Exciting Times in Workforce Development

President Obama signs WIOA.

Eleven years. That’s how long it took to find a window of opportunity for bipartisan support of the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act.

On July 22, President Obama placed his signature on the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). Its goes into effect July 2015 and we all should make sure that we understand it well enough to take advantage of it on behalf of youth.

However, we are going to need a lot more than WIOA to address the youth unemployment crisis. Vice President Joe Biden released the plan, Ready to Work: Job-Driven Training and American Opportunity. For anyone who wants to get up to speed on workforce development it’s a must read as it covers just about every strategy with some interesting innovations (more on that later).

Also released this month is What Works In Job Training: A Synthesis of the Evidence. This was one of the best reports I’ve read in terms of summarizing the evidence, with attention given to what we don’t know as well as to what we do know. The section “What Works for Youth” opens with the statement, “The evidence on the effectiveness of job training programs for youth is much less extensive than for adults.” What this tells me is that we need to keep innovating – we still haven’t cracked how to help young people connect to the job market. However, they do identify four areas where there is evidence:

1. Early exposure to a range of career and higher education information and opportunities is associated with better post-secondary education outcomes.

2. Work experience for youth still in school, including paid summer jobs, has some important results in terms of educational outcomes, particularly if job skills and education are combined.

3. Occupation- and industry-based training programs show some promising employment outcomes for youth. Work-based learning, such as paid internships, cooperative education, and some transitional jobs programs suggest that low-income, economically disadvantaged youth are successful in programs where they receive wages. Strategies that allow high school students to accelerate their transition to college or start preparing for a career early, including Career Academies, can also improve youth outcomes.

4. Youth disconnected from work and school, including those who also have serious disadvantages such as early-child bearing, homelessness, or involvement with the criminal justice system, have the most difficult challenges succeeding in adulthood, but there is some evidence that they can benefit from comprehensive and integrated models that combine education, occupational skills, and support services.

Notice that job readiness training doesn’t show up on this list. It’s much better to help young people build those “soft skills” through real work experience than sitting in a room talking about it.

The report also identifies areas on which more evaluation and research are needed, including disaggregating subgroup impacts. This is critical for our work in general on older youth and specifically to break the cycle of poverty and prison that African-American young men find themselves in.

Foundations also are investing more strategically in workforce development. Annie E. Casey Foundation is implementing a two-generation strategy in which children’s lives are improved by improving the financial health of their parents. Rockefeller Foundation is investing in creating a more inclusive economy to address the youth unemployment crisis.

It’s all adding up to being an exciting time for workforce development.