states do of support and direction. But the result of pulling and tugging by millions of citizens, policy-makers, and educators is a system of widespread access, considerable transparency, and variation within well-known limits.

Workforce Development. Over a considerably shorter period of time--little more than three decades--a different system of workforce development has begun to emerge in much the same way, from federal and state support, local experimentation, and considerable wrangling about the results. In contrast to the broader goals of education, this system has emphasized occupational preparation, though such preparation may range from broad programs encompassing many occupations to narrowly job-specific or employer-specific training. It includes postsecondary vocational education, certain aspects of adult education, short-term job training programs (including some for particular populations, like dislocated workers or welfare recipients), private providers of training, and upgrade training for the existing workforce, often provided by employers themselves. While there is considerable overlap in the education and training these programs provide, and the students or clients they serve, this "system" is not as settled as formal education has become.

Providers of vocational education, particularly community colleges and technical institutes, are virtually the only programs that participate in both education and workforce development. Therefore, vocational education has the potential to bridge "education" and "training," providing a route from short-term programs back into the mainstream of education. Where community colleges and other providers of vocational and adult education have failed to participate in state discussions about workforce development, however, the cleavage between "education" and "training" has persisted--to the detriment of all.

The Plethora of Programs

The programs included in workforce development provide individuals with the competencies necessary for employment--including technical skills, basic academic competencies in remedial and adult education, skills like problem-solving, communications, and teamwork (often called SCANS skills), and "soft" skills like motivation, reliability, and the ability to work with others. A conventional history starts with the manpower programs established by the federal government in the early 1960s, to combat technological unemployment and poverty. Setting a pattern that has complicated the "system" ever since, the early manpower programs viewed schools and colleges as in appropriate providers of short, job-specific training for individuals who had not done well in their schooling. Services were therefore provided outside the educational system, particularly by community-based organizations, creating the distinction between "education" and "training." Over time, federal legislation has tended to expand the particular groups eligible for short-term job training to include such groups as dislocated workers unemployed because of sectoral shifts, food stamp recipients, those injured on the job and needing vocational rehabilitation, veterans, and a variety of others. And throughout these developments in job training, the federal government has slowly expanded support for adult education as well, providing remedial education and English as a Second Language (ESL). As a result, a confusing array of employment and training programs exist. In 1995 the General Accounting Office counted 163 federal programs spending $20.4 billion.

At the same time as federal developments have driven the "system," states have elaborated their own programs. Area vocational schools, community colleges and technical institutes and adult education have expanded substantially since the 1960s--particularly community colleges. Almost every state has enacted programs supporting training in order to stimulate economic development, often by subsidizing training within firms. Like the federal government, then, states have found themselves with a plethora of programs, some state-initiated and funded, others largely federal.

Complaints About the "System": Rhetoric and Reality

As federal and state policy-makers have contemplated what they have wrought, similar complaints have emerged over nearly thirty years. Many programs provide similar services--for example, secretarial, computer-related, and electronics programs are provided by job training and welfare-related programs as well as community colleges and area vocational schools, and remedial education exists in community colleges, adult education, and learning labs sponsored by job training. Because most programs have been independent of one another, progress from one to another--for example, from adult education for remedial purposes into job training for technical skills, or from a basic computer skills course into a more advanced program providing access to better-paid jobs--has been left to the initiative of students. From the perspective of students and employers, the variety of programs has made it difficult to know which programs are available, which are most effective, and where the most reliable employees might be found. And so charges of limited information, inadequate access, inefficiency and duplication have proliferated.

While many of these concerns are justified, in other cases they seem exaggerated. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there are remarkably few cases of outright duplication. Again contrary to convention, at the local level there is often considerable coordination. In most communities there is a "system" in the sense that administrators of every program are familiar with others, and extensive referral and contracting among programs takes place. In the most typical pattern, for example, secondary and postsecondary vocational programs are linked by articulation agreements and 2+2 plans; JTPA and welfare-to-work programs subcontract with community colleges to provide some (though not all) of their training and remediation, with adult schools usually providing the lion's share of remediation; and community colleges provide customized training with their own resources as well as funds from state economic development efforts. Such coordination--which can be described as collaborative service delivery -- has in the past been the result of local initiatives rather than of federal requirements or state policies for collaborative planning.

Where coordination fails to take place, the barriers include:

These barriers are not the kind that can be overcome by federal or state coordination mandates. They are more fundamental, embedded in the basic purposes and structure of different programs.

Information Underload

It's difficult to judge whether there's a lot of coordination or too little. There is certainly more than the conventional wisdom claims and there is great variation among communities. Still, the dominant view is that the existing "systems" are still not coherent enough. One dominant problem is that there are very few mechanisms following individuals, helping them make transitions among programs, providing them assistance if they falter, or giving them information about the alternatives available. As a result, referral among programs--e.g., from JTPA to adult education, or from a welfare program to a community college--is likely to result in individuals becoming "lost," rather than being an effective method of cooperation.

The lack of adequate tracking mechanisms (and then supportive services) is symptomatic of another problem in local "systems:" the lack of information. Aside from figures on enrollments required for funding, few programs have collected data on dimensions of performance like the progress of individuals through various services, completion rates, subsequent employment, and long-term earnings. There is substantial agreement that dropout rates from all programs are high. However, few programs collect such information, and JTPA providers often fudge the numbers so true completion rates cannot be calculated. Community colleges often reinterpret low completion rates as evidence that their students have gotten related employment, without knowing anything about what their students do when they leave--effectively defining away the problem. Results on subsequent employment and earnings are even harder to find, particularly for individual programs. Even in JTPA, which is conventionally thought to be outcome-oriented because of its performance standards, local programs tend to be performance-drivenbut not outcome-oriented. They often "play to the indicators," concerned with meeting specific performance targets (like short-term placement), but ignorant about other dimensions of success (like long-term mobility) .

Program Effectiveness

Finally, the effectiveness of many programs has been suspect. Sophisticated evaluations reveal that short-term job training tends to increase earnings by trivial amounts--on the average by $200 to $500 per year-- and that even these benefits decline over four to five years (Grubb, 1996b). Most welfare-to-work programs have failed to move many welfare recipients into independent employment, and the results for the most disadvantaged participants are especially disheartening. The periods of time most individuals enroll in adult education are too short to make much difference, the rates of non-completion from community colleges have been much too high, and the proportion of completers who find related employment is low in many occupational areas. In effect, the overriding concern with duplication and waste, the focus on specific program requirements, and the lack of information and evaluation have led to "systems" with remarkably little attention to effectiveness. And so various efforts to improve the quality of programs have emerged: performance standards, required first in JTPA and now spreading to other programs (particularly in the 1998 Amendments to the Carl Perkins Act and in the Workforce Investment Act); the development of state data systems to improve information about outcomes; and even performance-based funding, first being tried in Florida.

Progress in the States

Ten years ago, most successful efforts at coordination were local. Since the late 1980s, however, states have become increasingly active in defining and coordinating their workforce development programs, sometimes in response to state economic problems, sometimes in recognition that the plethora of programs was unwieldy and ineffective, and sometimes in anticipation of federal consolidation of its funding. In the most active states, such efforts are beginning to have real effects.

The dominant state strategy is simply described, though it has many variants. A state agency--often called a Workforce Development (or Investment) Board--is created with a certain set of statewide responsibilities, usually for planning and oversight of education and training programs, sometimes with administrative responsibilities as well. Then--because state offices can rarely be in touch with local conditions--local or regional counterparts are established with responsibility for implementing state policy.

Institutional versus market mechanisms. States have used a variety of other instruments to reform workforce development. Some have stressed institutional mechanisms of change -- efforts to improve the quality of programs and the connections among them, including required advisory committees, technical assistance to local programs, and cultural changes, shifting away from the traditional state role of funding and regulation to one of state leadership with local responsibility. Other states have adopted market-like mechanisms. Performance measures and standards to emphasize outcomes over inputs are one widespread reform.

The bumpy road of state developments. Of course, the state-level developments have not been smooth and easy. Some states have stuck to a basic strategy over relatively long periods of time, with bipartisan support, and they have made the most progress. But in other states, changes in administrations have brought in governors with very different political agendas, reversing earlier progress in coordination programs. In still other cases, a focus on welfare reform and "work first"--emphasizing immediate employment as the best route to economic independence--have undermined efforts to further develop education and training programs. On the whole, however, many states have become more active in developing their workforce development systems.

Local Initiatives

At the local level, an important trend has been the creation of one-stop centers, funded by the U.S. Department of Labor. In some states, these centers provide information to prospective students (and to employers) about the programs available locally. In other cases, they have moved beyond the provision of information to career-oriented counseling and help in enrollment.

Local Workforce Investment Councils. In addition, the creation of local Workforce Investment Councils has provided a mechanism of planning and oversight, though the powers and scope of these Councils vary from state to state. By far the most common approach has been that which some state officials describe as "centrally guided, locally directed" efforts, where states create overall goals and local Councils direct their implementation. This strategy has resulted in uneven coordination among regions: some resist state guidance, while others want to move faster than the state. But what seems to be happening, in the fitful way typical of American federalism, is that the entire structure of state and local efforts is lurching in the direction of greater coordination.

The Checkered Role of the Federal Government

The problem of proliferating education and training programs, with inconsistent purposes and regulations, has to some extent been a problem of federal policy. In response, federal legislation has incorporated small measures to improve coordination, ranging from mandatory planning activities to JTPA funds earmarked for coordination to encouragement of state consolidation. The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) that passed in August 1998, has maintained separate funding for job training and adult education, with vocational education funded in still other legislation.

WIA: Enhancement of Coherent Systems. With one important exception, this new Act should enhance the development of coherent systems. It continues the state-local structure that many states have already adopted, with a state Workforce Investment Board required to develop a five-year plan, and local Workforce Investment Boards responsible for planning and overseeing local programs. It encourages states to submit unified plans for up to 14 federal programs, in order to ensure their coordination and avoid duplication of workforce development activities. The Act strengthens the role of one-stop centers, principally by establishing them as the access point for employment-related training and other services. It appears to place less emphasis on federal rules and regulations, authorizing them only to the extent necessary and extending eligibility for comprehensive waivers to all states (rather than just six). Since federal regulations and uncertainty about their interpretation have been barriers to state and local coordination, this should also facilitate the development of more coherent workforce development systems.

In addition, the Act provides further incentives to improve the quality of programs, particularly by requiring indicators of performance and establishing incentive grants starting in the year 2000 to states with above-average performance. Since the low quality and unresponsiveness of programs is one factor preventing their coordination with others--for example, in the reluctance of many providers to refer to adult education--the improvement of quality should enhance the willingness of programs to work with one another.

WIA: Coherent Systems Undermined? However, the WIA places new emphasis on Individual Training Accounts (ITAs), in which participants choose among providers, and it de-emphasizes the provision of training through contracts with specific providers. But when individuals are the principal decision-makers, rather than program administrators, they may or may not decide to enroll in programs that are well-coordinated with others. Consumer "choice" may be influenced by many factors (like proximity and convenience) other than the quality of programs, the comprehensiveness of services, and the links to other providers. The development of coherent systems of workforce development programs may therefore be undermined by greater reliance on this voucher-like approach. The Workforce Investment Act is therefore somewhat ambiguous in its influences, and it will no doubt take some time for its effects to become known.

The Potential Role of Vocational Education

In the uneven development of workforce development systems, vocational education--and community college and some area vocational centers in particular --have played various roles. Even in the absence of active state policy, community colleges have often served as contractors to job training and welfare programs, providing assessment, remedial education, and occupational programs of varying length. In some communities the community colleges has been the "only game in town," providing virtually all education and training services, and in a few states community colleges have administered JTPA, adult education, and economic development programs. But where community colleges are perceived as weak, or "academic," or inflexible in their schedules, their participation has been limited.

In a coherent system, programs could learn from one another and provide more comprehensive and effective services. For example, many training and welfare-to-work programs are forced to provide remedial education, usually in poorly-designed programs with low-quality teaching based on "skills and drills." Efforts in some community colleges to teach remedial education in learning communities, where basic skills are taught in the context of occupational courses, provide a more effective approach. Likewise, the efforts to integrate academic and vocational education, developed in high schools and community colleges with the support of federal funds, provide more powerful ways of teaching the multiple competencies called for by many employers and commissions (including the SCANS Commission). These practices could be adopted in many job training programs as well. A few colleges have developed strong links between school-based and work-based learning, through co-operative education, school-to-work programs, and school-based enterprises, providing yet another model for others to follow. And the best community colleges pride themselves on being "teaching institutions." They use a variety of institutional policies to enhance the quality of teaching, a dimension that is almost completely missing from job training, welfare-related, and adult education programs.

Conversely, education providers have much to learn from job training. Community colleges often have lax placement efforts and weak connections with local employers. They could learn from job training programs that have placed greater emphasis on targeting efforts on the most promising employment, and on finding jobs as well as preparing their clients for them. Education providers could also learn from job training and adult education about flexible and unconventional scheduling, since they are often criticized for being wedded to rigid academic calendars.

Outcomes Only Integrated Systems Can Provide

Furthermore, there are some outcomes that are possible only within an integrated system. The small benefits of short-term job training programs are due in part to the low intensity of services (since most last only 10 to 15 weeks) and the provision of a limited range of services to individuals with multiple barriers to employment. In the absence of substantial funding increases, these problems cannot be resolved without linking existing programs together. For example, programs of increasing complexity could be connected in "ladders" of opportunity, with an individual attending one or two short job training programs and then, as time and employment demands permit, transferring into related certificate and Associate degree programs in community colleges or technical institutes. This vision specifies a particularly crucial role for community colleges and technical institutes as the "bridges" between short-term training programs and the mainstream educational system. The cooperation among different programs (including those providing non-educational services like child care and health care) is a solution to the need for more comprehensive services. These reforms, which rely on existing institutions rather than creating new ones, require that all providers be better integrated.

What remains to be seen is whether this vision of coherent workforce development systems will be implemented in the coming years. Certainly the most active states are now moving in this direction, with some (checkered) help from federal policy. In many others, the standard complaints about the existing system--about duplication and waste, ineffectiveness and murkiness--have created pressures in the same direction. Historically, Americans have been fond of system-building, evidently because the benefits outweigh the costs of uniformity and potential rigidity. In such a world it makes no sense for any programs, including occupational education, to continue working in lonely isolation.

W. Norton Grubb is the site director of NCRVE's UC Berkeley site.

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