Advocates can create new upskilling opportunities, meet local business needs, and streamline training costs by launching partnerships between adult education organizations and Career and Technical Education (CTE) providers. That's the message of the National Skills Coalition's new policy brief, Better Together .
This new brief highlights an example from the border city of El Paso, Texas. Local leaders at the Socorro Independent School District (ISD) have capitalized on opportunities under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) to improve alignment between the adult education and CTE systems. Their work has been supported by officials from the Texas Workforce Commission's Adult Education and Literacy program (AEL).
ETA Releases WIOA Youth Monitoring Supplement
The Employment and Training Administration has recently released a supplement . that complements the agency's Core Monitoring Guide and is a tool for Federal staff to perform program-specific monitoring of the formula-funded Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act (WIOA) youth program at the state and local levels. This supplemental guide identifies compliance requirements along with additional questions which may be used to assess state progress and provide information about a state's implementation of WIOA.
The guide consists of five activities which are aligned with the statute and final regulations. These activities are (1) Governance and Standing Committees; (2) Eligibility; (3) Youth Program Design, Elements, and Parameters; (4) One-Stop Center Services to Youth; and (5) Partnerships. Within each of the five activities are two sections: (a) focuses on state-level questions and (b) focuses on local area questions. Each of the activities includes compliance questions and/or qualitative (i.e., effectiveness) questions. The questions are provided to help determine whether the state and/or local areas have complied with the Act, final regulations, and program guidance, as well as made progress in implementing WIOA youth formula-funded programs/services. The questions will also help determine where they may need to improve. We have included a section to record comments along with a complementary toolbox with additional resources.