Turnaround Ohio is the Strickland/Fisher strategy to move our state in the right direction. The plan aims to keep and grow the jobs we have by investing in Ohio’s strengths, such as energy production, innovation and entrepreneurship, and the plan will bring the jobs of the future by making sure Ohio has the most-educated workforce possible—because, in the future, jobs will go where the workforce is best educated.
The third Turnaround Ohio proposal, Learning for Life: Skills for High-Quality Jobs, aims to help meet one of the plan’s most important goals: making sure workers have access to lifelong education and that employers have access to well-trained workers.
Businesses tell us that the biggest obstacle they face in expanding and growing is their ability to attract and retain highly skilled and motivated employees. We need to face facts, and get Ohioans ready for the jobs of the 21st century. Ohio has 1.4 million adults with less than a high school diploma and an additional 1 million with some college, but no degree.
More than 60% of jobs that our businesses will create by the year 2012 will require some college education. Census data shows that just two years of education, such as an associate’s degree, is worth $400,000 to an adult who pursues additional education. And, as Ohio’s economy continues its transition to a service and knowledge-oriented economy, recent SBA studies show that higher rates of educational attainment will result in higher small business survival rates.
Ohio spends about $400 million a year on adult and workforce education and training. Our investments should be reaping tremendous rewards for our state, and helping us to create jobs, stimulate new business development and help companies to better meet the global competition of new markets. But they are not.
Far too many adult Ohioans find it daunting to return to school. And, as a result, far too many adult Ohioans don’t have the skills to meet the needs of today’s or tomorrow’s workplace. We know that participation in high quality skills training, certification and post-secondary education will boost the incomes and job prospects for every Ohioan. We must make such opportunities available to all of our citizens.
We need a workforce development system in this state that is demand driven. Ohio must support sectors of the economy that are growing good jobs at a rapid pace. Our policies must engage aggressively with businesses to support them and build networks to grow the economy in Ohio’s areas of strength: logistics, information, advanced manufacturing, health and early care, energy. And, in return, companies must provide workers living wages and career ladders that provide advancement in skills and responsibilities.
The record of other states such as Illinois, Georgia and North Carolina shows us that common sense investments in a system of workforce training and skills development will bring rewards to our state.
If Ohio had a well-functioning workforce development system, workers who want to return to school for training and education would be successfully getting the support they need. Businesses would be successfully locating employees—even moving here to Ohio—to get access to highly-skilled workers. Critical skills gaps would be quickly identified, and new programs would be developed to meet those needs. And programs which are underutilized and vacant would be reduced or eliminated. We can say few of these things about our workforce development system today.
All of the initiatives in this proposal can be funded entirely out of current state and federal funding sources, and require no new GRF revenues. What we need to do is make more effective use of the resources already available to us.
In particular, we need to maximize use of federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and Rapid Response funds. Ohio ranks 51st of 52 states and territories in its use of federal WIA funds. According to the US Department of Labor, Ohio only spends 59% of what the federal government has allocated for workforce training, leaving over $75 million on the table. In 2006, Ohio has $17 million on hand in Rapid Response funds that have gone unused. Clearly, money is not the issue with Ohio’s workforce training program. Lack of leadership is.
We can do better. We know how to link workforce training and education initiatives to business development priorities. We know how to start closing the jobs and economic development gap. We know how to invest the state’s scarce resources to maximize economic return to taxpayers. But for too long, we’ve simply lacked the leadership needed to make it happen.
In order that every adult working Ohioan has access to the training resources and skills they need to secure a high quality job that will pay a living wage, we need to get Ohioans ready for jobs, and jobs ready for Ohioans. As governor, Ted Strickland will:
Getting Jobs Ready for Ohioans: Aggressively use Ohio’s workforce development system to support Ohio’s growth industries with high quality jobs.
Provide an Ohio Workforce Guarantee. For every business that creates more than 20 quality jobs per year, a Strickland administration would make available free customized training and education through our community colleges and technical colleges, in collaboration, where appropriate, with our adult career centers. From the perspective of the employee, training provided through the Ohio Workforce Guarantee will lead towards a credential to advance them through their career path. For existing businesses training incumbent workers that don’t meet this job creation measure, we will continue to provide them with the Ohio Training Tax Credit and other ways to support their workforce investment. This program will cost about $13.5-15 million a year to implement.
Target training resources to industries that provide high growth and good jobs. Direct workforce training programs to high growth industry sectors and clusters that are producing Ohio’s high quality jobs, such as logistics, manufacturing, technology, health care, early care and education or teaching.
Develop the Ohio Skills Bank Program. Through a competitive grants process, provide significant flexible funding to regional industry sector training consortia to provide skills training and support to industry sectors facing critical skills shortages. This will be funded through WIA discretionary funding.
Create a curriculum that counts. Support community and technical colleges and Ohio’s adult career centers to develop credit courses to boost entrepreneurship and business survival skills geared to small business owners, managers and workers. By reusing curriculum that has already been developed by colleges such as Lorain Community College and Cuyahoga Community College, and making it available through online distance learning, we believe that this will cost $5 million.
Getting Ohioans Ready for Jobs: Make Ohio’s workforce development system easy to use for those who most need it – Ohioans who want to learn, and Ohio businesses that need skilled workers.
Establish the “Ohio Open Door Card.” Because nothing opens doors in life like a quality education, a Strickland administration will issue an “Ohio Open Door Card” to every Ohio adult learner. The card will show in one place all their learning accomplishments, while opening the door to every funding source each individual qualifies for. Learners will be able to use this one card to access the maximum state and federal benefits possible to support their learning at the institution of their choice. And the card will allow counselors and advisors to focus on the needs of their clients, not learning an arcane and complicated system. The card would be made available to Ohio adult learners at every state-funded training provider: community and technical colleges, adult career centers, career-technical centers, One-Stop Career Centers, and other job training programs. Development of this information system will be funded through the administrative functions across the 4 agencies and 15 programs that currently comprise Ohio’s workforce training system.
Fully implement and expand AccelerateOhio, a free, entry level certificate that will certify to employers that Ohioans have the skills to get and keep a good job, and help give adult learners confidence in their ability to get a promotion, complete college or certification or move into another career track. The training and certification should be available online through Ohio’s career and technical education centers, adult workforce career centers, high school career centers, community and technical colleges, WIA One-Stops, literacy community-based organizations. This will cost approximately $20-25 million per year.
Expand online and distance learning. A Strickland administration would seek to double funding to boost Ohio’s use of online and distance learning technologies. Highly-motivated students will be able to customize their educational experiences and earn college credit and other credentials through online, distance learning or other flexible course arrangements designed to meet the needs of busy adults holding fulltime jobs and raising families. This will be approximately $12 million a year.
Use the bully pulpit to enlist business in our goals to encourage lifelong learning. Using gubernatorial leadership, a Strickland administration will marshal the resources to enlist business in our goals to boost Ohio’s educational attainment. Many of the individuals in most need of basic literacy training are employed in a handful of industries, such as local government services, hospitality and retail. Develop a partnership program with these employers to give them full access to an online curriculum for workplace literacy skills, giving every Ohioan a “hand up” to a better opportunity. This will require no GRF funding.
Make Ohio’s workforce development system a system that works. We invest $400 million a year on workforce development and education and training in this state. A Strickland administration will ensure we get what we pay for.
Open the doors of education. Develop a clear pipeline that helps Ohioans understand how to successfully move from where they are, to the more advanced skills and opportunities they desire. Make every door the “right door” by creating a single entry point to the entire adult education and workforce system using an information system that will unify our workforce development system across 4 cabinet agencies and 15 programs. Ohio’s workforce development system must be easy to access and easy to use, improving articulation and transfer, and making the entire system seamless and accessible to all. This is what the Ohio Open Door Card will do.
Help good jobs and qualified Ohioans find each other. A Strickland administration will use the best technology available to develop a first-class job matching system that successfully links Ohio businesses with qualified graduates and workers to fill their skills gaps, and provides job opportunities for its citizens. The current state job-matching system that unemployed Ohio workers are forced to use shows only a fraction of the jobs that available to them. For instance, as of March 3, 2006, the system listed 3.211 job openings. But private sector web engines show that there are 39,000 job openings in Ohio. In Stark County, the system shows that there are 17 jobs open in that region; another web engine tells us that there are 4,676 job openings in Stark County. Ohio can do better than that.
Provide quality workforce data to Ohio businesses. A Strickland administration will leverage better information tools to drive Ohio’s workforce market. Ohio’s workforce development system should be able to seamlessly track either a business’s workforce need or an adult learner across multiple institutions, and allow them to access the maximum state and federal benefits possible to support their learning through their “Ohio Open Door Card”. The governor and every CEO in Ohio should be able to use a real-time “dashboard” showing what matters most in our economy: how many Ohioans are seeking and finding the jobs they need, and how many businesses are meeting their workforce needs quickly and efficiently.
Consolidate and strengthen Ohio’s workforce training system by rationalizing administration and funding of major adult education and workforce development programs at the state level. A single state agency should coordinate policies, funding, support mechanisms, and performance indicators for ABLE and GED programs, adult workforce education, and community and technical colleges.
SOURCES OF FUNDING:
These initiatives will be funded entirely out of current state and federal funding sources, and require no new GRF revenues. In particular, a Strickland administration will ensure Ohio maximizes its federal WIA and Rapid Response funds. Ohio ranks 51st of 52 states and territories in its use of federal WIA funds. According to the US Department of Labor, Ohio only spends 59% of what the federal government has allocated for workforce training, leaving over $75 million on the table. In 2006, Ohio has $17 million on hand in Rapid Response funds that have gone unused.
In addition, A Strickland administration will:
Optimize use of Federal Perkins funding support for non-credit courses, whether at adult career centers, community and technical colleges.
Use WIA discretionary funding to establish and fund the Ohio Skills Bank program for regional skills collaboratives ($10-15 million), as well as the Accelerate Ohio certificate ($20-25 million).
Use WIA administrative funding to support development of new management information tools to better operate and monitor the system.
Achieve administrative cost efficiencies by eliminating waste and duplication in antiquated information systems, and improving productivity.
REFERENCES:
“Average Isn’t Enough: Advancing Working Families to Create an Outstanding Ohio Economy”, Community Research Partners, November 2004
Ohio Organizational Survey on Services and Partnerships for Adult Postsecondary Education and Training, DVP-PRAXIS, for KnowledgeWorks Foundation, August 2005
Analysis in Support of Ohio Bridges to Opportunity Program, National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, Knowledge Works Foundation, October 2005
Ohio Job Outlook to 2012, Labor Market Information Service, ODJFS, State of Ohio
“Keeping America’s Promise”, Education Commission of the States and League for Innovation in the Community College, 2005