Game Changer

CLASP provided an excellent overview of Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) in The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Becomes Law; Potential Game Changer for Low-Income Youth to make it easy for the rest of us to understand its implications. According to the article, the key themes in WIOA include: 

• An emphasis on the alignment of all core programs authorized in the bill, including a requirement for unified planning and reporting on a shared set of performance measures across these programs. These steps offer the potential for streamlining and significantly improving service delivery to participants, particularly low-income, low-skilled individuals.
  
• A heightened focus on providing training and helping participants prepare for post-secondary education to improve their success in the labor market.

• Greater focus on and new vehicles for addressing the needs of youth and adults who have significant barriers to employment.

• Strong support for implementation of innovative adult education models such as integrated education and training, career pathways and sector strategies.

• A recognition—through the incorporation of measureable skill gains as an interim indicator of progress and required use of a performance adjustment model—that some workers will need more intensive assistance and additional time in the core programs.

Specifically, Title I of WIOA includes several significant provisions that will increase the focus on comprehensive programming for out-of-school youth and those who face the greatest challenges. Included are provisions that:

• Expand the definition of out-of-school youth to encompass young people ages 16 to 24 who are not attending school, have dropped out of school, and face extensive barriers to work and to completing their education. In addition, Title I targets 75 percent of youth funds to provide services for out-of-school youth. 

• Address cumbersome eligibility issues that can make it difficult for local areas to develop comprehensive, cross-system approaches to serve youth who are most in need. Title 1 does so by expanding the definition of low-income individuals to include those who receive or are eligible to receive free or reduced price school lunches and adding an expansive definition for individuals with a barrier to employment. Title I also incorporates a special rule that allows young people living in high-poverty areas to be deemed eligible for services. 

• Require a minimum percentage of youth funds (20 percent) to support work experiences for low-income and vulnerable young people. 

The authors also remind us, “A key next step will be to increase the capacity of the workforce development and adult education systems to achieve the goals of WIOA. Congress should strengthen its commitment to the nation’s workers by providing adequate resources to ensure that improved services reach those who need them. Although modest increases in funding for core programs are authorized in the bill, programs suffered such damaging recent cuts that the FY2017 authorized funding levels in the bill would only restore funding to FY2010 levels. For workforce development programs to have a substantial impact on the country’s unemployed and low-skilled workers, Congress must take steps to eliminate sequestration and the budget caps, both of which are dampening the economic recovery.”

Stay tuned for more on the regulations that will be developed by ED and Labor!