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Institute of Museum and Library Services 21st Century Skills podcast -- August 11, 2010

ETA's partner Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) developed this podcast in which IMLS Acting Director Marsha L. Semmel addresses the following topics: ¦What are 21st century skills? ¦Where did the 21st century skills movement come from? ¦Where do museums and libraries fit in the 21st century skills movement? Semmel also describes Making the Learning Connection, IMLS’s national campaign to better understand the opportunities, challenges, and key issues facing today’s museums and libraries in their efforts to meet their communities’ 21st century learning needs. The campaign includes an eight-city workshop tour, a national contest, new online tools and resources, and a series of interactive webinars. Read more.

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Institute of Museum and Library Services 21st Century Skills podcast -- August 11, 2010

ETA's partner Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) developed this podcast in which IMLS Acting Director Marsha L. Semmel addresses the following topics: ¦What are 21st century skills? ¦Where did the 21st century skills movement come from? ¦Where do museums and libraries fit in the 21st century skills movement? Semmel also describes Making the Learning Connection, IMLS’s national campaign to better understand the opportunities, challenges, and key issues facing today’s museums and libraries in their efforts to meet their communities’ 21st century learning needs. The campaign includes an eight-city workshop tour, a national contest, new online tools and resources, and a series of interactive webinars. Read more.

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Public Workforce System and Public Libraries: Stronger Together

In my career with the workforce development system, I have time and again seen that our mission relies critically on making connections. At the most fundamental level, we connect individuals with career assistance and employment opportunities. We are also connecting workers, job seekers and employers with other community resources to ensure that we are meeting the complex and varied needs of our customers. In this light, I am especially pleased at the opportunity to use this Community of Practice to share an exciting partnership ETA is developing with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Library professionals are expert at facilitating access to and helping people make sense of new information, and I know that our system can benefit enormously from engaging them in meaningful and concrete ways. We have summarized the different aspects of our partnership, from sharing information about our electronic tools to the July 19 Webinar highlighting promising state and local examples of workforce-library collaboration, in the newly issued Training and Employment Notice No. 50-09, “Encouraging Partnerships between the Workforce Investment System and Public Libraries to Meet Career and Employment Needs.” I hope that after you read the TEN, you will be inspired to engage your local library and find out if there are logical areas where its resources complement yours. After all, this is what we do best as workforce developers—leveraging assets from multiple sources to make a difference in the lives of people, whether they walk in the door of our One-Stop Career Center, use our electronic tools, or maybe even turn to their community library.

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Florida Region Uses Strategic Doing to Help in Overcoming the Space Challenge as the Space Shuttle Program Comes to an End

About 250 people joined us recently for an interactive ‘strategic doing’ event hosted by Brevard Workforce and the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast, (and generously sponsored by FLORIDA TODAY, our local Gannett newspaper) called Overcoming the Space Challenge through Regional Innovation. The group came together to learn more about the challenges we face at the end of NASA’s Shuttle Program, and to actually incorporate our ideas and resources into a strategic plan that would help Brevard and the surrounding region in overcoming these challenges. It was the first such event Brevard has ever experienced. Facilitated by Ed Morrison, strategic advisor to the Purdue Center for Economic Development and Linda Fowler, founder of Regionerate, local, regional and state experts on the leading edge of responsibility in the areas of schools, our economy, the aerospace industry, county services, and help for the workforce started off the event with some insight before attendees broke into groups. Brevard Workforce briefed the audience on our intensive Aerospace Workforce Transition program and the Regional Aerospace Workforce Initiative, efforts that started more than three years ago to serve and assist the talent that will be displaced.

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New York State's Reemployment Services

Karen Coleman, Director of New York's Division of Employment and Workforce Solutions, provides an overview of New York's innovative approach to reemployment services, with particular focus on the use of assessment tools to improve skill matching.

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New York State's Reemployment Services

A presentation by Karen Coleman Director of the Division of Employment and Workforce Solutions, NYS Department of Labor. The presentation lays out the state's innovative approaches to reemployment.

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New York State's Reemployment Services

A presentation by Karen Coleman Director of the Division of Employment and Workforce Solutions, NYS Department of Labor. The presentation lays out the state's innovative approaches to reemployment.

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What Is in Your Assessment Toolbox? Making Informed Investments in Your Assessment Suite

The $250 million in Reemployment Services Grants provided through the Recovery Act have generated a host of creative and innovative approaches to helping the unemployed. In particular, we have learned a great deal over the last year about how assessment tools can strengthen reemployment services. Personality assessments, work values assessments, skills transferability assessments/tools, interest assessments, educational assessments, occupational skills assessments, work readiness assessments and the list goes on and on. All of these types of assessments and more increase the workforce system’s ability to match job seekers and employers. If you are still looking for ways to invest your ARRA RES funds, we want to help you learn about which instruments are the most effective by connecting you with your workforce system colleagues who can give you unbiased, first-hand feedback on their experience with specific products. If you are interested in purchasing a particular assessment instrument or tool and would like to see if there is a workforce system colleague that is using the instrument you are interested in, please contact our resident expert on assessment tools: Lauren Fairley-Wright Workforce Analyst USDOL – ETA – Office of Workforce Investment wright.lauren@dol.gov

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Enterprising States: Creating Jobs, Economic Development and Prosperity in Challenging Times

The National Chamber Foundation has partnered with the American Free Enterprise. Dream Big. campaign to spur the creation of 20 million jobs in the next decade – restoring the 7 million jobs lost to the current recession, and creating the 13 million new jobs that our growing nation will need in the next 10 years. Each individual state will play a pivotal role in achieving this goal by creating the conditions for competition, innovation, and productivity through a focus on education and training, science and technology and infrastructure. Enterprise-friendly policies at the state level can facilitate local job growth by championing entrepreneurship and mobilizing effective partnerships for improving the conditions for business and job growth. Our study connects the success of free enterprise to our nation’s economy by correlating key policy inputs and best practices in state-driven economic development with job creation and other substantive economic outputs. Brief case studies of each state highlight policies and strategies that work. From the interviews we conducted for these case studies, it is clear that the states are making job creation a high priority, and are implementing meaningful changes in their approaches to job creation. While this varies by state, there is a renewed focus on creating more favorable conditions for business growth.

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Enterprising States: Creating Jobs, Economic Development and Prosperity in Challenging Times

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Transitional Jobs: Background, Program Models, and Evaluation Evidence

The budget for the U.S. Department of Labor for Fiscal Year 2010 includes a total of $45 million to support and study transitional jobs. This paper describes the origins of the transitional jobs models that are operating today, reviews the evidence on the effectiveness of this approach and other subsidized employment models, and offers some suggestions regarding the next steps for program design and research. The paper was produced for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by MDRC as part of the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ project, which includes two random assignment evaluations of transitional jobs programs. Transitional jobs programs provide temporary, wage-paying jobs, support services, and job placement help to individuals who have difficulty getting and holding jobs in the regular labor market. Although recent evaluation results have raised doubts about whether TJ programs, as currently designed, are an effective way to improve participants’ long-term employment prospects, the studies have also confirmed that TJ programs can be operated at scale, can create useful work opportunities for very disadvantaged people, and can lead to critical indirect impacts such as reducing recidivism among former prisoners. Thus, in drawing lessons from the recent results, the paper argues that it may be important to think more broadly about the goals of TJ programs while simultaneously testing new strategies that may produce better long-term employment outcomes.

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NYT: In Hard Times, Lured into Trade School and Debt

An article on March 14 about for-profit schools and training programs and their effect on students' financial well-being and employment prospects.

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Announcing the 2010 Heartland Conference - take part in the discussion!

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA) Region 5, in conjunction with the Great Lakes Employment and Training Association (GLETA), is hosting the Heartland Conference to be held April 7-9, 2010 in Chicago, IL at the downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel. Don't miss the opportunity to connect with Heartland 2010 presenters and participants. We will be posting many of our upcoming Conference sessions. Share your ideas and best practices, post your comments and help build an interactive learning community. STAY TUNED, TAKE PART IN THE DISCUSSION & REGISTER TODAY!