Strong Start, Strong Finish: An

Pre-K-to-Workforce Vision

for Alabama

The unemployment rate is very low—3.8 percent.

However, many Alabamians face barriers to education and workforce training, such as a lack of childcare or transportation, which lowers the labor force participation rate. Governor Ivey has set a post-secondary education attainment goal for Alabama of adding 500,000 highly-skilled employees to Alabama’s workforce by 2025 through the Success Plus plan.

The Governor has also set the goal of surpassing the national labor force participation rate by 2025 by braiding resources to help Alabamians overcome their barriers to education or employment.

Strong Start, Strong Finish: An Pre-K-to-Workforce Vision for Alabama • Governor Ivey has established a strategic vision for aligning Alabama’s

education and workforce programs from pre-k to the workforce to provide for a seamless education-to-workforce continuum for all Alabamians.

• The five Strong Start, Strong Finish benchmarks are: • 1) pre-k readiness to ensure that all of Alabama’s four-year-old’s

are prepared for an excellent early childhood education experience; • 2) school readiness to ensure that all of Alabama’s five and six-

year-olds enter kindergarten and first grade with advanced skills; • 3) literacy and numeracy by age eight to ensure that all of

Alabama’s students are prepared to persist through difficult coursework and remain invested in school in advanced grades;

• 4) career exploration and discovery so that all students understand how to connect their interests and aptitudes with academic skills they learn in the classroom and the many career opportunities that exist across Alabama—children cannot know what they want to be unless they have seen the possibilities;

• 5) college and/or career readiness so that all students graduate high school prepared to enter into postsecondary education or into an occupation within an in-demand, high-wage field.

A New Social Compact Predicated on Human Capital Development

• Alabama is committed to meeting the Alabama postsecondary attainment goal of adding 500,000 credential holders to the workforce and raising Alabama’s labor force participation rate to the national average by 2025 through human capital development and a renewed social compact for Alabamians.

• Using the combined 2020 WIOA plan and the Alabama Career Pathways Model, Alabama is working to establish a wage premium for individuals who presently are unable to enter the labor force due to barriers such as a lack of child care or transportation or disillusionment regarding the prospects of upward mobility.

• The career pathway model will provide a feedback loop between employers and employees that will signal to individuals who currently are not betting on work to take a chance on a competency-based career pathway. A currency of credentials of value will also signal progressive wage increases, upward mobility within a firm, and within and between industry sectors.

The Alabama 2020 Combined WIOA Plan• Governor Ivey will submit a new four-year Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act state

combined plan in February 2020.

• By braiding federal and state workforce and education funding streams to produce an education-to-workforce pipeline, Alabama’s workforce development system will permit entry into an in-demand career pathway for Alabamians in all seasons of life.

• The 2020 combined plan will provide multiple entry and exit points for special and disconnected populations, alignment between secondary and postsecondary CTE, and co-enrollment between adult education and postsecondary CTE.

• The combined state plan will take advantage of aligned definitions in WIOA and CTE, including “career pathways,” “sector strategies,” and “programs of study” to develop fully articulated career pathways in all 16 career clusters that begin with career exploration, transition to pre-apprenticeship, then culminate in a registered or industry-recognized apprenticeship.

Eliminating Barriers to Education and Workforce Training for Special Populations through WIOA and CTE

Special Population Share of Aggregate of Attainment Goal

Share of Aggregate Labor Force Participation Goal

Share of the 2020 Annual Attainment Target

Share of the 2020 Annual Labor Force Participation Target

Displaced homemaker

Caregiver

Adult with aging dependents

Unemployed or underemployed

Low-income

Indians, Alaskan Natives, Native Hawaiians

People with disabilities

Older individuals

Ex-offenders

Homeless individual

Youth who aged out of foster systemEnglish language learners

Individuals with low levels of literacyIndividuals with substantial cultural barriers

Migrant and seasonal farmworkersIndividuals nearing TANF exhaustionSingle parents

Long-term unemployed

Individuals preparing for non-traditional fields

Youth with parents in active duty military

Special Population Groups Population Estimate

Displaced Homemaker 280,438

Caregiver 114,157

Adult with Aging Dependents 134,990

Unemployed or Underemployed 83,565

Low-Income 849,699

Indians, Alaskan Natives, Native Hawaiians 27,311

People with Disabilities 775,390

Older Individuals 1,065,625

Ex-Offenders 15,224

Homeless Individuals 17,546

Youth Aged Out of Foster System 572

English Language Learners 20,725

Individuals with Low Levels of Literacy 48,998

Individuals with Substantial Cultural Barriers 106,217

Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers 18,266

Individuals Nearing TANF Exhaustion 8,565

Single Parents 178,243

Long-Term Unemployed 15,960

Individuals Preparing for Non-Traditional Fields

Youth with Parents in Active Duty Military 8,750

By June 30, 2020 the GOEWT will promulgate official attainment targets to track aggregate and annual progress towards the attainment goal and labor force participation goals for each special population at the state, regional, county, and career cluster levels.

The Alabama Terminal on Linking and Analyzing Statistics (ATLAS) on Career Pathways

Creating the Alabama College and Career Exploration Tool (ACCET)

The ACCET will be designed to serve as a one-stop digital dashboard, which will allow Alabamians to compare all college and career options before choosing a career pathway.

The ACCET will guide students through a digitally-delivered exploration and survey of the all 79 pathways within the 16 CTE industry clusters, an interest and career profile, and a graduation plan.

The ACCET will allow CTE concentrators to map career pathways that will lead to graduation with industry-recognized credentials, postsecondary credit, and work-based learning experience.

The ACCET will include a FAFSA completion and college application tool. Students will be able to access the WIOA eligible training provider list through the ACCET in order to receive WIOA funding for postsecondary education and training.

Employers will begin including recognized non-degree credentials in job descriptions and providing pay increases for attaining those credentials, which will reduce employee turnover and increase the productivity and skill-level of the workforce.

The Alabama Commission on Credentialing and Career Pathways

• The ACCCP, and its series of technical advisory committees composed of business and industry members representing each sector, will be responsible for determining the valuable career pathways in each region and for evaluating credentials and determining if they should be placed on the Alabama Compendium of Valuable Credentials—Alabama’s list of credentials of value.

Determining In-Demand Career Pathways• The Alabama Committee on Credentialing and Career Pathways shall be charged

with determining which career pathways are in-demand at the regional and state level. The characteristics of in-demand occupations include the following:

• The occupation must be at least seventy (70)-percent of the average regional wage for similar occupations;

• The education level for the occupation must require at least a high school diploma;

• The occupation must be considered in-demand and fast-growing based on an evaluation of job vacancy, short-term job projections, long-term job projections, and wage data; and

• The Alabama Committee on Credentialing and Career Pathways shall create a five-star rating system to rank each O*NET occupation code within each of the seventy-nine (79) career pathways.

Creating Competency Models for Each Valuable Career Pathway• No later than 30 June 2020, each of the sixteen (16) Technical Advisory Committees shall create

an industry competency model and competency-based career lattice for each O*NET occupation code within that Technical Advisory Committee’s career clusters and respective career pathways with three or more stars on a regional or statewide in-demand career pathways list.

• Each of the industry competency models and competency-based career lattices must include:

• A description of the progression of coursework and industry-recognized credentials needed to ascend from entry-level to higher-level jobs within the occupation;

• The sequence of personal effectiveness competencies, workplace competencies, industry-recognized technical competencies, sector-specific competencies, occupation-specific competencies, and management-level competencies in that occupation;

• The curricula, skills assessments, and certifications needed to develop incremental training modules as a sequence of courses leading to industry-recognized credentials or certifications that also progressively lead to a traditional postsecondary degree to provide participants with multiple points to enter and exit the training and education programs over the course of a career to earn progressively advanced certificates and credentials that lead to positions of increased responsibility and higher wages.

Alabama Career Pathways Competency Models

Initial Review begins with an application from a local school or industry group. The applications are

sorted by career cluster and assigned to one of the 16 TACs.

Certificates are placed in the secondary or postsecondary division; categorized as advanced or basic; and are categorized as complementary, regional, or statewide; Each TAC votes on its final list.

Credentials must meet a ten-point initial review test by the technical advisory

committee.

The ACCCP must vote to approve or reject each of the 16 TAC lists in whole (the ACCCP may not reject or approve individual credentials on the TAC lists. The approved TAC lists become the Alabama Compendium of Valuable Credentials.

Each TAC submits its approved list to the ACCCP for review.

The Alabama Compendium of Valuable Credentials is promulgated.

Developing the Alabama Compendium of Valuable Credentials

Registering Credentials through the ACCET• The Alabama College and Career Exploration Tool (ACCET) will be designed to serve

as a digital resume to display industry-recognized credentials and progress against established competency models.

• Credential information displayed through the ACCET will signal to employers that a worker or student possess the requisite skills for either an entry-level job or a progressive wage increase as a result of mastering the next competency within a stackable sequence.

• The ACCET will allow employers to auto-populate a list of the individuals who possess the credentials and competencies best suited for each job posting, which will reduce hiring costs and will incent employers to add credentials to job descriptions.

• Alabama is establishing a standardized protocol to inventory and publish credentials. The ATLAS on Career Pathways, the state’s P20W system, will serve as Alabama’s credential registry.

• As part of the process of vetting a credential for inclusion on the Alabama compendium of valuable credentials, the state’s list of credentials of value, relevant credential data will be published to the ATLAS on Career Pathways.

The Two-Pronged Alabama Career Pathways Model

Alabama is aligning programs funded by the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education (CTE) Act and the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act (WIOA) to establish the Two-Pronged Alabama Career Pathways Model, which which is based on post-secondary credential attainment, dual enrollment, and work-based learning.

Under the Pre-K to Workforce prong, students will participate in pre-apprenticeship programs aligned to a career in 9th and 10th grades, and will participate in youth registered apprenticeships and industry-recognized apprenticeships (IRAPs) in 11th and 12th grades. Graduates may earn their high school diploma, associate degree, industry-recognized credentials, and an apprenticeship credential at the time of high school graduation.

For the Postsecondary CTE to Workforce prong, through co-enrollment in adult education programs, postsecondary CTE programs, and WIOA Title I adult programs, adults and opportunity subgroups will be able to access braided programming to meet their education and training needs.

Alabama’s Two-Pronged Cthe ALabaaareerPathways Model Tthe

The Two-Pronged Alabama Career Pathways Model

• The U.S. Department of Labor allows registered apprenticeships programs to be approved by either the federal Office of Apprenticeship or a federally-recognized state apprenticeship agency.

• Alabama currently used the federal Office of Apprenticeship to certify its registered apprenticeships. However, Act 2019-506 establishes the Alabama Office of Apprenticeship (AOA) as Alabama state apprenticeship agency.

• The AOA will create a federally-recognized state apprenticeship credential, equivalent to the Department of Labor’s Registered Apprenticeship credential.

The Alabama Office of Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship Expansion• The Apprenticeship Alabama Tax Credit was enhanced by Act 2019-506 (SB295), to

provide a $500 additional credit for hiring in-school youth apprentices. The law also modifies the Apprenticeship Alabama Tax Credit to increase the base tax credit from $1,000 to $1,250, increases the number of apprentices one employer may claim from five to ten, and increases the aggregate tax credit cap from $3,000,000 to $7,500,000.

• Alabama received a $1.2 federal programmatic state apprenticeship expansion grant in June 2019. The Alabama legislature budgeted $1 million to offset the costs associated with dual enrollment course and credential fees for apprentices. The state apprenticeship expansion grant and the state investment will be coupled to implement the Alabama Career Promise Program.

• Governor Ivey received U.S. DOL approval to authorize local workforce development boards to award individual training accounts (ITAs) to in-school youth apprentices.

• The Alabama Career Promise Program will provide eligible apprentices with a two-course scholarship for a dual enrollment or community college course that is part of the apprentice’s related technical instruction. The program is designed to assist adult education students meet the ability to benefit requirement of successfully completing two courses before they may begin using the Pell Grant.

Creating the Alabama Industry-

Recognized and Registered

Apprenticeship Program

(AIRRAP)

• Beginning in 9th grade, students may participate in pre-apprenticeship programs aligned to in-demand career pathways.

• During 10th, 11th, and 12th grade, students will participate in youth registered apprenticeships and industry-recognized apprenticeships (IRAPs).

• AIRRAP graduates may graduate high school with a high school diploma; an associate degree; stackable, industry-recognized credentials; and an apprenticeship credential within a chosen in-demand career pathway.

• Adult learners co-enrolled in adult basic education and post-secondary CTE at our community colleges will be able to complete the same career pathways as in-school youth.