Bacon's Rebellion

Workforce Development: Wonkish but Important

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by

James A. Bacon
in

In a globally competitive economy, Virginians will prosper only to the extent that we increase the level of our collective education and skills. While the public focuses on K-12 and higher education, no less important is the training and professional development that occurs after graduation — where people learn specific skills they apply in the workplace.

As a fallible memory serves me, the Gilmore administration estimated that Virginia spends $350 million a year in state, local and federal workforce training programs, and that number doesn’t include support for community colleges. Gov. Jim Gilmore appointed a workforce development czar to rationalize the overlapping, redundant welter of programs but accomplished little. Gov. Mark Warner also grappled with the problem, but got taken to the mat. Warner declared that one of his greatest disappointments as governor was his inability to solve the problem.

Now comes Sen. Frank Ruff, R-Clarksville, with a new proposal to streamline workforce training. His bill would anoint the Governor as “Chief Workforce Development Officer” for the Commonwealth and task him with creating a statewide strategic plan. The plan would establish performance measures for some 24 different programs, evaluate performance based on those metrics, and redirect resources based on performances.

For the past year, Ruff has been working with Del. Kathy J. Byron, R-Campbell, on a legislative commission studying how to reduce duplication and promote the best programs. Byron is introducing a companion bill in the House. Kudos to both. It’s refreshing to see the General Assembly approaching a problem with the philosophy of making government work more efficiently rather than giving it more money.

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9 responses to “Workforce Development: Wonkish but Important”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Delegate BYRON’s Bill and Senator Ruff’s have both been amended, conformed, blessed by the Governor and have passed their respective chambers. They should slide on through to signature. The open question is, will the secretaries of education, commerce and trade, health and human resources be willing to yield any of their turf in reality.

  2. kingfish Avatar
    kingfish

    This sounds like one of the best ideas to come out of the General Assembly in a long time. Kudos!

  3. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    $350m in local, state and Federal ‘free’ money to train people for non-government jobs? Train vs. educate.

    Why is this a government task? What are the wonkish stats on cost per pupil, graduates hired, graduates incomes, graduates who stay in Virginia, etc? Let’s see some real numbers not quesstimates.

    If there is a competitiveness issue that, say Iowa where half the kids are above average as better trained workforce, then give the corporations tax breaks for training people and individuals tax breaks for taking training on their own. I’ll bet that what individuals and businesses is more efficient and successful than government training by a factor of 4 to 1.

  4. Will Vehrs Avatar
    Will Vehrs

    As I see it, the fundamental issue is that the state has a very limited capacity to train workers for specific jobs. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different jobs out there. Rush to ramp up chip manufacturing jobs and the industry changes dramatically before the program is firmly established.

    The state needs to continue to emphasize basic skills and commitment to lifetime learning. A smart/skilled person can pick up the unique job skills at the employer’s location. Employers should be provided prime “raw material” in terms of a workforce that has strong basic, general skills. In turn, employers should train the workforce in their specific skills/processes. How much incentive should be provided these employers is an open question, but right now a favored few employers get effective state supported training, but the numbers are a drop in the bucket.

  5. Rtwng Extrmst Avatar
    Rtwng Extrmst

    My question is, if this is a significant problem (and I believe it is), what does that tell us about the state of our education system? Just what are we spending better than $10K per student in most cases in the public schools to be taught?

  6. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Combine Will’s post and JAB’s post and you come up with something along these lines: Government needs to get out of the business of “training” workers. If workers need training, then let their employers prescribe and pay for that training.

    In instances where workers are not employed, then the state is justified in helping out. But we would be better off just providing a voucher — ooo, that’s a bad word, let’s say, a G.I. Bill-like payment — to those who need to learn new skills that would make them employable. Then let the individual choose between innumerable options such as community colleges, career schools and private certification training programs.

  7. kingfish Avatar
    kingfish

    I am surprised this would be controversial. This is a pro-business proposition which enhances Virginia’s workforce competitive posture vis a vis our sister states.

  8. SouthoftheJames.com Avatar
    SouthoftheJames.com

    JAB is onto something – the record of government-driven training programs is mixed for the general workforce. However, this isn’t about kids, per se since community colleges and vocational education programs cover them. This issue is about unskilled or semiskilled adults or displaced workers. For those populations, the government programs are somewhat effective. One thing that is definitive is that shifting the welfare system to a workforce development model vs. income support model has worked. And, those initial “investments” in Welfare-to-Work are starting to pay dividends as the welfare caseload declines and that population develops more labor market fluidity.

    However, since the money is out there for this stuff on a federal level, it makes sense for the state to have a centralized system of managing it. Also, the more government merges workforce development into economic development, the better it will be able to respond to the needs of the “creative classes” and “human capital” that drives economic growth in the New Economy.

  9. Terry M. Avatar
    Terry M.

    Y’all really need to look at the broader picture of what has happened over the last two or three decades:

    In order to improve the bottom line, create greater share returns, and in response to massive layoffs, corporate America slashed training budgets. In response to this, there has been a growth of all sorts of training centers and companies devoted to workforce training. Those however cost money.

    Seeing what a good bargain it is to have somebody else pay, corporate America then turned to the state and demanded the state be responsible for workforce training through community colleges. Seeing how well this worked, more pressure was placed on four-year colleges to produce workforce-ready graduates…in other words, drop the stuff we don’t want and incorporate our training interests.

    Meanwhile, higher ed budgets get slashed because institutions can simply raise tuition and so no one is happy with the cost and the outcome of the products, in part because corporate America has been agitating for changes based on an argument that the colleges aren’t doing the right job.

    Meanwhile, the voucher-supported private institutions continue to do things the way they always have, with very little criticism, but still unable to point to aggregate results that are any better than those of the public sector.

    The reality is that in the new economy, relatively few people will ever receive “enough” education in their lifetime. If someone starts as a garbageman and stays in the one position for 30 or 40 years and retires, then they will be more the exception than the rule. Ongoing, evolving, lifetime-learning is going to be necessity for most people in order to keep up. Who should provide this? Who should pay for it? Phoenix is probably the best for-profit educator out there, but its prices are too high for most people.

    As a business person, if you can get the state to provide workforce training at no direct expense to you, than that is a better deal than providing it yourself or buying it from someone else who is going to make a profit along the way…the state never charges enough to profit.

    The community college system touches about 300,000 people each year in terms of traditional credit-based learning, and non-credit learning, covering the great bulk of jobs in the Commonwealth. 85% of its students are greater than 25 years old. its’ biggest problem is that it has insufficient space and is underfunded for the work done. In terms of scope, access, and all 40 locations, it is best positioned to provide most workforce training.

    However, workforce training still goes beyond what the VCCS can do…but no one else has really demonstrated that they can do it or as cheaply.

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