Technology Integration

Opportunity² - Basic Education and Workforce Development Partners Come Together to Plan for the Future of ABE

On January 5, 2004, Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners from the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC), the Texas Education Agency (TEA), the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), and the Texas Workforce Investment Council (TWIC) met with staff from the Governor's office to discuss and reach agreement on an outline for enhancing the Adult Basic Education (ABE)ⁱ system in Texas.

This event was a long time in the making. For almost a decade, there has been debate about whether ABE should focus its approach on delivering a broad curriculum focused on academic credentials and self-improvement or on providing coursework that assists adults in meeting more direct employment-related goals. This philosophical debate has taken place locally and has often been driven by state legislative activity in Austin. In 1995, the 75th Texas legislature envisioned adult basic education services as a part of the newly formed workforce commission created under House Bill 1863. Although the bill combined 28 programs from 10 agencies to create TWC, ABE remained at TEA due to conflicting language in another bill.ⁱⁱ This initial attempt to align ABE with workforce development began an earnest debate over the direction and leadership of ABE that was revisited repeatedly during each legislative session.

The January 5th agreement between education and workforce leadership has alleviated tensions between the agencies, creating an atmosphere in which the agencies can work together to create solutions that support both academic and employment outcomes for adult learners in Texas.

Support from a system's leadership is critical to facilitate enhancement and change. It has consistently been a challenge to find support for ABE at all levels of the educational systems, including equal represen- tation from school superintendents, community college deans, and within state education agencies, where ABE is often viewed as a small program within institutions that have more pressing priorities. The January 5th meeting brought the highest levels of state leadership together for ABE.

This collaborative process to develop a strategy for enhancing ABE began a year and half earlier as a charge of the Joint Advisory Committee (JAC), a group that was responsible for providing state level guidance on education and workforce preparation. While the JAC reconfigured in legislation passed last May, TWC Commissioner Ron Lehman, who sat on the JAC, revived the interagency discussion on ABE system enhancement in October 2003 by reconvening meetings with Deputy Commissioner Robert Scott (TEA) and Commissioner Don Brown (THECB) to establish a plan for ABE system enhancement.

The paper, Adult Basic Education in Texas - Architecture for System Change, agreed upon on January 5th represents a starting place for state and local education and work-force agencies to put into action collaborations, strategies, and special projects that will bring value to the students and stakeholders of the ABE system.

The paper presents one goal on which the ABE system must focus: Increased Results Through Improved Performance.

Improve Adult Basic Education (ABE) system outcomes and performance for direct customers (students) and other stakeholders (employers, local workforce boards, and communities). Ensure that funding is directly linked to participant outcomes.

This goal will be addressed by implementing four broad strategies:

Collaboratively Plan at both the state and local levels;

Segment Customers and Increase Service Options so students can access learning alternatives that more directly meet their needs;

Increase Employer Access and Utilize Industry Sector Approaches to align learning opportunities for students looking for employment that fulfills the needs of employers; and

Provide Intensive Professional Development to ensure that both education and workforce entities are prepared to deliver on these strategies.

Progress has already been made to implement initiatives that address these four strategies.

Collaborative state and local planning has already occurred on a number of fronts since the January 5th meeting.

Curriculum Development Initiative
The agencies have been actively collaborating to implement the development of a demand-driven workplace literacy and basic skills curriculum required under Senate Bill 280, Article V, passed during the last Texas legislative session. This curricula will involve local level collaboration between education providers, employers, and workforce development boards. The goal of the legislation is to develop curricula "aimed at assisting local workforce development boards to equip workers and job seekers with the skills necessary to compete for current and emerging jobs in this state." Therefore, providers will be better positioned to offer courses connected to the training needs of employers to those ABE students who are looking for employment outcomes.

Meetings with Stakeholders
TWC and Texas LEARNS staff have made joint conference presentations, including sessions at the TWC Planning Conference and at the Texas Association for Literacy and Adult Education Conference, to inform both ABE and workforce networks that a new level of cooperation is occurring between the agencies. These presentations have been aimed at both informing stakeholders and facilitating discussion on what education and workforce development providers need in order to work better together. These events have already resulted in strengthening collaborations at the local level between workforce and ABE entities. For example, in February the Golden Crescent Workforce Development Board and Victoria Community College ABE Department scheduled meetings to discuss new ways that each organization can work together to increase their capacity to meet the needs of their shared community.

State and Local Advisory Groups
Collaboration between education and workforce partners is also occurring between the state and local advisory groups overseen by Texas LEARNS. Historically, these types of groups were comprised primarily of representatives from ABE and Literacy. Recognizing the value that a more diverse membership can bring, Texas LEARNS has dedicated membership positions on both state and local advisory groups to TWC staff and representatives from the Local Workforce Development Boards. The Texas Adult Education Advisory Board has agency-level representation from TWC, and the recently selected Regional Centers of Excellence will have representatives from the Local Workforce Development Boards on their Regional Advisory Committees.

State level planning activities, such as the development of the new State Plan for ABE, will be coordinated with TWC. Additionally, the Regional Centers of Excellence will provide professional development, in part, dedicated to creating stronger linkages between ABE and the workforce system. This representation from workforce partners will help ensure that ABE services are better coordinated so that both academic and employment goals are effectively met.

Joint Training
While the Regional Centers of Excellence are being established this winter, integrated professional development for ABE and the workforce staff has already occurred. In February and March, TWC funded two conferences in Victoria and San Angelo on Learning Disabilities (LD) to which the ABE provider network was invited. The goal of this joint training was to better ensure that customers with learning disabilities find stronger, interconnected employment and educational services.

Recommendations in a recent report to the Governor's office on ABE in Texasⁱⁱⁱ by the Texas Workforce Investment Council stated, in part, that the ABE system should "develop a shared adult education identity and priorities through the formalization and implementation of cross-agency planning." Reflecting on the accomplishments that have already been achieved, it appears that adult educators and workforce development partners in Texas are well on their way to addressing these recommendations together.

i In this article, Adult Basic Education (ABE) is used generally to refer to all programs funded under the Workforce Investment Act, Title II.

ii Texas Legislative Council staff cited in the Sunset Advisory Commission Staff Report, May 2002. This conflicting language was recently corrected in Senate Bill 280 passed during the 78th legislative session.

iii A First Look at Critical Issues Surrounding Adult Education and Literacy in Texas. Texas Workforce Investment Council, December 2003.

Anson Green is the Workforce Adult Literacy Coordinator for the Texas Workforce Commission where he oversees implementation of various employment-focused literacy efforts including workplace literacy and e-learning initiatives, curriculum development, and learning disabilities training for workforce center staff. Before his work at TWC, Anson taught developmental reading for Northwest Vista College in San Antonio where he also developed computer literacy and English as a Second Language programs. In 2000, Anson was a research fellow at the National Institute for Literacy where he completed an extensive study on the impacts of domestic violence on the educational and employment achievement of women. In 1998, Anson was voted Teacher of the Year by the Texas Association of Literacy and Adult Education.