MyMnCareers Website (May 7, 2012)

MyMnCareers is a website designed to help low-literacy job seekers and English language learners find career planning information, and explore their career options, set goals and create a plan, and get training. Student categories include "I am an English Language Learner", "I am finishing High School or my GED", and "I am done with High School/GED and want to Advance my Career.

The site is simple and elegantly designed. The sub pages will help students embark on a career path, using their particular preferences, training, and skills.

Click here to view it: http://www.iseek.org/mymncareers/index.html

MyMnCareers was produced by Southwest Minnesota Adult Basic Education and iSeek Solutions with funding from the Otto Bremer Foundation.

The Core Skills Mastery (CSM) Program (March 2, 2012)

The Core Skills Mastery (CSM) Program is web-based instruction and assessment that is free for individuals, schools, and non-profits. The concentration areas are Secondary School, Higher Ed, Workforce, and Business. The Workforce section is appropriate for GED students. This program focuses on combining math and literacy with extensive problem-solving and thinking skills.

To learn more, go to: http://www.csmlearn.com/Entrance/index.php

The National Career Pathways Network is holding its 2012 conference in Richmond. (February 16, 2011)

Submit a proposal for the2012 National Career Pathways Network Conference in Richmond, VA. Deadline for submission is April 5.

The Presenter Proposal Form is available on the conference website: http://www.ncpn.info/2012-ncpn-conf.php

Introducing a new free resource for ESOL learners! (November 8, 2011)

THE LIFE SKILLS, COLLEGE, AND CAREER READINESS GUIDE FOR ESOL LEARNERS

A new free resource is available for your use: THE LIFE SKILLS, COLLEGE, AND CAREER READINESS GUIDE FOR ESOL LEARNERS. The Guide was developed by the Massachusetts Dept. of Adult and Secondary Education, the System for Adult Basic Education Support, and several Mass practitioners, with technical assistance from the Center for Applied Linguistics.

The Guide provides teachers with sample activities to use in their classrooms to help ESOL students develop the skills and knowledge they need to achieve their "next steps" employment, academic, or life skills goals. This resource is NOT a list of skills, of which there are many examples, but a resource that translates those skills into interesting classroom activities.

The Guide is actually three guides, one each for Basic (SPLs 0-3), Intermediate (SPLs 4-5), and Advanced (SPL 6) ESOL learners. The Guide developers felt strongly that even Basic Level ESOL students can practice next steps skills in the classroom. While this resource was especially designed for ESOL learners, the activities can be easily adapted for ABE and Transitions students as well.

The Guide is available in PDF but also in Rich Text Format, so that teachers can isolate particular activities, add new ones, or amend those that are provided. The RFT version also allows teachers to tailor listed activities for whole classes, groups of students working together, or an individual student. Here are the links to both PDF and Rich Text Format versions:

http://www.sabes.org/curriculum/esol/caela-guide-2011.pdf

http://www.sabes.org/curriculum/esol/caela-guide-2011.rtf

If any teachers are willing to take on the task of adapting this resource more specifically for ABE learners, please contact Carey Reid at creid@worlded.org.

Upcoming Conference (September 8, 2011)

We hope you will be able join us for the upcoming conference, Good Jobs for a Stronger Economy, in Washington, D.C. October 12, 2011. For more details, including how to register, please see the invitation below.

To view this invitation as a webpage, click here.

The Economic Imperative for More Adults to Complete College (June 28, 2011)

Today, CLASP has released two new resources to demonstrate how several of the proposed cuts targeted under deficit reduction will disproportionately harm nontraditional and underserved students, and set the nation on the wrong course for reducing unemployment and strengthening our economic recovery.

Not Just Kid Stuff Anymore: The Economic Imperative for More Adults to Complete College, a brief by CLASP and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, finds that just as our economy is demanding more workers that have some postsecondary education or training, our traditional source of such workers – high school graduates – is leveling off.

Some states will even see the number of high school graduates decline by as much as 18 to 20 percent. At the same time, nearly two-thirds of jobs in 2018 will require some postsecondary. The report includes state-by-state projections of number of high school graduates through 2020, as well as policy implications of a changing college population and the need for more adults to access postsecondary education.

Already, nontraditional students are a significant percent of the college population. Today's students are older, more diverse, and have more work and family obligations than what most people - and policymakers - think of when they envision the typical college student.

The CLASP fact sheet Yesterday's Nontraditional Student is Today's Traditional Student finds:
In 2008 and 2009, more than one-third (36 percent) of all undergraduates were adults age 25 or older,

• 40 percent were low-income,
• 32 percent worked full-time, and
• 23 percent were parents.

Nation Cannot Afford Pell Cuts for Nontraditional Students

Among the targets for deep cuts is the Pell grant program, a convenient scapegoat since program expenditures have increased with rising student need. This much-needed federal student aid helps low-income working adults, dislocated workers and low-income parents finance their education and get on the path to a family supporting job and career.

The country’s economic competitiveness rests on more people accessing postsecondary education. Addressing the nation's deficit is necessary, but cuts that undermine our economic security are not the answer. Learn more.

Mobility Report Highlights (February 28, 2011)

The Economic Mobility Corporation (Mobility), a non-profit organization focused on programs and policies that increase economic opportunities for lower-skilled workers, is pleased to share its new report, Sound Investments: Building Immigrants’ Skills to Fuel Economic Growth. This report identifies a number of innovative initiatives around the United States that are investing in low-skilled immigrant workers to increase their opportunities for economic advancement. In this report, Mobility examines these promising efforts, highlights strategies that appear to be working well, and recommends additional programmatic investments and policy reforms to address the needs of more immigrant workers. We hope this report is a useful resource for the field, and would be happy to discuss our research with interested individuals. The report can be accessed at http://economicmobilitycorp.org/index.php?page=62

New web-based career search tool geared for adult learners (February 8, 2011)

Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis unveiled My Next Move, a new, free, and easy-to-use online career search tool. 'By leveraging technology in a user-friendly tool, My Next Move will help those seeking career guidance learn more about work opportunities in fields that are of interest to them and that are likely to have job openings today and well into the future.'

Use My Next Move to search over 900 different careers and see important information including skills, tasks, technologies, salaries, and employment outlook. Discover related apprenticeships and training, and search actual job openings. Find careers through a keyword search; by browsing industries; or through the new 60-item, web-based O*NET Interest Profiler Short Form, a tool that offers career suggestions based on a person's interests and level of work experience.

"My Next Move was developed by the National Center for O*NET Development through a cooperative grant agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor."

The URL for the My Next Move website is below.

http://www.mynextmove.org/

January 10, 2011 (Career Pathways Publication)

This report is from May of 2009 and is about career pathways systems in several states. It looks like a very good overview of what such systems look like in different states, what similarities they have, and what it takes to build and sustain them. If you’re looking to get a clearer understanding of career pathways, and adult ed’s place within them, this would be a helpful document.

Click here for .pdf file.

September 10, 2010

From the Center for American Progress http://www.americanprogress.org

"A New National Approach to Career Navigation for Working Learners" This paper details both the inadequacy of the career navigation assistance now available and why the United States needs a new approach. The first section describes the urgent need, which has been exacerbated by recent trends in the economy. The second section showcases promising models of career navigation that have emerged-created by community colleges, employers, labor unions, public workforce systems, and community-based organizations-but remain small boutique enterprises. The third section envisions a more robust national approach to career navigation services for working adults and explores both design principles and challenges. Finally, the paper recommends next steps and federal policy actions that would move us closer to achieving that vision. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/03/pdf/career_counseling.pdf

"Low-Income Fathers Need to Get Connected: Helping Children and Families by Addressing Low-Income Fathers' Disconnections from Employment, Society, and Housing"

Far too many low-income fathers are facing serious challenges with employment, housing, criminal justice system involvement, and other issues. These problems are undoubtedly hurting their children and families. Congress created the Responsible Fatherhood Program and the Healthy Marriage Initiative during the last reauthorization of legislation encompassing TANF, but the results suggest the need for further reforms. The next generation of such services should be a Fatherhood, Marriage, and Families Innovation fund that puts emphasis where it counts: on comprehensive services that best address the complex needs of low-income fathers and families while not coercing their personal decisions. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/06/pdf/fatherhood.pdf

From Jobs for the Future (JFF) http://www.jff.org

"Setting up Success in Developmental Education: How State Policy Can Help Community Colleges Improve Student Outcomes"

This paper describes how 15 states have concentrated their policy efforts toward developmental education on four key areas: preventative strategies, assessment and placement, implementation and evaluation of program innovation, and performance measurement and incentives. http://www.jff.org/sites/default/files/AtD_brief_success_082609.pdf

From MDRC http://www.mdrc.org

This project tested, using a random assignment design, the effectiveness of numerous programs intended to promote steady work and career advancement. All the programs targeted current and former welfare recipients and other low-wage workers, most of whom were single mothers. Given that earlier retention and advancement initiatives studied for these groups were largely not effective, ERA sought to examine a variety of pro-grams that states and localities had developed for different populations, to determine whether effective strategies could be identified. In short, nine of the twelve programs examined in this report do not appear to be effective, but three programs increased employment levels, employment stability, and/or earnings, relative to control group levels, after three to four years of follow-up. http://www.mdrc.org/publications/558/full.pdf

From the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce http://georgetown.edu

"Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018"

This report that points out that the United States is "on a collision course with the future" as far too few Americans earned postsecondary degrees. By 2018, the economy will have jobs for an estimated 22 million new workers with colleges degrees, yet there will be a projected shortage of up to 7.7 million workers - including a shortage of 3 million workers with a postsecondary degree (associate or higher) and of 4.7 million workers with a postsecondary certificate. "This shortfall will mean lost economic opportunity for millions of American workers," according to the report. http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/FullReport.pdf

Webinar Invitation: Effective Partnerships between the Public Workforce System and Libraries (July 14, 2010)

In June, the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (ETA) issued Training and Employment Notice (TEN) 50-09, in which it announced its partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to share information and resources and to encourage effective partnerships between the workforce system and libraries. Register for this Webinar to learn more about the Federal effort and promising workforce-library partnerships in the State of Illinois and in Jefferson County, Colorado!

For more information click here.

A Portrait of Low-Income Young Adults in Education (July 6, 2010)

"Current and future economic conditions necessitate a greater demand for post-secondary education. Learning beyond high school has become a basic requirement for individual success in the labor market (Institute for Higher Education Policy 2005; Perna 2007) as well as a driver for workforce development (Carnevale and Desrochers 2002) and social mobility (Goldrick-Rab and Shaw 2005). Clearly, with over half of new jobs requiring some form of post-secondary education, the challenges facing low-income young adults have taken on added significance."

This 12-page PDF document is from the Portraits Series, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP). Click here to read the study.

http://www.ihep.org/assets/files/publications/m-r/(Brief)_A_Portrait_of_Low-Income_Young_Adults_in_Education.pdf

Jobs are available, but there are not enough skilled people to fill them (July 6, 2010)

Factories and manufacturer] are looking to hire people who can operate sophisticated computerized machinery, follow complex blueprints and demonstrate higher math proficiency than was previously required of the typical assembly line worker. But the unemployed do not match the types of jobs that are available. The increasing emphasis on more advanced skills raises policy questions about how to help low-skilled job seekers who are being turned away at the factory door and increasingly becoming the long-term unemployed. Read more on the topic in this New York Time article, "Factory Jobs Return, But Employers Find Skills Shortage."

Click here.

WIRED TAT Webinar Series: Jobs and Career Ladders for the Hard to Serve (June 7, 2010)

Date: 06/10/2010
Time: 1:00pm Eastern (12:00pm/Central, 11:00Am/Mountain, 10:00am/Pacific)
Length: 90 minutes

This webinar will highlight successful initiatives that help place low-skilled individuals into career pathways with growth potential.

During this webinar, we will hear from programs that have developed successful strategies to help hard-to-employ individuals enter training programs connected to career pathways. The programs represent a mix of urban and rural initiatives, are geographically widespread, work with a range of hard-to-employ populations, and offer a range of options for organizations hoping to develop a career pathway approach to training and placement. Common to each of these programs is the high level of engagement with employers and/or industry sectors, partnerships with community-based organizatons and training providers to attract and support hard-to-employ participants, and the focus on integrating basic skills remediation with occupational training. This webinar will be of use to workforce investment board (WIB) members, WIB staff, and program developers/administrators who are interested in starting a program from scratch or expanding an existing incumbent worker initiative to hard-to-employ individuals.

A National Online Library of Professional Development Resources (May 12, 2010)

Across states, national organizations, and technical assistance investments, an extensive amount of professional development material is availalbe. This library provides local educators with easy access to an array of resources that can be used or customzed to meet their needs.

While the resources are mainly geared to the K-12 population, many of the topics included are applicable to the adult education population. Some of the topics covered are: assistive technology, employment, project-based learning, career education, self-advocacy, conflict resolution, technology, transition to work, universal design, and many more.

To check out what is available, go to: http://www.learningport.us/