Arkansas, Workforce Pell funding apprenticeship, and $7.2 billion in grants listings.
Plus, an uninspiring congressional week on workforce, and is Alabama history's greatest state for American workforce development?
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Behind today’s paywall.
Hey, dude, what’s up with Arkansas and apprenticeship?
How to kinda sorta try to make Workforce Pell work with apprenticeship?
Trying to make one of the blackest boxes of workforce funding a hair more translucent.
Toplines.
News you should know about money and things getting people to work.
The Workforce Pell-ening continues apace.
Because of a sick kiddo, Hill hearings, and technical difficulties, I didn’t get to spend the amount of time I expected this week watching the Workforce Pell hearings. However, I have reinforced my belief that Sing 2 is an excellently structured film and a vast improvement upon the original.
Luckily, for non-Illumination animated feature news, we have Wesley Whistle’s excellent newsletter on Workforce Pell. Based on those writeups and what I have heard, a couple things stand out to me. Behind the paywall, I have a little bit more on the aspiration that Registered Apprenticeship align with Workforce Pell—and why I have significant doubts about that.
Ed knows very few programs can meet Workforce Pell requirements.
Wesley says:
ED opened with a data presentation estimating that only “several hundred to a few thousand” programs nationwide might qualify. That uncertainty comes from one big reason: Federal data doesn’t include many 8–15 week, noncredit, or clock-hour workforce programs with the exception of some that are eligible for the short-term loan program.
Not great!
It seems like Ed won’t make this easier on anyone.
Ed officials “emphasized that Workforce Pell’s statutory requirements are distinct from WIOA,” per Wesley. I’m not sure how much choice Ed had based on the statutory requirements, which are annoyingly definitive, but these systems ought talk to each other quite a bit. That they don’t is going to make this hard to implement and make it much more difficult to blend these dollars with other programs, something that the Administration likes to emphasize.
States really need to organize now to streamline their Workforce Pell approval process.
Governors have to bless programs’ eligibility on the front end. Wesley’s readout indicates this could be quite a mess.
I’ll caution that I haven’t spoken with every state, but I do think governors’ offices are already behind on the organizational lift and may not understand how much of this work rides on them. To maximize eligibility, you need a straight-line (and minimal-step) approval process from program to governors’ office, and I don’t see that anywhere just yet. Nor do I think that anything helpful is going to come from these hearings that give states reasons to wait.
Congress talks workforce, doesn’t say much.
I think my main takeaway from a fairly beige week of congressional workforce hearings is this: based on the number of residents who have testified to the Hill this year, Alabama is the Greatest State in the Universe for Workforce Development.
Half of the witnesses at Tuesday’s Senate hearing were from my home state, which certainly owes to Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville leading the subcommittee holding the hearing. Alabama also came up during Wednesday’s House hearing on learning and employment records that verify a worker has skills from job to job. Alabama, of course, has a very well-publicized skills marketplace.
Beyond the greatness of Alabama workforce people, I don’t feel like we got much this week in the way of clues as to rather consequential regulatory and funding questions ahead of Congress on these issues. (Although Chelle Travis, a Senate HELP witness, did note how little the United States spends on workforce development.) Nor did I come away with the impression that Congress is invested in these issues beyond platitudes, although Tuberville did add some urgency.
“If we don’t address [workforce] in the next year or so, we won’t be able to build a residential home or a commercial building,” said Tuberville, a former college football coach who noted that he has “worked for years in higher educational programs” in a later part of the hearing. “It won’t happen because we don’t have the skilled labor.”
A few observations and questions:
Can Congress get past the quick fixes that might not fix too much?
Dr. Chris Cox, a deputy chancellor for the Alabama community college system, talked about two-week programs that lead to jobs, as well as commercial driver’s licenses and a program bringing people into the hospitality industry on the Gulf Coast.
It was interesting because one of the biggest complaints about the systems set up by Congress is that they are too focused on quick fix programs that don’t really set up workers for long-term careers or living wages. I have heard plenty of voices in the field frustrated by how often CDL programs get pushed on workers even though the jobs aren’t always there. Those jobs also could be at a significant risk of elimination due to automation.
Cox also talked about programs in Alabama that connect workers to jobs at Piggly Wiggly butcher counters. As an avid appreciator of The Pig that Wigs, that’s cool. Yet, an analysis by my Robot Research Assistant indicated that those jobs also pay around $11,000 below the living wage of $42,600 per year. If Congress holds on workforce funding levels that don’t meet the challenge, or cuts them, it’s worth asking if the workforce system should focus on higher-paying jobs.
Democrats remain the only ones really talking about the Ed-DOL marriage. They’re not always leading with the bigger concerns.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., spent a significant part of his time for questions describing how the Trump Administration didn’t talk to Congress enough about moving much of the Department of Education into the Department of Labor. He eventually mentioned that Ed grantees have struggled to access funds—before circling back and saying that he’s not necessarily opposed to the move.
Neat.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., had more interesting questions ahead of her complaining about the Administration not talking to Congress, noting that it’s strange that DOL is now overseeing preschool programs and asking about increased costs caused by the Ed-DOL marriage. She urged that the Senate HELP Committee look into these issues, which Tuberville didn’t respond to.
Dems are still caught up on a not-great workforce bill.
Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., called for Republicans to help bring back the A Stronger Workforce for America Act. I wrote about the problems with that bill—politically and functionally—here.
OK…
Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., argued that learning and employment records would help make up for versions of college that no longer teach helpful skills and instead let young people major in things like gender studies before they get hired at Starbucks.
Neat. He also noted he has dim expectations on the return on investment of an MBA.
Separately, Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, described learning and employment records as important as the first flight of the Wright Brothers, argued they could lead to a world where workers retire in their forties, and appropriately enough, closed the hearing by talking about a conversation with former Alabama coach Nick Saban on recruiting players.1 Because workforce, like the SEC circa 2008 through 2023, runs through Alabama.
Congress still thinks apprenticeship is good.
It doesn’t seem to have much of a plan for moving it along, however.
This week’s grants listings number: $7.2 billion.
I added a few January-closing state and local grant opportunities.