[Senate Hearing 110-789]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-789
MAKING THE CONNECTION: CREATING PATHWAYS
TO CAREER SUCCESS FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF WORKERS
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE SAFETY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
EXAMINING WAYS TO BETTER EDUCATE AND TRAIN THE NEXT GENERATION OF
WORKERS TO CREATE PATHWAYS TO CAREER SUCCESS
__________
NOVEMBER 28, 2007
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
senate
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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming,
TOM HARKIN, Iowa JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire
BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
PATTY MURRAY, Washington JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
JACK REED, Rhode Island LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
BARACK OBAMA, Illinois PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma
J. Michael Myers, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Katherine Brunett McGuire, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety
PATTY MURRAY, Washington, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
TOM HARKIN, Iowa RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
BARACK OBAMA, Illinois WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming (ex
(ex officio) officio)
William Kamela, Staff Director
Glee Smith, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
__________
STATEMENTS
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2007
Page
Wakefield, Jill, President, South Seattle Community College...... 1
Murray, Hon. Patty, Chairman, Subcommittee on Employment and
Workplace Safety, opening statement............................ 2
Stadelman, Kris, CEO, Workforce Development Council of Seattle-
King County, Seattle, WA....................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Aultman, John, Assistant Superintendent, Career and College
Readiness, Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction,
Olympia, WA.................................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Bender, Rick S., President, Washington State Labor Council,
Seattle, WA.................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 13
Allen, David E., Vice President of Market, McKinstry Company,
Seattle, WA.................................................... 13
Prepared statement........................................... 14
Veliz, Carlos, CEO, PCSI Design, Bothell, WA..................... 16
Osborn, J.D., In Demand Scholar, Snohomish, WA................... 18
Prepared statement........................................... 18
Nash, Meisha, Student, New Market Skills Center, Tumwater, WA.... 19
Gulliot, Don, Secretary-Treasurer, Washington State Association
of Electrical Workers, Seattle, WA............................. 20
Harrison, David, Chair, Washington's Workforce Training and
Education Coordinating Board, Olympia, WA...................... 21
Prepared statement........................................... 22
Drewel, Bob, Executive Director, Puget Sound Regional Council,
Seattle, WA.................................................... 24
Prepared statement........................................... 26
Seaman, Terry, Vice President, Seidelhuber Iron & Bronze Works,
Inc., Seattle, WA.............................................. 27
Steinhoff, David, Electrician's Apprentice, Sumner, WA........... 27
Prepared statement........................................... 28
Mitchell, Charles H., Chancellor, Seattle Community College
District, Seattle, WA.......................................... 28
Prepared statement........................................... 30
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.:
Dave Johnson, Executive Secretary, Washington State Building
& Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO..................... 54
Pat Martinez Johnson, King County Work Training Program...... 55
Bob Markholt, Program Director, Seattle Vocational Institute
Pre-Apprenticeship Construction Training (SVI PACT)........ 56
Shepherd Siegel, Seattle Public Schools...................... 59
Linda Tieman, RN, MN, FACE, Executive Director, Washington
Center for Nursing......................................... 62
Letter to Senator Murray from Terry Seaman................... 65
(iii)
MAKING THE CONNECTION: CREATING
PATHWAYS TO CAREER FOR THE NEXT
GENERATION OF WORKERS
----------
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2007
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety, Committee
on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Seattle, WA.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:28 a.m. in
South Seattle Community College, Olympic Hall, Room 120,
Seattle, Washington, Hon. Patty Murray, chairman of the
subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senator Murray.
STATEMENT OF JILL WAKEFIELD, PRESIDENT, SOUTH SEATTLE COMMUNITY
COLLEGE, SEATTLE, WA
Ms. Wakefield. I'll stand close to my microphone. Good
morning. My name is Jill Wakefield, and I serve as president at
South Seattle Community College. As I have reminded myself, I
did a quick check--about five times, I've done a quick check to
make sure that my cell phone is off, so some of you might want
to do the same thing, just to double check.
On behalf of our faculty, our staff and students, I'm
pleased to welcome U.S. Senator Patty Murray to this field
hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workforce
Safety, which Senator Murray chairs.
As we try to tackle the needs in our global economy,
Senator Murray has been a leader on education and workforce
issues for Washington State and for the Nation. She's been a
champion for our students and for preparing them for the jobs
for the future. She works tirelessly to ensure that the needs
of our employers are met so that our local economy can continue
to grow and thrive. I believe that some of this commitment may
have come from her experience and leadership at Shoreline
Community College, providing her with great preparation as a
Washington State Senator and now in the U.S. Senate, where she
is our senior Senator, serving her third term.
We're especially honored to host this hearing at South
Seattle, because we are very active in today's topic of
creating pathways to career success. In September, 2 months
ago, we began our first RN program, one that started several
years ago as a CNA program that led to an LPN program, and now
we have the third piece, the component of that, the RN program.
Almost 90 percent of those students are English-language
learners. This fall, we also started our bachelor of applied
science degree program in hospitality management, making it
possible to start in the laundry room and work up to the
boardroom, building on high school and community college
culinary, hospitality, and business programs, providing
pathways to higher-level employment.
Senator Murray also is a strong supporter of our
apprenticeship program, where South provides one-third of the
State's apprenticeship training down at our campus at
Georgetown. Most recently, we're taking leadership in providing
green technology for building trades.
We're so honored that you're here to lead this discussion
of solutions as we move together to create a bright future for
our community and our residents. Welcome, Senator Murray.
Opening Statement of Senator Murray
Senator Murray. Thank you very much.
Well, with that, this official hearing will be called to
order. First, Jill, let me thank you very much, for you and
your tremendous team here at South Seattle Community College,
for being very gracious hosts for our very first field hearing
of the Senate Employment and Workplace Safety Subcommittee.
Let me also thank all of our witnesses who are taking time
out of busy schedules to be here today to join us in this very
important discussion on how we can better educate and train a
new generation of workers.
Before I begin, I want to give a brief explanation of the
procedure that we're following here today. This is an official
U.S. Senate hearing, and, because of that, we have to follow
the same procedures that we would be using at a hearing that
would be held in Washington, DC. That means that our testimony
this morning is limited to the invited witnesses, and that we
have a court reporter here, who is creating a formal record of
our proceedings. Unfortunately, what that also means is that we
are not allowed to take questions or comments from the audience
during the hearing, but I do want to make sure that everyone
here has an opportunity to share their view, if they so desire.
We do have comment forms that are available for all of you,
if you would like to fill them out. I have a number of staff
members who are here with me, as well. If you have an
additional comment or question or some issue that you would
like to add, please feel free to find one of our staff
members--there is a desk outside, where you can locate them and
give them your additional comments. We are interested in all of
your questions and comments, so please make sure to take the
time to do that, if you are in the audience today.
I also want to encourage all of you, if you are interested,
to visit my official Web site. You can use that to sign up for
updates on education and other critical issues that we're
working on in the U.S. Senate. There's a lot of information
there, and we invite you to look at that Web site and use that
as an access point, as well.
Again, I have a number of staff members here, and encourage
you to contact them afterwards if you would like to provide
additional information.
Let me begin this hearing by saying that I have traveled
intensively around the State, and I've had the opportunity to
talk to workers, employers, teachers, students and families
about Washington State's education and workforce needs. I was
up in Bellingham recently, and I heard from our shipbuilders
that they are desperate for workers in the shipbuilding
industry. There are a lot of contracts out there they'd like to
bid on, the work is there, but they are limited by the fact
that they don't have enough workers to be able to build those
ships here in the Puget Sound region.
I was talking to some leaders in Spokane recently who are
trying to develop some of their infrastructure, highways and
bridges, critical to the economic development there. They were
limited by the fact that they couldn't get enough construction
workers to actually do those jobs. I'm also hearing a lot about
an emerging need for skilled workers here for the green jobs
that are going to be available in the near future. There are a
wide range of other highly skilled jobs that are in demand all
across our region. It's become very clear to me from all of
these experiences that, in order for our State, our economy and
our communities to remain strong, we have to focus on the
connections between secondary education, higher education, and
workforce development. I believe it's time to create a seamless
system to help all of our students go on to successful careers
while also meeting the needs for skilled workers here in our
region. I know this work can't be done individually, but,
rather, all of us have to come together to help our students
navigate their way from high school to postsecondary education
and on to careers. That will help us ensure that our State's
workforce needs are met, and it will make sure that our
students are prepared to get the jobs that will be out there in
the future.
Today, we are taking the first step by coming together. The
partnerships I hope we develop here will be the engine that
drives that effort. In fact, to reinforce the importance of
building these partnerships, I decided to break away from the
traditional format for a congressional hearing that would have
panels in front of us with individual witness statements and
formalities. Instead, what I decided to do was have this more
informal roundtable format that I think will provide us all
with an opportunity to listen, learn and to share the
tremendous wealth of experience that we have here today.
Right now, the United States is struggling to address the
gap that exists between the need for a highly skilled workforce
and the shortage of highly skilled workers. Our Nation is also
struggling to make sure that students stay in school and
graduate prepared to enter college and the workforce. Today
here in Washington State, there are about 87,000 job
vacancies--87,000 job vacancies--but we have over 145,000
people who are unemployed and looking for work. We also know
that in past generations workers often only needed a high
school education to secure a good-paying job. Today, we know
that 70 percent of the new jobs being created require a college
education, and that percentage is likely to increase and rise
in the future as the United States continues to transition from
a manufacturing- to an information-based economy. Each of us
recognizes that in the global economy, the path to economic
success depends on education. Currently, though, many of our
students are struggling. For every 100 ninth-grade students in
the State of Washington, only 70 of them will graduate from
high school in 4 years. About half of all African-American and
Hispanic ninth-graders leave school without a diploma. Half.
Almost 10 percent of Washington State teens between 16 and 19
are not enrolled in school and are not working. Most new jobs
and almost all family-wage jobs require at least some education
and training beyond high school, even at the entry level.
Students need both academic learning and career skills in order
to succeed in our global economy.
Thomas Friedman has described this new global economic
connectedness as a flattened world. This new, flat, competitive
landscape requires that our students here in Washington State
and our youth across the country are more highly educated than
our youth from the past, and not only must our young people be
more knowledgeable when they start their work lives, they must
have the capability to continue learning throughout their life.
Undoubtedly workforce and education issues are interconnected.
I believe, as I said earlier, it will take partnerships, like
those we're going to hear about today, involving all of our
major stakeholders to find solutions to Washington's education
and workforce development needs.
As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and
Workplace Safety, and as a former teacher, parent, and now a
grandparent, I continue to be concerned about how we best
address this critical issue. I know we have to provide options
to students, options that raise the expectations for their
learning and support them in achieving progress. That's why
we're here today: to learn about the options that are serving
our students here in Washington State, to hear from those
involved in providing academic and occupational learning to our
students, to highlight the economic demands in our State, to
explore the needs in our workforce, and to further the effort
to provide our young people with multiple pathways to success.
We have an exceptional group of experts here today, and I
know each one of them brings a very unique perspective to the
table, and I look forward to hearing the contributions of each
and every one of you. Thank you, again, for participating in
this morning's hearing.
At this time, I'm going to turn to our distinguished
panelists and ask each one of them to introduce themselves and
to provide some introductory remarks.
We're going to start on my far right. Kris, if you want to
introduce yourself, make your remarks, then we will continue
around the table. I'll have some additional questions, and I
hope our discussion will follow.
So, Kris, why don't you introduce yourself and begin.
STATEMENT OF KRIS STADELMAN, CEO, WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
OF SEATTLE-KING COUNTY, SEATTLE, WA
Ms. Stadelman. Good morning. I'm Kris Stadelman, and I'm
the CEO of the Workforce Development Council for Seattle and
King County.
The first thing I want to do is thank the Senator. I
appreciate the invitation today. I'm greatly honored to be
here. I so appreciate you having a hearing on this key topic
right now. I know that, as Jill Wakefield said earlier, that
our Senator, Senator Murray, is a leader in this field, but I
just want to reiterate that, among my peers, the Workforce
Investment Board of Directors from around the country, I'm
envied because we have Senator Murray here in our State, and I
want to personally thank her for the millions of dollars in
Department of Labor grant funding that she has assisted us in
receiving; most recently, a $3-million wire grant for the State
of Washington, and, just a couple of weeks ago, $2 million for
King County to serve youth offenders. I greatly appreciate
that. Thank you.
[Applause.]
Ms. Stadelman. The Workforce Development Council is a
private, nonprofit, mostly federally funded. What we do, we
have a Board of Directors that scans the environment and looks
at the gap between labor supply and demand, and tries to work
with education, organized labor, and employers to fill that
gap. One of our main functions is to prepare Washington State's
youth for careers. We need to do that in two ways. We need to
ensure we have a skilled workforce to meet the needs of
employers, and we need to find ways of ensuring that youth have
access to a path for economic security and family self-
sufficiency.
At the Board, we address these goals by partnering with the
private sector to bring youth into contact with the world of
work and to promising careers. I want to say that I think,
along the path, somehow, of looking at the new world and how we
need a skilled workforce to be globally competitive, we focused
on those high-end jobs, those B.A. degrees and master's degrees
and Ph.D.s at the high end for research and development, and
maybe we've lost sight of the fact that career and technical
education is also key to economic success, also key to having a
strong middle class. I think in many of our high schools, we
have seen the path diverge to an either/or--either career and
technical skills or academic skills and a path to college--and
that the investment and the intention has been focused on the
path to academic skills and college, really, to the detriment
of career and technical education.
At the WDC, we think that everyone needs ``both/and,'' not
``either/or''--everyone needs ``both/and'' academic skills and
career and technical education. We think that what is most
important for those of us in this field--and I want to
compliment my community college partners, who have been a great
asset in helping us with the needs of both low-income adults
and youth in finding careers. We care about family economic
self-sufficiency, and we believe that all of us at this table,
all of us working on preparation for our workforce, need to
keep our eye on that prize. For youth, the path to family
economic self-sufficiency and economic security starts early,
it starts with career and technical education, and it starts
with summer jobs.
Thank you, Senator.
Senator Murray. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Stadelman follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kris Stadelman
Chairman Murray and Honorable members of the subcommittee: Thank
you for inviting me to participate in today's hearing. My name is Kris
Stadelman and I am CEO of the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-
King County. I am honored and grateful for this opportunity to talk
with you about one of our time's most vital issues: the preparation of
Washington State's youth for careers.
This preparation has two goals: to ensure a skilled workforce to
meet the needs of employers, and to ensure that today's young people
can become happy, self-sufficient adults. The first goal is all the
more urgent because of the demographic tidal wave of Baby Boomers who
are set to retire in the next decade. The second goal--self-sufficiency
for today's young people--is also subject to a shifting economy. More
specialized work requires more training, often including college, to
put good-paying jobs within reach.
As the local Workforce Investment Board, the WDC of Seattle-King
County addresses both goals by partnering with the private sector to
bring youth into contact with the world of work and promising careers.
In 2005, the WDC published a report called Youth@Work that called
attention to the serious decline in employment for teens and young
adults. The previous summer, the national teen employment rate was the
lowest in 57 years. African-American and other youth of color are far
less likely to have work opportunities.
Why, when we need to focus on the problem of high-school dropouts,
does this matter? Shouldn't youth be focusing on education and college
instead of work?
The answer is no--not instead of work. Youth should be focusing on
education because of work, and in addition to work. When we show them
the connection and allow them to learn in the context of the real
world, they are less likely to drop out of high school. They are more
likely to pursue further education and training. They learn social and
work skills that cannot be taught in school. And they are given both
the tools and the inspiration to forge their own futures.
But if, in the name of academic rigor, we cut young people off from
work experience and career education, we are failing them--especially
at-risk youth who do not have role models or connections to help them
chart a path.
In Seattle-King County, we at the WDC have seen the results of
work-based learning opportunities, career exploration, internships,
work experience and other employment services. We have linked these
important services to high-demand occupations and industries that offer
career paths ending in high wages. We have linked them to academic
support for staying in school and credit retrieval for returning to
school, as well as GED preparation for dropouts. And we have linked
them to case management and other services to address the barriers of
at-risk youth--mental health, chemical dependency, homelessness, basic-
skills deficiencies, disabilities including learning disabilities, and
criminal activity/court involvement.
sector-focused efforts
In Seattle-King County, according to the State's 2007 job vacancy
survey of employers, 73 percent of vacancies paid a median wage of $10
an hour or less--dismal in the face of our area's high cost of living.
The top seven occupations (including laborers, cashiers and security
guards) had an average median wage of $8.81.
But right behind them came Registered Nurses, with an average wage
of $32 an hour, and Carpenters, at an average of $16 an hour. This
dichotomy illustrates the challenge of workforce development in an area
where both our economy and our individual prosperity depends on the
ability of our education and training systems to meet the needs of
industry for high skills.
As a result of intensive research into the sectors in our region,
the WDC of Seattle-King County selected five that provide living-wage
jobs, opportunities for advancement and partnerships with employers.
These five are health care, life sciences/biotechnology, construction,
manufacturing, and information technology. We brought together
industry, higher education, labor, K-12 and community leaders in each
one to discuss the most critical workforce issues.
This work has allowed us to address both supply and demand in each
industry: we understand better how to connect employers to the skills
and workers they need, and we understand better how to open pathways
for workers--and youth--to higher-skilled, higher-paying jobs.
The following provides a few examples of our work to connect low-
income and at-risk youth to high-demand sectors in our region, using
Workforce Investment Act youth dollars and leveraged funding from our
partners.
health care
This vital industry, with multiple well-paying jobs for nurses and
technicians, is experiencing critical staff shortages which will be
exacerbated as more of the health-care workforce retires. Since 2003,
the WDC has led a series of partnerships with hospitals, colleges, and
public schools that start students on career paths in health care.
These programs, with the full commitment of the private sector,
linked young people in and out of our Workforce Investment Act youth
programs directly to health-care certificate programs at local
community/technical colleges and to work-based learning opportunities
in hospitals. Youth could take prerequisite and training courses while
still in high school and be assured of earning an LPN or even higher
certificate within a year of graduation.
One young person, Shenise Gordon, took advantage of several WDC
programs. When she was just 14, she began exploring careers and getting
real-life work experience at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. As a
sophomore in high school, she began taking courses at Renton Technical
College through another WDC partnership, and passed the State-certified
nursing assistant exam in her junior year. Shenise graduated last June
with 4 years of nursing experience under her belt--and her RN degree
less than a year away.
The newest WDC program to address health careers for youth is a
public-private partnership that includes the Washington State Hospital
Association, the city of Seattle, several local community colleges, and
faculty/staff of Seattle public high schools. The 19 students earned
high-school credits for courses such as Fundamentals of Health Care,
CPR, Orientation to College and CNA coursework and are taking the CNA
exam as a gateway to a wide range of nursing and other health care
professions. Most are enrolled in both high-school and college courses,
earning credits for both.
life sciences/biotechnology
In 2005, the WDC partnered with the Puget Sound Regional Council,
Prosperity Partnership, and the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical
Association to bring together a panel of 30 leaders in the life
sciences industry, the education system, employers, local government
and economic and workforce development.
Recognizing the importance of drawing young people into the field
to ensure a pipeline of trained workers for these highly technical
jobs, the WDC worked with the panel partners to offer a 6-day workshop
to local science teachers to help them understand the latest research
and technology--in hopes they would use the information in the
classroom to inspire students.
The panel also worked to develop a dynamic Web site on life-
sciences careers that can be used by youth and others who are
interested in entering this growing field.
construction
The construction industry has been a leading source of job growth
in Washington State over the last decade. Over 80 percent of all jobs
in the industry and 67 percent of entry-level jobs pay a living wage.
In YouthBuild, funded by the WDC and other partners, dropout youth
alternate between 2 weeks of work and 2 weeks of school, constructing a
house for a family in need as they earn wages, build work experience,
complete high school, and transition into a job or further education/
training.
A WDC-led partnership for Pre-Apprenticeship Construction Training
(PACT) helps prepare students at Seattle Vocational Institute--most of
whom are young adults--to enter union apprenticeships in the
construction trades. The two-quarter program covers foundation skills
for construction as well as ``soft skills'' such as work ethic and
positive attitude. At the end of the program, PACT helps to place
students in union apprenticeships.
information technology
Information technology jobs and careers are spread throughout
almost all industry sectors, making IT skills as fundamental as
literacy for well-paying careers. The WDC has incorporated IT into our
youth employment services in a variety of ways.
In addition, we help to fund the Digital Bridge Technology Academy,
which provides technology training to low-income, at-risk youth. This
collaboration of partner organizations and agencies is for students
between the ages of 16 to 21 who have dropped out of high school and
are currently working to earn a high school diploma or G.E.D. Youth
explore technology and careers through hands-on classes, workshops,
guest speakers, job shadow opportunities, field trips, service
learning, and internships. Students also install and maintain computer
labs at community centers throughout Seattle as a way of both putting
their learning into practice and giving back to their community.
manufacturing
Manufacturing remains a significant industry in terms of volume of
jobs, quality of jobs and wages, encompassing welding and machinist
jobs that pay up to $34 an hour through electrical engineering at $50
an hour. The WDC has long-established partnerships with local industry
groups and with the nationwide Dream It, Do It campaign to interest and
train youth in manufacturing careers.
In addition to these high-demand sector efforts, the WDC targets
specific barriers that keep young people from succeeding in school and
charting their futures. These include homelessness. The WDC helped to
establish the Barista Training and Education Program, which trains
homeless youth to be baristas--an occupation always in high demand in
Seattle-King County. Youth in the barista program find skills to earn
money today as well as a springboard, through case management, housing
and on-site services, to further education and training that lead them
away from hopelessness and poverty.
These barriers also include criminal involvement and court
adjudication. King County's Juvenile Court has been a strong supporter
and partner of WDC employment/education programs for their
effectiveness with this population. Just a few weeks ago, the WDC
learned that we have been selected for a $2 million Department of Labor
grant that will enable us to create two new career and education
centers to focus on youth offenders. We have you, Senator Murray, to
thank for your assistance in bringing this extremely important funding
to our community. It will allow us to serve 200 youth offenders with
intensive support both for education and employment goals--a model that
has proven highly effective in stopping the cycle of criminal
involvement.
All these pathways and partnerships have been possible because of
Federal funding for youth employment programs--all Workforce Investment
Act youth funds, except for the new youth offender grant. Once again,
we thank you, Senator Murray, for being a champion of WIA youth
funding. You have fought hard for this community against the tide of
severe funding cuts over the past few years.
But in the context of these budget cuts, I would like to emphasize
to the subcommittee that despite all of our work to bring career-
focused services and work experience to at-risk youth, we know it is
only a drop in the bucket when we consider the thousands of youth who
are dropping out of our education system without work skills. These
innovative programs are extremely staff intensive and serve only a few
dozen young people, compared to the hundred who could thrive with these
opportunities. Without Federal investment, highly effective programs
such as PACT and Health Careers for Youth will remain pilot projects
that eventually fade, along with the vital employer and education
partnerships that made them a success. Continued funding is needed to
take them to scale and perpetuate them.
In addition, if we have hopes of affecting the dropout rate, our
legislators and communities must support career and technical education
in schools. High-stakes testing and budget constraints are leading
schools to shortchange CTE--programs that integrate academic coursework
with career awareness and exploration, occupational training, and work-
based learning. In many school districts, CTE programs are still seen
as educational ghettoes (with all that implies for youth of color) for
low-achieving students whose teachers have given up on them. Our
experience, and the research, shows that the conflict between college
and career training is a false one. In Washington State, those who
complete a CTE program are expected to earn almost $60,000 more by the
time they are 65 than those who have not participated in CTE. These
students understand not only what they are asked to learn in school,
but why they are learning it. We must find a way to support career and
technical education alongside rigorous academics.
I also urge you as legislators to support Federal funding for
summer job programs, which have suffered greatly in the past decade and
experienced a one-third decline just since 2001. Because of these cuts,
thousands of low-income, at-risk youth in Washington State no longer
have the option of spending the valuable summer months gaining work
experience. We need to bring summer job programs back into our
communities--not just for the experience itself, but for the better
outcomes it brings during the 9 months of the school year.
In Washington State, we have some important assets. We have
employers and industry associations who are eager to work with
education and workforce development partners to ensure that the next
generation is a skilled workforce. We have excellent community and
technical colleges that are responsive to the needs of both students
and employers. We, in workforce, development have many successful
models of partnerships among all these stakeholders, and a wealth of
experience in making them work. With adequate investment and shared
goals with the K-12 education system, we can address both the high-
school dropout issue and the critical need for future skilled workers.
But if we continue to consider workforce issues and education
issues separately, we will not be successful in addressing either.
Once again, thank you for allowing me to participate today and for
your consideration.
Senator Murray. Mr. Aultman.
STATEMENT OF JOHN AULTMAN, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT, CAREER AND
COLLEGE READINESS, OFFICE OF SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC
INSTRUCTION, OLYMPIA, WA
Mr. Aultman. Thank you, Senator.
My name is John Aultman. I'm an assistant superintendent
for career and college readiness at the Superintendent of
Public Instruction's Office. On Dr. Bergeson's behalf, I'd like
to say thank you for inviting K-12 to the table to be part of
this discussion.
Today, I'd just like to talk about a few strong examples
that make career and technical ed, that segue from what Ms.
Stadelman was talking about, into reality. Successful career
and technical ed programs need a few key elements. They need
strong business and industry partnerships, strong--or the
programs need to be aligned with the economic strategies of the
State of Washington. What's the economic engine, and how are
the programs in the high schools aligned with those? They need
strong academic and technical applications. So, you have both.
It's not the either/or. The programs need to be personalized,
meaningful, connected to the student, employer, and industry
demand that they might be looking toward pursuing.
In the last piece of this is the transition of the students
to postsecondary, and that postsecondary includes anything that
is post-high school--a 1-year certificate program, 2-year
transfer, a technical degree, or a 4-year baccalaureate. I
think the key piece there is, our workforce right now has a 10-
year gap, and that 10-year gap is the average age of the
individuals in the community and technical colleges. If we can
close that gap, the economic strategies will be empowering the
individuals as they go forward. Imagine a high school diploma 1
week, and I think you're going to hear today about an
individual that had a high--or has a high school diploma 1
week, a registered apprentice the next week. Imagine a hospital
taking individuals in and giving them 40 hours worth of
shadowing experiences, watching ER, diagnostic imaging, every
aspect from open-heart surgery throughout, and the hospitals
being the strong partner. Imagine the in-demand scholars, that
Senator Murray has sponsored in the past, to provide those
incentives to go on to the postsecondary.
The last piece I will leave here is that the State of
Washington, this last year, invested over $100 million to re-
engage career and technical ed, building skill centers in the
State, funding activities around expanding the FTE, and also
putting middle-level career and technical ed--back into the
course offerings.
With that, I'll wait for the questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Aultman follows:]
Prepared Statement of John Aultman
Honorable Chairman Senator Murray and members of the committee,
thank you for inviting me to share examples of success, challenges, and
opportunities of K-12 career and technical education (CTE) programs in
Washington State.
Successful career and technical education programs include the
following elements:
1. Strong business and industry partnerships.
2. Programs aligned with the economic strategies of Washington
State.
3. Strong academic and technical application.
4. Personalized, meaningful, connected to student, employer, and
industry demand.
5. Transition of students to postsecondary training,
apprenticeship, and workforce.
strong business and industry partnerships
The business and industry partners view strong program offerings as
the ``Talent Pool'' for their future economic viability. One example is
the Washington State Apprenticeship Council's commitment to form
partnerships with local school districts and construction trades
programs across Washington. New Market Skills Center in Tumwater has
established such a strong relationship with the local Joint
Apprenticeship Training Councils that the students who meet certain
criteria are directly offered and enrolled in apprenticeship training
programs after graduation. ``High school diploma 1 day, and registered
apprentice the next day.'' These graduates are earning over $19.00 per
hour with benefits and retirement. By utilizing the In Demand Scholars
program for required tool and safety equipment they are able to walk
onto the job site ready for ``the original 4-year degree.''
Another example of a strong partnership is the commitment the
DigiPen Institute of Technology has to continuing growth and
partnership support with schools in the State of Washington by
providing computer science course offerings. DigiPen Institute of
Technology has seen the direct benefits of partnering this last year as
the first graduate of New Market Skills Center High School computer
science program completed his Bachelors of Science degree in computer
engineering this past spring. The individual received the first
Presidential Scholarship from the DigiPen Institute of Technology and
was one of the first graduates that had to make the tough decision of
``Which company should I choose? '' because he had multiple offers
starting at over $50,000-plus bonuses.
I could site multiple other examples of strong partnerships with
health care, pre-engineering, veterinary sciences, emergency services,
and power generation.
programs aligned with economic strategies of washington state
This past year Governor Gregoire, Washington State Legislature, and
Superintendent Bergeson invested over $100 million in career and
technical education programs. The funding to build new skills centers
and enhance comprehensive CTE programs needs to align with high demand
and high wage occupations. The opportunity we have today to enhance
programs and align opportunities for students does not happen often and
we need to keep the ``future economic engine of Washington State''
moving forward.
strong academic and technical application
The recognition of strong academic content imbedded with technical
skill attainment allows programs to succeed and provide such success
stories. The career and technical core curriculum can have many
outcomes such as high school graduation requirements, college credit
through Tech Prep, industry certification, and Advance Placement (AP)
College Board testing. A few examples of multiple outcomes include
Environmental Studies, Commercial Graphic Design, Professional Medical
Careers, Clinical and Scientific Investigation (CSI), Pre Vet
Technology, Emergency Medical Services, and Computer Science programs
at New Market Skills Center. Currently, procedures are in place for
students to earn Tech Prep credit, Advanced Placement and industry
certifications while participating in CTE programs. The Washington
State legislature has directed School Districts to adopt policy for
academic recognition within CTE programs. The Legislature required a
taskforce to make recommendations on models that districts could use
for cross crediting. Procedures will be developed by the task force to
help individual departments, schools, and school districts to grant
academic credit for imbedded content.
personalized, meaningful, and connected to student, employer,
and industry demand
The ``Rigor, Relevance, and Relationship'' comes alive for students
when they have investments in their future. Scott Bond, CEO of
Providence Saint Peter Hospital in Olympia, stated to his Department
Managers ``We have an opportunity and an obligation'' to help grow our
future workforce. Over the past 5 years St. Peter Hospital has allowed
students from the Professional Medical Careers program to observe 40
hours of clinical applications within the hospital departments. The
students enter the program knowing of two careers, doctor or nurse, and
not about the other 50 medical and patient care careers available.
After the clinical rotations, students have observed open heart
surgeries, emergency room, obstetrics, physical therapy, diagnostic
imaging, administration, lab activities, acute care and other
departments. When the students return to the classroom they re-organize
their schedules to fit in more math and science courses before
graduation. Most health care students do not have the opportunity to
observe professionals, working in their careers, until the second or
third year of their college program.
This example reinforces the need to ask all students three
questions:
1. Who am I?
2. What can I be?
3. How do I get there?
These are the core questions within the Navigation 101 guidance
plan. The examples are clear that when students connect the high school
experience with real life examples they become engaged!
Career and technical education programs have strong impacts on
dropout prevention, intervention, and retrieval programs. The dropout
intervention program (DPI) pilot at New Market has retained and
retrieved over 200 students in the past 3 years. The key to the program
is personalized attention to assist the students to advocate for
themselves. This has a direct financial impact to future employment
opportunities. One student said it best, ``I returned (to school) so I
could learn the skills to earn a living.'' He did take the CTE program
of his choice and the additional academic requirements to earn his
diploma last June.
transition of students to post secondary training, apprenticeship,
and workforce
Career and technical education programs must continue alignment
with postsecondary and apprenticeship programs to decrease the ``10-
year'' gap that now exists. The average age in Community and Technical
Colleges is 27 years old. The individual and collective earning power
is dramatically decreased with this gap in advanced training. The
recent construction of the New Market Life Sciences building included
five construction apprentices. Two of these apprentices were recent
graduates of the New Market construction trades program and the other
three apprentices were 28, 34, and 52 years old. All five apprentices
started within 1 month of each other and at the end of the construction
project the 34- and 52-year-old apprentices had quit.
The common theme all educators must be conveying is ``are you
college ready? '' with college being defined as any education post high
school. This would include technical certificate programs, 2 year, 4
year, and apprenticeship programs. New Market administered the
AccuplacerTM community and technical college and apprenticeship
placement test to all juniors and seniors allowing them to see if they
were college ready. The results provided students the opportunity to
refresh basic skills while still in high school and for others it built
confidence that they were college material. South Puget Sound Community
College agreed to accept the testing results for placement at the
college. When Tech Prep college credit, AccuplacerTM scores, online
unified community college application, 13th-year plan, and scholarships
are added together, many of the obstacles and excuses such as, ``In a
few years, I need to work, or I don't know how to apply'' are removed.
future opportunities
Align and provide incentives (start up funds) for high
demand occupation programs;
Expand middle school CTE exploratory programs--integrated
math, science, and technology;
In Demand Scholars Program;
In Demand CTE Instructor Certification Scholarships;
Integrated Academic Articulation--Statewide Cross Credit
Guidance;
Assist CTE programs to become Advance Placement (AP)
Course Approved;
Connecting K-12 CTE with the State Board for Community and
Technical Colleges (SBCTC) Centers of Excellence;
Secondary Integrated Basic Education Skills Programs--ESL
Populations;
Middle and Secondary CTE Summer School--Math, Science, and
Technology using CTE as the delivery model; and
Early Learning Linkages--State STARS Certification.
Career and technical education programs can and will provide an
instructional delivery model for high demand, high wage occupations.
CTE program offerings are vital to students, business and industry, and
the economic strength of Washington State.
STATEMENT OF RICK S. BENDER, PRESIDENT, WASHINGTON STATE LABOR
COUNCIL, SEATTLE, WA
Mr. Bender. I'm Rick Bender. I'm president of the
Washington State Labor Council. We represent about 400,000
union members here in the State of Washington.
Senator, I want to thank you for the focus on this
population. So often, we hear about the need for more
baccalaureates, or higher, in terms of our economy here in the
State of Washington, but very few people talk about that 75
percent who don't get a baccalaureate, but may get a AA degree
or go to an apprenticeship or some other type of technical
program. There is a real need by employers for these type of
skilled workers, and there's no question, we are facing a
shortage. We have about 12,000 apprentices right now in our
classes across the State, and these are some of the largest
we've ever had. But we're going to need to maintain this level
for the next 8 to 10 years, because, as you well know, we're
facing the retirement of a lot of baby-boomers right now in
this State and across the country. So, this is something that
we have to deal with.
But I'm proud of the building trades, because they've been
spearheading a number of areas, in terms of legislation, to
help fill these gaps. They, for example, have, passed, several
years ago, Apprenticeship Opportunity Program, which sets a
threshold of 15 percent on our public works projects for
apprentices. This should provide more opportunities for young
people, for people of color, and women, to come into our
construction trades. We think this is a major step forward. The
building trades have spearheaded Running Start to the trades,
where you can come out of high school and be ready to go right
into the trades when you graduate from high school.
Then, of course we have the Helmets to Hardhats that was
spearheaded by the building trades--which is the Iraq veterans
coming out from the war, getting direct access to our
apprenticeship programs. The building trades have been
spearheading a lot of programs to provide more opportunities
for a whole lot of folks to come into these skilled trades.
But we've still got a lot of work ahead. There is one area
that I have a real concern, and there's a lot of discussion and
debate talking about the need for another year of mathematics
to graduate from high school, which we support. But it can't be
just strictly an academic pathway. We think there has to be
some type of career, technical education equivalent, some type
of applied mathematics that people can go into, other than the
academic route. We think this is extremely important, and we
hope that we'll give young people more than just one pathway,
which is just academic, but give them a pathway in other areas,
as well.
Thank you, Senator.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bender follows:]
Prepared Statement of Rick S. Bender
Good morning, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you for inviting me to
appear before you at this Field Hearing. My Name is Rick Bender and I
am the President of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. Our
organization represents approximately 400,000 working women and men in
Washington State. I have been a member of Washington State's Workforce
Board for more than 10 years, working to address the advancement of
workers into family wage jobs with benefits and retirement security; by
and large those are union jobs in Washington State. Washington State
ranks fifth in the country in union density with one out of five
workers being part of organized labor.
Recent surveys of Washington employers state that currently 45
percent of the jobs in demand require 1 to less than 4 years of
training--mid-skill jobs. Those jobs generally pay $16.00 to $30.00 per
hour, are in construction trades, technician level skills of many
occupations, health sciences, etc. The trend to 2015 is that 43 percent
of those mid-skill jobs will still be in demand.
Here in Washington, we have worked in coalition to create Running
Start to the Trades as a pathway for high school students to achieve
credit with an apprenticeship while they are still in high school; much
like Running Start which provides community college credit while in
high school.
We worked to achieve legislation that requires 15 percent
utilization of apprentices on State prevailing wage jobs, so that all
public infrastructure investment also provides an investment in
training the future workforce. We would be very pleased if you would
consider championing similar legislation for Federal Davis Bacon
projects so that training was an integral component of our public
Federal investment, Senator.
We have a shortage in the skilled construction trades at present.
For years we had approximately 9,000 enrolled apprentices in any given
year. Currently we have more than 12,000 enrolled apprentices and our
apprenticeship training centers are bursting at the seams. There will
be a continued need to train apprentices for the next 8 to 10 years at
current or higher rates, not only for the work that is already sited
and bid, but to replace the retiring construction workforce which is
the oldest in American history. But our high school faculty and career
counselors don't know about apprenticeship or about the demand for mid-
skill occupations.
We have begun to address that in Washington by working with the K-
12 system and employment training providers and business and labor to
expand Navigation 101, which is a career exploration curriculum for
high school. Unfortunately, it is not required nor is it available in
all school districts in our State. This tool has done a great deal to
give real information and choices to high school students that are
about aptitudes and real jobs that do not require a baccalaureate
route.
We are very concerned right now that Career and Technical Education
(CTE) and our Skill Centers are at risk. We are working to ensure that
additional math requirements for high school graduation (third year
math) are not required to be academic. We are looking for acceptance of
third year math that is equivalent, but can be an applied course that
demonstrates job relevance to students. Your assistance in working with
educators, employers and labor to ensure that more students graduate
and join the labor market would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for the opportunity to make these introductory remarks,
and I look forward to your questions.
STATEMENT OF DAVID E. ALLEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKET,
McKINSTRY COMPANY, SEATTLE, WA
Mr. Allen. Thank you, Senator.
I'm David Allen. My brother and I own McKinstry Company, a
1,500-person design/build/operate/maintain firm, working in the
Pacific Northwest. We're nearing our 50th birthday, and a lot
has changed in those 50 years, including my age.
[Laughter.]
I'm not going to spend much time talking about the academic
side of the battle, until the questions come up, because I
think I need to make some comments, as an employer, that's
really important, particularly to some of the young people in
the audience and for the record.
I agree with what Rick said, that McKinstry hires from
apprenticeship programs. We are signatory to seven labor union
agreements. We have some 1,000 building trades workers doing
everything imaginable, from designing, building, operating,
maintaining, fixing, energy auditing, facilities all over the
West. We also have a lot of the 4-year college-degreed people:
in engineering, in purchasing, in marketing, and all that kind
of stuff. But, I think, from an employer's standpoint is, we
are kind of a microcosm of the problem, because we need sharp
young people at all the places around McKinstry.
The Senator's office asked me to address clean technology.
I'm the chairman of the board of Enterprise Seattle, the
Economic Development Council of Seattle-King County, so I get a
pretty cool picture of what's happening in our region by
economic cluster. I'm also the HELP foreman and co-chair of the
newly established Washington Clean Tech Alliance, which, as I
mentioned to the Senator's staff, that in my written testimony,
it may very well be the next industrial revolution. By ``clean
technology,'' I mean energy efficiency, renewables, alternate
energy, biomass, water conservation, remediation, doing the
right thing to the Earth. That industry--we think we're in the
top two to four in North America in the fight for our brand as
a place for clean technology to prosper.
With that said, unlike a lot of our last century's
industries, the clean technology industry is highly solution-
and idea-based, so it's going to require, not only the
sciences, which are obvious, but it's also going to require
people that believe in it, people that understand it. It's more
about creating an idea, implementing an idea, taking care of an
idea. There's going to be jobs from young people that run green
buildings, to engineers that design them, we're working on two
plants right now. The reason we were awarded the project is
that no one owns the space. One's a biodiesel plant award in
Washington, and one's a tire recycling plant. The owners didn't
really have any history of who builds that kind of stuff,
because it's sort of new. Both facilities have asked us to
operate it when they're done. Also something new that comes out
of the clean technology.
In closing, and I'm anxious for the questions, because
there's a lot to say. I think we look to the community
colleges, the vocational--and as I told the Senator earlier,
we're in trouble. We need to get into middle schools and high
schools and these community colleges and give you guys a better
picture of what the opportunities are out there, and where the
careers are. With that, I'll close, so we can get to the
questions.
Thank you, Senator.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Allen follows:]
Prepared Statement of David E. Allen
During the past several years, as a result of the perfect storm of
rising oil prices, energy dynamics and increased awareness of climate
change our State has seen an explosion of investment in research,
products and construction of all that is ``Clean Technology.'' Like
many other regions in the Nation Washington State has built an early
reputation for its leadership in Clean Technology and in fostering
growth of this ``new'' economic sector. Clean Technology with its many
``clean the planet'' aspects clearly represents an opportunity to
become the next industrial revolution.
Nationally, investment in the Clean Tech industry has grown 78
percent in the past year and nearly 400 percent in the past 5 years
(source: American Venture Magazine). Clean Tech is now the third
largest venture investment category, with projections boasting some $19
billion in investments by 2010 that is expected to create more than
500,000 new jobs. The most notable and talked about subsectors,
renewable and alternative energy, are growing exponentially but those
are just part of the story. Energy efficiency, recycling, bio-synergy
(waste to power), sustainable design, product re-engineering and
remediation technologies are all creating a buzz.
Washington State possesses many of the critical elements required
to be successful in Clean Technology cluster. It has natural resources
second to none. It has a citizenry that is known for its stewardship of
the environment. Washington State is regularly recognized for its
entrepreneurial and innovative workforce. And those are the attributes
that will attract and grow firms in this sector; a sector that will
make a significant impact on the Washington State economy and job
creation for many years to come.
jobs, skills, opportunities
One of the most compelling aspects of the emerging Clean Tech
industry is that it brings with it a wide array of jobs/careers across
many disciplines. Unlike its predecessor ``industrial'' industries in
the 20th century, Clean Tech will require a much broader workforce
representing myriad skill sets and educational backgrounds. Because of
the innovative nature of this cluster the field of science will play a
key role. Chemistry, physics and biology have made their presence known
already and several other science needs are emerging. Engineering is a
clear driver of Clean Technology with mechanical, electrical,
automotive, ceramic, geosciences, thermal and civil engineering some of
the leaders.
On the ``execution'' side of Clean Tech positions in the
``executive suite'' will be in high demand as well. Business and
financial management is critical here, as many firms will be of start-
up nature and most facing an incredible growth profile. Manufacturing,
production and operations positions will be needed and will have to
adapt to new processes and industrial paradigms. Skilled crafts and
career positions will flourish as well. Construction trades will also
be in high demand and in fact are already experiencing upswings due to
these new technologies. In addition many technical crafts will be
emerging in and around the operation of plants and the delivery of
services etc.
The most exciting news here is wages and benefits. Unlike much of
the workforce in traditional industrial type jobs, the Clean Tech
sector will have primarily high-wage or family-wage jobs with 21st
century benefits! In the past few years virtually every Clean Tech type
firm we have met, worked with or contracted to have primarily high wage
positions. The emerging Clean Tech industry is dependent on and
committed to working with all interested parties to enhance worker
training and education. Because of the fact that many of the processes
and applications will be new, training for these positions is a
necessity rather than a luxury. We anticipate partnerships with trade
unions, apprenticeship programs, workforce development organizations,
community colleges, 4-year institutions and local government agencies
will be required to meet the needs of the future.
regional impacts abound
In Washington State there exist some 400 Clean Tech companies with
more than 5,000 jobs at the present time. Many of these firms are
growing extremely fast. My firm, McKinstry has added more than 250 jobs
directly attributed to our energy and Clean Tech work in just 3 years.
Many others in biofuels, alternate energy and sustainable design have
even steeper job growth! In fact, in a recent study Washington State
was reported to be a leader in both alternate fuels and green building
strategies. Our region is currently collaborating with other western
States and provinces on fuel cell research and the ``hydrogen highway''
as well as greenhouse gas reduction programs. Also of note, our unique
position as a gateway to the Pacific Rim is making Clean Tech a growth
export industry.
We are rapidly becoming a center for innovation and new technology,
thanks to the University of Washington, Washington State University and
PNNL/Battelle, among others. As of this report, new projects in the
pipeline represent hundreds of millions of dollars of new investment
and thousands of jobs. Research by enterpriseSeattle (formerly EDC of
Seattle and King Co.) and its Clean Technology Cluster team, indicate
however, the growth and activity with new ventures is so robust that we
are already depleting our current skilled workforce.
wcta is born
In 2002 the Puget Sound Regional Council embarked on creating a
regional plan to ensure the economic vitality of our region (and
State). Coined the Prosperity Partnership, it developed a regional work
plan that now serves as a great road map for many aspects of our
growth. Its final report identified five economic clusters that will
drive our economy for many years and set forth to bolster the
infrastructure of each of those clusters (educational needs, workforce,
economic development strategies, etc.) The first four were obvious
drivers: aerospace, life sciences, trade and logistics, and IT/
software. The fifth, Clean Technology was the ``new kid on the block.''
Because it was a new idea that needed to be congealed a small group of
public/private volunteers worked for several months and decided to
launch a vertical trade organization called the Washington Clean
Technology Alliance. In February 2007 WCTA hosted a kickoff event which
yielded 35 charter members that represent virtually every element of
the industry. From alternate energy to sustainability, recycling to
clean manufacturing and from public representative to service firms, we
have it all!
The mission of the WCTA is to help strengthen the Clean Tech Sector
by providing information, networking opportunities, and advocacy.
Additionally we established an overarching goal to create a Washington
State clean technology ``Brand'' to compete globally in this sector. We
have been active with monthly networking sessions, member promotion,
educational panels and sponsorships and will be representing the State
at GLOBE 08, with a trade show delegation. GLOBE is one of the world's
largest and most revered clean technology/environmental conference held
every other year in Vancouver, B.C.
STATEMENT OF CARLOS VELIZ, CEO, PCSI DESIGN,
BOTHELL, WA
Mr. Veliz. Thank you, Senator, for the invite today. My
name is Carlos Veliz, the CEO of a company called PCSI Design,
located in Bothell, Washington. I'm also on the board of
trustees at Everett Community College, and also the chair for
Snohomish County for the Washington State Hispanic Chamber of
Commerce, Bienvenido a los que hablan Espanol.
There's a lot of things that are here today and that we're
going to be reviewing, and I'm going to try to touch on them as
best I can.
My topic today, or the area that I was asked, was
``building bridges.'' Mine was building bridges between the
corporate small business and the educational system. Being that
I'm on the board of trustees, you always walk around with your
trustee hat on, and you're always seeing what's going on in the
community. But one thing that our company has been doing over
the past 6 years is speaking at the middle school level, and
not in the sense of pounding the mindset that, ``You have to go
to a university, you have to get your 4-year degree, you have
to be involved in the areas that are going to take you to
either a free scholarship or what have you.'' What we try to do
in our mentoring program that is engaging with our students is
find out where their wants are, find out where their wants are
today. What is their passion? What we're losing, I believe, in
our school system today--whether it's K-12, whether it's high
school or the college--is that we're forgetting to do some
touchpoint strategies with people's passion, because the kids
today aren't the kids of yesterday, and there's a different
model that we have today and, they're shaking their heads,
``Yes,'' you know, going, ``Yes, he understands,'' but there's
a different model today, and we have to find a way to build
that bridge between what the model is today of these students
that do have a lot of passion for a certain career. I'm almost
positive that most of them don't just want a job. I'm sure that
they're looking for something that they can build on and be
proud and be productive into our community.
I love living here in Washington State. One of the things
that we do here at our company, at PCSI Design, is that we go
out of the State to bring the work back, because we talk about,
``Wow, the work's leaving.'' As I speak of some of these
things, you'll see that there's a pattern that talks about
building the bridge between the corporations, small business,
and education. Well, if we can go back in the educational
system and try to implement some of those career mindset, going
into the passion of these students and doing that, then we're
going to create those more small businesses. If we can get the
small businesses to go mentor and go back into the schools,
because they have the closer ties, then the corporations will
feed the small businesses. We have a lot of bandwidth in our
communities here, and I just don't think that we finish the
job. I think that we start a lot of things, and we just don't
follow through. These are some of the things that I hope we can
get some Q&A here today.
But I'll close off with it--because there's a lot of things
I want to talk about--but I'll close it off with this. Here's a
question. And don't answer it, please, because I'll answer it
for you.
[Laughter.]
Do you know who designed the black box for the Xbox for
Microsoft, the original black box? Do you know who designed the
snow skis for the Apache helicopters and for the Black Hawk
helicopters--which is a snow--it's snow ski kits? Do you know
who designed the Lamont fitness spin bike and/or recumbent
bike? Now, you're probably going, ``Well, it must have been the
companies that you just mentioned.'' Talk about struggling, and
talk about going through the paths that some of these folks
mentioned, my company, PCSI Design, is the company that
designed those products for those companies. We're the only
product design company in the State of Washington that is
certified 8A, small business, and MBE. Now, you're saying,
``That's great.'' Well, no, it's not great. We are, in 2007,
going to 2008, and why in the world am I the only one? We have
a lot of path to pave here, and I hope that we can start
building those bridges sooner than later.
Thank you, Senator.
Senator Murray. Very good. Before Judy speaks, let me just
say that we have three students here with us today who have--
because I felt it was really important that we hear from
business, we hear from education, we hear from labor leaders,
but we also hear directly from young people who have gone
through the process, or are going through the process. Because
we can talk a lot about policies and resources at the top, but,
if it doesn't translate and work for the generation that is the
recipient of it, it isn't going to work. I felt it was very
important to hear their voices.
I especially want to thank J.D., who you're going to hear
from in a minute, Meisha, who's to my left, as well, and, down
the row here, David, in just a few minutes. Thank you very
much.
J.D.
STATEMENT OF J.D. OSBORN, IN DEMAND SCHOLAR, SNOHOMISH, WA
Mr. Osborn. Thank you, Senator.
I'm really happy to share my perspective on this whole
issue. I'm 20--like she said, I'm J.D. Osborn, 20 years old. I
graduated in 2006 from Snohomish High School, and I was one of
the recipients of the In Demand Scholar, which is why I'm here
today.
Well, first off, I started my first internship when I
turned 18. I started in a machine manufacturing place as a
machinist, and then, from there I went on to being a CAD
technician for two other companies, and now I'm working for
Carlos, here, at PCSI Design as an intern. I'm in sophomore
status at Everett Community College right now, and I plan on
transferring to Western Washington University after this year.
The things that worked for me most, as far as education,
is--I've always enjoyed the classes that restricted rules. I've
always felt like rules have boxed me in and limited my
creativity. A lot of the classes that I've liked are very
relevant to what's going on today, like green technology, the
green jobs you mentioned earlier. That stuff 's all very
interesting to me. To have that in an educational setting, kind
of, let's you lose focus on the grade aspect of education and,
kind of, gain an aspect on the importance and relevance of the
subject.
Senator Murray. OK, thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Osborn follows:]
Prepared Statement of J.D. Osborn
The In Demand Scholarship that I received my senior year in high
school acted as an incentive for me to continue my education. Although
I would have most likely continued my education either way, the
scholarship provided more than enough reason to continue on.
As a kid I always enjoyed building things and creating but it
wasn't until my junior year in high school that I actually got involved
in the wonderful world of manufacturing. I started interning in the
field at a young age, I believe 17, because of the program I was
involved in while in high school. Each internship acted as a stepping
stone to the next. I went from a machinist at Aerospace Manufacturing
Technologies to a CAD technician for Accra Manufacturing and then QPM
Aerospace and now I work at PCSI Design as a Mechanical Designer. I
have been working for PCSI Design for a little over a year now. It has
been the best job of my life so far!
I graduated in 2006 from Snohomish High School and I'm currently in
sophomore status at Everett Community College. I'm getting my
prerequisites out of the way in the most efficient manner. I plan on
transferring to Western Washington University sometime next year. They
offer a very good engineering technology program where I can both learn
theory and apply it to real world situations. I will be gaining an
engineering degree in Plastics with an emphasis in Vehicle Design. WWU
just started offering this specific degree this year which is great
because before I couldn't decide which one to choose, plastics or
vehicle design. The reason I chose this specific field of engineering
is based on my work experience. Plastics and light weight materials
such as resin-infused composites are the wave of the future because
they are lighter and stronger. I predict that the demand in this field
will only grow through my years of education ensuring a job upon
graduation. Dedicating my life to solving future problems addressing
issues like global warming is very self satisfying to me and I hope to
make a positive difference every day of my life for the rest of my
life.
Some of the most enjoyable classes I have taken and learn most
successfully in were the classes with very little structure and
addressed real world situations frequently. They spoke deeper to me
than textbooks or worksheets which allowed me to lose focus on the
grade and gain focus on the material. Let me give a couple examples of
great classes I have taken and why. I will talk about them in
chronological order.
The first class was Science Fiction or commonly known as Scifi.
Everyday I came to this class I left with something positive that I
would take to my lunch table and share with my friends. A lot of it was
based on the future and the cutting edge of technology. Everyday we
engaged in class discussions and most of the time we would get way off
track but we would all be awake, engaged and learning.
The second class I want to talk about is my CAD and Precision
Machining class. The technology in this class was very advanced and
blows any engineering class that I've taken at Everett Community
College out of the water. The teacher had interest in every single
student's success. Personally, he acted as my counselor and advisor and
if it were not for him I would not be here today. He pushed me beyond
what was required for the class and showed me how the things I was
doing applied to the real world. I remain in very close contact with
this teacher today.
Onto college, I took three English classes from the same teacher.
In these classes we learned all about semiotics, the specific reason to
why things are the way they are and advertising/marketing techniques. I
have hated my English classes for as long as I could remember but these
three quarters were some of the best classes I have ever taken. I never
knew that I would actually use the knowledge from my English classes as
a fundamental basis for my engineering studies. My research paper was
on a new building that just opened at Everett Community College. My
perspective on architecture before and then after is something I hold
priceless in my thoughts everyday. It was at this point that I learned
the importance of education.
The last class I would like to address is my speech class. The
instructor in this class takes a different approach to public speaking.
There are basically four types of speeches and she teaches this by
letting the students pick their own topics, giving advice to make your
speech great and limiting the rules and specifications, allowing you to
be as creative as you'd like.
In conclusion, I would like to close with my vision of what I feel
programs should be like for future students in my position. The four
examples I have presented have a few things in common which I feel
should be the foundation of all structure in all education situations.
The elements are bringing relevance to every class meeting, limiting
rules to allow more creativity, and having teachers that take interest
in the student's success. I hope you can find my perspective as both
relevant and helpful to solving this issue with the lack of pathways to
career success for my generation and the next!
Thank you.
Senator Murray. Meisha.
STATEMENT OF MEISHA NASH, STUDENT, NEW MARKET SKILLS CENTER,
TUMWATER, WA
Ms. Nash. My name is Meisha Nash, and I'm currently a New
Market Skills Center student, and I'm here today to tell you a
little about myself and the different experiences I've had in
and out of school systems.
Originally I'm from North Carolina. In elementary school, I
received straight A's. I loved school and the teachers.
Basically, it was all I had.
When I went to high school, there were so many people that
I became a face in a crowd so large, the teachers barely had
time to notice me. With this drastic setting and curriculum
change, I was overwhelmed. I developed severe depression and
eventually turned to drugs. I never had the support of a stable
family life. So, without the school setting that I loved, I was
ready to give up.
I continued to struggle in school while maintaining a job
that supported my increasing drug addiction. I eventually came
to the conclusion that I did not want to be going in the
direction I was going in, and I did not want drug use to be my
future occupation, so I entered myself into a rehab program and
got my drug addiction under control. After that, I continued to
struggle in school and was far behind my fellow classmates. I
figured it would be much easier to get my GED, and I was under
the impression that it would be equivalent to getting a high
school diploma, so, when I was 16, I dropped out of school and,
within 2 weeks, received my GED. For the next 2 years, I worked
as hard as I could. While staying with family members, I ended
up supporting them, as well as myself. I knew I wanted to get
back into school, but did not have the resources or the means
to do so.
In January 2006, I was given the opportunity to come to
Washington and stay with my aunt and uncle for a few months
break from the chaos I was living in. A few weeks after I
arrived, I read an article in the newspaper about a young
mother who had earned her GED and returned to school to get her
diploma. This sounded interesting, so I decided to look into
the program. I found out that, not only could I get my diploma,
I could also earn college credits at the same time, at no cost.
This was exactly what I needed, and, within the next week, I
decided to make my stay here permanent and began attending
school.
I had no idea if I could actually support myself here, but
I knew I would give my best effort. It would have been
impossible if I had not had the help and support of so many
caring people that I met in my school and community. They have
done so much to help me with my financial situation, such as
transportation and food vouchers, to make it easier to
concentrate on my education. But what I am most appreciative of
is the moral support they have given me, telling me that I am
worth it and I deserve the opportunity to do the best I can in
life. For that, I may never thank them enough.
With this newfound confidence and skills and abilities I
have learned, I will go much further in life. I will be getting
my high school diploma this June, and I'm in my third quarter
at South Puget Sound Community College. I was recently hired by
Sodexho at New Market, as a cashier for the culinary arts
program.
While attending this program, I have found what I love to
do. I plan to get a degree in culinary arts and business, and
one day I plan to own my own restaurant. I know I'm a long way
from achieving my dreams, but I now know that it is possible.
Thank you.
Senator Murray. That's great. Thank you very much, Meisha.
Sorry, you get to follow that.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Gulliot. I beg your pardon?
Senator Murray. I'm sorry, you get to follow Meisha.
[Laughter.]
STATEMENT OF DON GULLIOT, SECRETARY-TREASURER, WASHINGTON STATE
ASSOCIATION OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, SEATTLE, WA
Mr. Gulliot. Good morning, Senator Murray and members of
the committee. Thank you for the opportunity today to address
you.
My name is Don Gulliot. I am the business manager of Local
Union 77 with the IBEW. We represent the employees that provide
you power from the utilities in our State. Thank you for
inviting us to comment this morning.
Local 77 represents 6,800 utility and construction workers
in our State. This includes investor-owned public utilities,
municipalities, REAs, and Federal and nuclear power plants. We
currently have approximately 68 collective bargain agreements
in the State. Today, what I'd like to speak to, which is a
common thread, is the aging workforce and what we are doing,
and what we are not doing, about it.
The other thing is regional training centers, what our
union is doing, and what our international union is doing, and
what we're doing with the junior colleges here in the State of
Washington; workplace safety, which goes along with training--
on-the-job training; and a concern about the use of foreign
workers and the reducing of carbon emissions.
That's what I'm prepared to speak to today, and that
concludes my presentation, at this time.
Senator Murray. OK.
STATEMENT OF DAVID HARRISON, CHAIR, WASHINGTON'S WORKFORCE
TRAINING AND EDUCATION COORDINATING BOARD, OLYMPIA, WA
Mr. Harrison. Senator, I'm David Harrison. As you know, I
am chair of the State Workforce Training and Education
Coordinating Board, which is a partnership of education, labor,
government, and business to help skill Washington for a high-
skill, high-wage economy. You already know that, from what
you've heard already, that we face huge challenges in this
State, and we're addressing those challenges, all the more so
because of what you're doing in the other Washington, and your
relentlessness on these matters. So, next time you're at 38,000
feet over North Dakota, being served the mystery snack, know
that we appreciate it.
[Laughter.]
Today, November 28, is the day in our history where
knowledge, skills, and information are most critical, not just
to our human opportunity, but to our economic vitality. Until
tomorrow. This is, as you well know, a central strategy for our
State, to prepare for the future. In that context, both you and
the Governor have expected us to get it, and get it done,
primarily by emphasizing and responding to the central matter,
which is the skill gap, the gap between what employers need and
workers have. The existence of such a gap, as you know, makes
employers less competitive, and makes it less likely that youth
entering the workforce will receive a sustainable wage.
The annual employer survey by the Workforce Board shows
that we're meeting only about 70 percent of the demand for
people with 1 to 2 years of postsecondary training. This is
numerically, the biggest single skill gap in our State, just
that particular element of the skill gap translates to around
25,000 people short. And as your obsession, to the extent we
can put young people on a pathway, and keep them on the
pathway, we can and will close that gap. We have numerous
initiatives in progress to close the gap. My written testimony
calls out high-demand programs of study at the community and
technical colleges, opportunity grant program, increasing
support of skill centers, and, as you know, Navigation One-on-
One, which is an all new, all school counseling model that
helps put youth on a pathway.
It would not be whining, I don't believe, to say that we
are not always seeing our Federal partner with us in these
matters. As you try and sharpen the focus of the national
government on the young person's transition to work, we do have
further schemes and dreams, and I want to quickly call out
three.
The Board and its partners are intent on using the
reauthorized Perkins Act to create and sharpen clear programs
of study. We worked hard on Perkins. The resources behind
Perkins are a big deal, because those dollars, as John would
attest, go toward better curriculum and better articulation
between programs of study at the high school level and what
happens at the community and technical college. As you know,
that pathway, to be a pathway, has to be clear.
Second, I wanted to call out the fact that, as you well
know, we're running on fumes with regard to WIA youth dollars,
and WIA youth direction; so, as you work on the future of the
Workforce Investment Act or in other venues, whatever you can
do to sharpen the sense of pathways and the resources and
approaches that the national government takes to these matters
would be treasured, as we, at the same time, in the State, I
think, are looking for--and the Governor's looking for--
continued improvements to how career and technical education
works, and how it connects to the community and technical
colleges. If you can help make a WIA that connects to those
challenges a little bit more sharply, that would be a wonderful
thing.
There are considerable WIA youth resources, including
discretionary resources we use now for dropout prevention in
really exciting ways.
And then, last, a big dream, and that is more support and
incentivization of work-based learning for young people. As you
know, there are really exciting models in and outside of the
skill centers as to how employers connect, not just with
existing workers and the older worker or the skilled worker,
but the young person on the path. We can keep the path broader,
well lighted, keep the ditches further away from the path if
employers are there with us. There are some great examples--
robotics in Mukilteo, healthcare in Yakima, all the very
exciting construction industry work that's going on in schools
in Spokane in all these cases. Whatever you can do to connect
those schemes to the weight the Federal Government moves the
employers would be a wonderful thing.
So, just those few schemes and dreams. Thank you, again,
for all your work.
Senator Murray. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harrison follows:]
Prepared Statement of David Harrison
Honorable Chairman Senator Murray and members of the committee,
thank you for the opportunity to speak and present written remarks to
the Employment and Workplace Safety Subcommittee of the Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Senator Murray, your
leadership on workforce development issues has been a beacon to the
Washington workforce community. We appreciate your commitment to
helping students prepare for careers and meeting the workforce needs of
industry. We believe that enhancing career pathways for students is an
indispensable strategy both to help students succeed and to help
companies compete. As promising as are the efforts we will all discuss
today, they represent only a beginning of a job that must be done.
A vital role of Washington's Workforce Training and Education
Coordinating Board (Workforce Board) is to identify the skill and
training needs of businesses in Washington State and the supply of
trained individuals provided by educational institutions and to advance
strategies to close the gap between the two. Our analysis based on
projected job openings and employer surveys have consistently shown
that the greatest gap in meeting employer demand is for mid-level
postsecondary training--training that is more than 1 year but less than
4 years in length. Such training is provided by our community and
technical colleges, apprenticeship programs, career and technical
education programs in comprehensive high schools and ``skills centers''
(local school district collaboratives that focus on CTE preparatory
coursework). Since 1998, this system has only been meeting from 66
percent to 77 percent of projected employer demand annually for persons
completing these mid-level programs. In order to close this skill gap
at the mid-level by 2010, we would need 26,000 more community and
technical college student FTEs than were enrolled in 2005.
Under Governor Gregoire's leadership, we have been redoubling the
efforts to close the gap. At the community and technical college level,
we have addressed ``high employer demand programs of study'' which are
undergraduate certificate or degree programs in which the number of
students prepared for employment per year is substantially less than
the number of projected job openings in that field--statewide, or in a
sub-state region. In Washington, these high demand programs of study
include accounting, aircraft mechanics and technicians, auto diesel
mechanics, construction trades, education, healthcare practitioners,
science technology, transportation, and installation, maintenance and
repair.
In addition, we have sought to expand access to this outstanding
community and technical college system. A major success toward
accomplishing this objective was an appropriation of $25 million in the
2007-2009 State-operating budget to expand the ``Opportunity Grant
Program'' which provides wrap-around support services and financial aid
to low-income adults for 1 year of training in mid-level high demand
programs of study. This will enable low-income students to reach the
``tipping point'' of education required for economic self-sufficiency.
The initiatives to confront the skill shortage at the earlier steps
of the pathway are equally critical, as too many high school students
face a situation where no path is clear to them. In ``High Skills, High
Wages,'' Washington's 2006 Strategic Plan for Workforce Development,
the Board has established the following system objective:
``There should be secondary CTE programs throughout the K-12
system that enable students to explore career pathways and
complete preparatory coursework that matches their aspirations.
The career pathways should be articulated with postsecondary
education and training and result in industry certification.''
The recently re-authorized Perkins Act is a tool in furthering this
objective. The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education
Improvement Act of 2006 provided for the development and implementation
of career and technical education (CTE) ``programs of study'' that
include a nonduplicative progression of courses that align secondary
education with postsecondary education. The Workforce Board and its
K-12 and community and technical college partners are in the process of
planning the implementation of the Perkins Act, including designing a
process for development and approval of CTE programs of study.
The focus of the No Child Left Behind Act, on the other hand, has
presented obstacles to furthering career pathways. Many local school
districts are assigning more coursework centered on test performances,
causing a reduction in skills courses in some districts. In response,
the Workforce Board is working on a number of initiatives with its
partners to ensure career pathways are available to students throughout
the State, including the following:
We completed a study and recommendations for the 2007
legislative session on improving access to ``skills centers'' and many
of those recommendations are being implemented;
In preparation for the upcoming legislative session, we
are working with the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction
(OSPI) to secure funding for implementing ``high demand'' CTE programs
of study and the development of articulation agreements between
secondary and postsecondary programs that provide a program of
sequenced courses and ensure all students have access to dual
enrollment options;
The Board is part of a legislatively mandated advisory
committee to the Legislature that is examining how CTE programs can
guarantee rigorous academic content and thus be recognized as meeting
academic course equivalencies; and
The State Legislature has implemented a grant program that
enables local school districts to work with apprenticeship councils on
aligning curriculum to provide direct or preferential entry for
students who complete pre-apprenticeship programs.
While we are making important progress in this State in building
multiple career pathways for students, much remains to be done. Tech
Prep programs have developed a number of articulation agreements
between individual high schools and individual community colleges. The
skills centers in the State have been increasing their course alignment
with postsecondary opportunities as well--New Market and Sno-Isle
Skills Centers have been leaders in this effort. However, more
resources need to be allocated to the development of model curriculum
and accompanying articulation agreements that can be replicated
statewide. This is a time-intensive process that involves bringing
business, labor, and K-12 and postsecondary faculty together to
establish standards and develop curriculum frameworks. While some
States (California and South Carolina) have been successful in securing
significant State resources for this work, additional monies allocated
through the Perkins Act would go a long way to making sure these
opportunities exist throughout the State.
An important part of career pathways for students is work-based
learning. We need to do more to involve business and labor and provide
opportunities for students to learn at workplaces. This can take the
form of co-ops, internships, pre-apprenticeship programs and other
strategies. Some examples in this State include the mentoring by
Electroimpact in the robotics program in the Mukilteo School District
and the ``Youth Works'' internships provided by Memorial Hospital for a
number of high school students in Yakima County. Much more needs to be
done in this respect. Congress should explore providing incentives to
business and other mechanisms to increase work-based learning
opportunities for students.
It is critical that we continue to acknowledge the vital role that
career and technical education plays in providing opportunities for
secondary students to achieve academic success and prepare for careers.
We know that secondary students must be engaged and motivated to learn.
Career and technical education provides the relevance for many students
needed for their engagement, as well as an opportunity to learn
academics in a ``hands-on'' manner. Career and technical education
programs of study options are a necessary tool for ensuring all
students learn the skills they need to be successful in today's
economy.
STATEMENT OF BOB DREWEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
PUGET SOUND REGIONAL COUNCIL, SEATTLE, WA
Mr. Drewel. Well, thank you, Madam Chair, for this
opportunity. My name is Bob Drewel, and I am the executive
director of the Puget Sound Regional Council. I just want to
take a moment to join the chorus of thank-yous to you, and I do
this with appreciation and admiration and affection for your
boundless energy and passion and care for the citizens of this
State and this Nation, and we're very grateful for your
leadership.
The Puget Sound Regional Council is the home to a coalition
known as the Prosperity Partnership, and our goal is to develop
100,000 new jobs in this region by the year 2010. I might add
that two of the co-chairs of this organization, Mr. Bender and
Dr. Mitchell, are on the panel here this morning, so I'll try
and be as useful as possible when you have two of your bosses
in the room.
Fundamental to our effort is the linking of the education
system with the demands of the workforce. This is particularly
important in a State like Washington, which is, by many
measures, the best educated in the United States. Again, the
size and the scope of this program is not only in this State,
but in the Nation. Washington has more engineers per capita,
and ranks in the top 10 in life sciences, recent graduates in
science and engineering, and computer scientists. Seattle was
recently named as the best-educated city in America, with over
half of its adults holding a bachelor's degree. Of course, this
means for our citizens to be competitive for a job in this
State, you must be educated beyond high school.
Research by the Partnership for Learning on behalf of the
College and Work-Ready Agenda, tells us that 77 percent of the
jobs in our State that pay a family wage require some college,
and over half of the family wage jobs require at least a
bachelor's degree.
However, in our State, like many States in the Nation, we
are simply not providing our students enough opportunities to
participate in this economy. Even though we lead America here
in this region and in the State in high-tech job categories
that I described earlier, we are 37th in production, in the 50
States, in conferring of bachelor's degrees, and 38th in
conferring degrees in science and engineering.
Consider the following: between now and the year 2012, just
under one-half of the job openings in Washington that require a
bachelor's degree will come in six fields: computer science and
engineering, life sciences, research, secondary teachers,
health sciences, and nursing. In 2005, our colleges and
universities were only able to provide 14 percent of their
graduates these degrees. That's not a match that will carry us
into the future for the economy. It's just not simply a problem
for our colleges and universities, all too often, students are
leaving high schools not prepared for the study in fields--
that's been mentioned on a number of occasions--to earn these
degrees, and basically not prepared for college or other
advanced learning. According to the report by the Washington
State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, 52 percent of
incoming students to our community and technical colleges must
take pre-college remedial courses--to earn their college
degrees--during their careers. This number is as high as 63
percent for African-American students and 67 percent for Latino
students.
However, Prosperity Partnership and its 250 member
organization believe that we see a solution. First, we must
invest in the capacity of our colleges and universities to
provide access to high-quality bachelor's degrees, and we have
identified the need for 10,000 additional bachelor's degrees by
the year 2020. I suspect the same could be said for many of the
States in our Nation.
Second, we must concentrate our increased degree production
in the fields where we know the jobs are. Consider computer
scientists. The State of Washington estimates that each year
between now and 2012, 3,900 jobs will come open in our State
requiring a computer science degree. Currently, fewer than 700
such degrees are conferred across the State each year. We must
simply invest in those degrees so that the skill sets that
you've heard described up to this point, and the excitement
that Meisha feels about her future, we can deliver the
opportunities.
Third, we must inform students, parents, teachers,
counselors, and, frankly, anybody who will listen to us, about
the opportunities that I just mentioned.
In summary, the economic reality is that we are simply not
providing our students with the education they need to be
successful in this economy. Through a series of steps--and
there is more to be done than the three issues that I've just
chatted about--we can meet this challenge, but it requires
rethinking how we deliver these skills to our students and what
the appropriate roles of government are.
I look forward to the opportunity to respond to questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Drewel follows:]
Prepared Statement of Bob Drewel
Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to testify before this
committee today. I am Bob Drewel, Executive Director of the Puget Sound
Regional Council. My agency is the home of a coalition known as the
Prosperity Partnership, which is an effort to secure long-term economic
prosperity and grow 100,000 new jobs in this region by the year 2010.
Fundamental to that effort is the linking of our education system
with the demands of the workforce. This is particularly important in a
State like Washington, which is by many measures the best educated
State in the United States. Washington has more engineers per capita
than any State, and ranks in the top 10 in life scientists, recent
graduates in science in engineering and computer scientists per capita.
Seattle was recently named the best-educated big city in America, with
over half of its adults holding at least a bachelor's degree.
Of course this means that in order to be competitive for a job in
this State, you must be educated beyond high school. Research by the
Partnership for Learning, on behalf of the College and Work Ready
Agenda, tells us that 77 percent of the jobs in our State that pay a
family wage require some college, and over half of the family wage jobs
require at least a bachelor's degree.
However, in our State--like in many other States around the
country--we simply are not providing our students enough opportunities
to participate in this economy. Even though we lead America in the high
tech job categories I described earlier, Washington is 37th among the
50 States in per capita conferring of bachelor's degrees, and 38th in
conferring degrees in science and engineering.
Consider the following information: between now and 2012, just
under half of the job openings in Washington that require a bachelor's
degree will come in six fields: computer science, engineering, life
sciences research, secondary teachers, health technicians and nursing.
In 2005, only 14 percent of the graduates from Washington's colleges
and universities earned a degree in one of these fields.
Let me say that again . . . half of the job openings that require
degrees will come in these fields, but only 14 percent of our students
are receiving the appropriate education to fill one of those jobs. The
natural consequence of course is that we are importing people--either
from other States or from around the world--to fill the jobs that our
students cannot.
This is not simply a problem for our colleges and universities,
however. Our students all too often are not leaving high school
prepared to study the fields that are necessary to earn these degrees,
and are often simply not prepared for college. According to a report by
the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, 52
percent of incoming students to our community and technical colleges
must take pre-college remedial courses during their college careers.
This number is as high as 63 percent for African-American students and
67 percent for Latino students.
However, the Prosperity Partnership sees a solution. First, we must
invest in the capacity in our colleges and universities to dramatically
expand access to high-quality bachelor's degrees. We have identified a
need of 10,000 additional annual bachelor's degrees by 2020, and I
suspect the same could be said of many States around the country.
Second, we must concentrate our increased degree production in the
fields we know the jobs are. Consider computer scientist: the State of
Washington estimates that each year between now and 2012, 3,990 jobs
will come open in our State requiring a computer science degree.
Currently fewer than 700 such degrees are conferred across the State
each year. We must invest in these degrees.
Third, we must inform students, parents, teachers, counselors and
anyone else who will listen about the opportunities our increasingly
technology-driven economy presents, the fields of study that allow
participation in that economy, and the classes students should be
taking in middle and high school to study these topics. An emphasis
must be placed on allowing students to experience the exciting fields
growing in our economy--not just telling them about it.
This is an excellent opportunity for the Federal Government's
participation. I am reminded of the effort our Nation put into science
and engineering following the launch of Sputnik, and I am heartened by
the success the national government in Ireland has had in helping its
citizens understand the opportunities before them, and how to reach
their true potential. I look forward to discussing this in more detail
during the roundtable.
In summary, Madam Chair, the economic reality is that we are simply
not providing our students with the education they need to be
successful in this economy. Through a series of steps--and there is
more to be done than the three I have laid out above--we can meet this
challenge, but it requires rethinking how we deliver these skills to
our students and what the appropriate roles of our governments are.
I would be pleased to answer any questions and look forward to our
discussion.
STATEMENT OF TERRY SEAMAN, VICE PRESIDENT, SEIDELHUBER IRON &
BRONZE WORKS, INC., SEATTLE, WA
Mr. Seaman. Thank you, Senator.
My name is Terry Seaman. My wife, Heidi, and I own and
operate Seidelhuber Iron Works, a 101-year-old steel
fabrication plant started by Heidi's grandfather in 1906. We
employ about two dozen people, including ourselves.
I'm a proud member of the Seattle Manufacturing Industrial
Council, and have served as its co-chair for 5 years.
Over the past several decades, my volunteer work includes
serving on the board of the Seattle-King County Workforce
Development Council and as chair of its Youth Council, serving
on the King County Children and Families Commission, and
chairing the Advisory Board for the King County Juvenile
Detention Facility.
In my view, too many people and agencies dismiss
traditional industry as a relic of the past. However, there
continues to be good job and career opportunities on an
extremely large scale in this sector. Many of these jobs are
accessible to people who may not have the skills and aptitudes
to obtain comparable wages and benefits in other employment
sectors.
Industrial employers tend to be forgiving regarding past
poor life choices, but value a new employee for an honest work
ethic and willingness to learn new skills while on the job.
Entry-level positions generally pay well, and there's
considerable opportunity for career advancement and wage
progression. According to a recent employment security job
vacancy survey, industrial employers in the State have over
15,000 unfilled job openings. The metal trades cluster, which
I'm part of, according to B&O tax records, has enjoyed 96
percent revenue growth and 15 percent job growth over the past
5 years. That compares favorably with the economy as a whole,
which grew 39 percent revenues and 12 percent in job growth in
the same period.
Good economic development policies build on a region's
strengths. Our workforce and youth programs should do the same.
One of our region's greatest strengths is industry. I hope that
today we can discuss how we can better educate and train young
people to take advantage of the excellent career opportunities
in the industrial sector.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF DAVID STEINHOFF, ELECTRICIAN'S APPRENTICE, SUMNER,
WA
Mr. Steinhoff. Thank you, Senator Murray.
I'm David Steinhoff, and I went through the ``Get
Electrified Program,'' which is a program sponsored by the
Workforce Development Committee. And it was a great program. I
got into the Residential Wiremen Union, which is the JTC,
member of the IBEW, and I just recently graduated, and now I am
a residential wireman. Along the way, it was interesting to
find a career that I would enjoy, because, going into this
program, I, frankly, had no idea in what I wanted to do, and
this program offered the perfect solution to testing it out
with not completely committing myself to going into the
Residential Union.
In closing, it was a great program, and the same with the
apprenticeship in the JTC.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Steinhoff follows:]
Prepared Statement of David Steinhoff
As a freshman in high school I won the regional International
Science and Engineering Fair and traveled to Louisville Kentucky to
participate in the International fair. This was an indicator that
college was the path for me.
My sophomore and junior year I took electronics and advanced
science and math classes to prepare me for my college years.
During my junior year I went to the career office to find out about
a job for the summer. There were three options: a 2-week program at
Bates Vocational School for electricians, a 4-week program with
Bonneville Power, and the Get Electrified program. I was accepted in
all three programs and chose the Get Electrified program because it
continued through my senior year. I began working that summer as an
electrical apprentice and decided becoming an electrician was the right
career for me.
During my senior year I went to school for half the day and spent
the rest of the day working as a pre-apprentice Monday--Thursday. On
Fridays the Get Electrified program provided training in conflict
resolution, research into the electrical field, safety training, resume
writing and other basic job skills.
After graduation from high school I continued my education as an
electrician while working full time at City Electric of Tacoma. The
Pierce County Workforce Development Council In Demand Scholar program
provided me with scholarship funds to help pay for books, tuition,
tools and other work-related items. The classes provided through the
union are accredited and will give me 25 credits toward an AA or higher
degree if I decide to continue my education.
I am currently working as an electrician for City Electric of
Tacoma. I have completed my 2 years of training as a residential
electrician. The next step for my career is to take the test so I can
be a licensed Residential Journeyman Electrician B.
My near-term future career plans include training to become a
licensed commercial electrician.
For students who struggle to complete high school, more emphasis
needs to be placed on vocational training and apprenticeship programs.
When I attended the career fairs at my high school, the colleges were
well represented, but I found very little information on the
construction trades.
More funding to help students pursue a career in the construction
trades is needed. Funding for part time or after school work programs
are needed to give students who struggle academically or who choose not
to pursue college a chance to try out other career options. The School
to Apprenticeship program is a proven program which would benefit from
increased funding.
The Pierce County Workforce Development Council provides an
excellent opportunity for those students who are not college bound.
Increased funding for scholarships is needed to help students with
continuing education to get ahead in their chosen career.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES H. MITCHELL, CHANCELLOR,
SEATTLE COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT, SEATTLE, WA
Mr. Mitchell. Thank you. Senator Murray, I, too, would like
to offer our thanks for this opportunity to discuss this much
needed item in our State.
I couldn't help but hear David and how he's come through a
pre-apprenticeship program, and now--he's gone through the
apprenticeship, and now you're a regular card-carrying
individual. I say that, because we have--here on the front
row--we have Bob Marcos, who's with the Seattle Vocational
Institute, and he's brought with him some of our students, and
they are in the pre-apprenticeship program right now. I know
they're looking forward, through those pathways, so that they
will be in the same seat here.
My name is Charles Mitchell, and I'm chancellor of the
Seattle Community Colleges. I think, around the table, I
represent the community college system.
Statewide, we have 34 community college districts.
Annually, we graduate about 500,000 students. That's about 60
percent of the students in higher education. Coming down more
locally, in Seattle, we have three colleges, and we have
Seattle Vocational Institute, and we have five other learning
institutions.
I'd just like to say, about community colleges--I always
say that I think, along with the GI Bill and the community
colleges--community and technical colleges, we kind of
democratized education, because we gave people who, before,
never had an opportunity to go into higher ed, that
opportunity.
We have three basic missions. Of course, we have the
transfer programs and--of our colleges, including the
University of Washington, 41 percent of those students who
graduate from our 4-year colleges had their first experiences
at our community colleges. We also have basic skills programs.
Students come for English as a second language, high school
completion, and adult basic education.
Also, as you know, and more to what we're talking about
today, we have the professional technical programs, and we have
many throughout the State and throughout our Seattle community
colleges, and we have many of the certificate and degree
programs for students, where they can get livable wage jobs and
the same jobs that we're talking about here today.
Our community colleges--we, kind of, sit in the middle of
everything, because we partnership with all of the
institutions. Of course, the K-12, we're very interested in how
students are performing in the K-12, because they're coming
through us, and too many of them would have to take some of our
developmental classes, especially in the area of math. It would
be helpful if they came more ready. But we are working on that
with the K-12 districts throughout our State.
We partner with business and industry. With our community
colleges, all of our programs, we have advisory boards, and
they consist of individuals from the industry, and that way
we're able to keep up with the latest state-of-the-art, so that
when our students graduate from our programs, they will be
ready.
We partner with the Department of Labor. In fact, the
school that we're in here today--South Seattle Community
College--they have one-third of all of the apprenticeship
programs in the State of Washington among our community and
technical colleges.
Also, we work with many of the community organizations,
because we feel that we serve our community, and so, we're
involved with a lot of that.
We partner with the 4-year colleges, as well. The
University of Washington, as I said, we do transfer students to
there. We have great partnerships with the Federal Government.
I like to give credit to Senator Murray of some of the programs
that we have. At our district level, we have a health
institute, and a DOL grant really helped us there. We have a
$2.8-million grant, and that, along with some of our State
moneys, we've been able to build a health institute, where
we're able to start students at a CNA, certified nursing
assistant, going to an LPN and an RN. We couple that with some
moneys that we get from the State in a program called I-BEST, I
think it's Integrated Basic Skills and English as a Second
Language. But with that money we're able to hire two
instructors. We hire an instructor to teach the content of the
class, and they also teach the language. That way, the students
can get through the program sooner than if they took the
language classes first and then took the vocational program
second. That's an example of how we've utilized moneys from the
Federal Government, as well as the State, and how that has
helped us to get the job done.
I just want to say one thing about--I think it's been
mentioned--about the baby-boomers and the retirement. That is
so true, because many of these individuals who are working with
us, they're saying, ``We cannot find people for the jobs.'' And
it's going to get worse, because we have more people retiring
every year, of those baby-boomers. I'd just like to say that we
have the high school students, and we concentrate on that, but,
as well as that, we have, in the State of Washington, 1.4
million individuals who are between the age of 25 and 49, and
these are people without--they either have a high school degree
or less. These are students that, somehow have to come into our
colleges to get the training, be retained, and graduate in
these programs so they can help out the industry. That 1.4
million is the equivalent of 10 years of graduating classes for
all of the high schools in the State of Washington, and so,
with those graduating classes, they will not meet the need--
those coming through that pipeline. So, we have to find a way
to educate that other group that's out there. In addition to
that, many of these individuals, if they do not get the
education, we may have to pay in a negative way, in the prisons
or in some other way.
I'm just pleased that we're together today to try to talk
about these solutions of how we're going to solve the problems
of our skilled workers.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mitchell follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Charles H. Mitchell
Good morning. My name is Dr. Charles Mitchell and I am chancellor
of the Seattle Community College District. I am pleased to be able to
appear before the Subcommittee on Employment and Workforce Safety to
present the perspective of the Seattle Community Colleges, as well as
the community and technical colleges of Washington State.
I would like to first start by providing some background
information about Washington's 34 community and technical colleges and
their role in Washington State's economy. To give you a sense of the
scope of the role of community and technical colleges in Washington's
higher education system, in Fall 2006:
More than 250,000 students enrolled in Washington's
community and technical colleges (the colleges serve approximately
500,000 students annually, or about 60 percent of all students enrolled
in Washington's higher education system).
Almost 86,000 of these students were enrolled in workforce
education courses. Workforce education students were older (median age
29) with almost 36,000 students enrolled full time (42 percent).
Almost 65,000 students were enrolled in academic transfer
programs. Transfer-bound students were typically young (median age 21)
and enrolled full time (about 60 percent).
Approximately 33 percent of transfer students and 14
percent of workforce education students were enrolled in pre-college
courses to improve their math, reading, writing or study skills.
Approximately 20,000 students were enrolled in basic
skills training.
When we look at our workforce programs, we see the critical role
that community and technical colleges play in Washington's economy. In
responding to workforce needs, community and technical colleges offer a
broad array of programs. They range from traditional transfer degree
programs to highly sophisticated technical training programs that
prepare students for high-wage jobs, to basic education and English as
a Second Language (ESL) courses. An increasing number of our students
are ``reverse transfers'': people who have completed baccalaureate
programs and decide to enroll at a community college to pick up
specific occupational skills in order to work in new occupational
fields.
At the Seattle Community Colleges, we educate more than 50,000
students annually at our three colleges, a vocational institute and
five specialized training centers throughout Seattle. With more than
2,400 faculty and staff, we are one of the largest operating
organizations in Seattle, providing a significant economic benefit to
the region. We prepare students to successfully transfer to 4-year
institutions, successfully enter the workforce, gain basic skills
training, and continue life-long learning.
We pride ourselves in our focus on diversity and are leaders in
addressing the educational needs for students of color. Seattle is
highly diverse, with residents reporting more than 100 different
ancestries and speaking multiple languages. Reflecting this diversity,
almost half of the students at the Seattle Community Colleges (49
percent) are students of color and we transfer more students of color
and international students to the University of Washington than any
other higher education institute.
I would like to turn now to four key issues that I submit to the
Subcommittee for consideration:
1. Current and future employer needs for highly skilled workers in
Washington State;
2. Pathways that engage students in high school, prepare them for
postsecondary education and career training, and lead to family-wage
jobs with good benefits;
3. Successful partnerships that help youth gain career-building
skills and that develop a supply of highly skilled workers for
employers; and
4. Ways the Federal Government can serve as a catalyst in making
connections between high school and post-graduation opportunities for
students.
1. current and future employer needs for highly skilled workers
in washington state
Washington is the Nation's leading State in international trade per
capita, with one in three jobs tied to international trade. We are
truly a globally competitive State in that we export three times as
much as the average State and our total trade is more than two times
that of the average State. Washington's economy is a leader on many
measures, including our favorable business climate, level of
innovation, and attractiveness to new business ventures and start-ups.
While we enjoy one of the strongest economies in our Nation today,
our industries and businesses are experiencing severe shortages of
skilled workers in key industries, impacting our economic prosperity.
Jobs in demand requiring a community college level education include
computer support specialists, health care professionals, aircraft
manufacturers, mechanics and service technicians, and those working in
the construction trades.
As the subcommittee's research noted, this past spring there were
more than 87,000 open positions and 148,000 unemployed people
throughout Washington State. This shortage of skilled workers will
continue to increase due to demographic changes, in particular,
retiring baby boomers and an increasingly diverse population with
greater educational needs.
In 2005, more than 22,000 Washington employers (11 percent) had
trouble finding workers with either a professional-technical
certificate or 2-year degree. In particular, employers say that skills
shortages were hurting their businesses by limiting output or sales,
lowering productivity, and reducing product quality. And one-third of
businesses report that the skills required to adequately perform even
production or support jobs had increased over the last 3 years and that
the need for workers with postsecondary training will continue to
increase.
Some level of postsecondary education is now necessary for a job
that pays a living wage. At a minimum, research by the Washington State
Board for Community and Technical Colleges has shown that 1 year of
postsecondary education and a certificate is necessary. Compared with
students who earned fewer than 10 college credits, those who took at
least 1 year's worth of college-credit courses and earned a credential
had significantly higher earnings, up to $8,500 more annually.
Our community and technical colleges play a critically important
role in addressing these issues and ensuring that we have a skilled
workforce. We see this in our efforts to make sure that every student
is ready for college. Within 3 years following high school graduation,
about half (47 percent) of all high school graduates have enrolled at a
community or technical college in Washington. We have more work to do,
however. Compared with other States, Washington ranks poorly in the
percent of students enrolling in college directly from high school and
in the percentage of ninth graders who complete an associate degree or
higher.
We know that we face challenges in filling those jobs that require
specialized skills unless our colleges and our business industries make
major investments. Better preparation for high school students is one
part of the solution, yet training more high school graduates alone
will not meet Washington's job skills gap.
Now, our challenge is that in Washington we have 1.4 million
individuals between the ages of 25 and 49 with a high school degree or
less. This is equivalent to 10 years of graduating classes from all of
our public high schools. Many of the individuals in the cohort of 25-49
years of age are people of color and people with ESL instructional
needs. These are the students that we are working with and it is
imperative that we are successful in bringing these individuals to our
colleges and enrolling them in our workforce programs.
2. pathways that engage students in high school, prepare them for
postsecondary education and career training, and lead to family-wage
jobs with good benefits
Washington's community and technical colleges have undertaken a
number of initiatives to improve student pathways, including pre-
college courses, the Transition Mathematics Project, the Running Start
program, the Opportunity Grant program, and the Integrated Basic
English and Skills Training (I-BEST) program. We have comprehensive
articulation agreements with our 4-year colleges and institutions and
are one of several States to offer 4-year applied baccalaureate degrees
at our community and technical colleges. The Federal Government also
plays an important role through the support provided by Department of
Education programs and the Department of Labor's Community-based Job
Training Grant.
Despite increasing demand for skilled workers with postsecondary
training or education, recent high school graduates are not prepared to
take college level courses and about half of all high school students
entering our colleges require pre-college (or developmental)
coursework. While the need for pre-college education programs at the
postsecondary level is a significant policy issue, pre-college
education is indispensable, given the overall level of the Nation's
educational system today and the demographics of the college
population. It is important to remember that pre-college programs serve
far more than just recent high school graduates, and that the need for
remediation is not always reflective of the quality of current high
school education.
To address the need for better college-level math preparation, the
Washington State Transition Mathematics Project (TMP) has designed
standards with teachers and faculty from high schools, community
colleges and universities to help students meet admission requirements
and avoid remediation.
Washington's highly successful Running Start program allows high
school students to begin their college studies while still enrolled in
high school, greatly shortening the time required to earn a
postsecondary degree. At the Seattle Community Colleges, we are
pursuing these and other articulation initiatives with the Seattle
Public Schools to successfully enroll high school graduates in our
vocational and academic transfer programs.
In the last legislative session, the Washington Legislature
provided enhanced funding for two highly effective programs that get
students into the workplace: the Opportunity Grant program and the I-
BEST program. Based on Georgia's successful Hope Grant Program,
Opportunity Grants provide educational access and support for low-
income adults to progress further and faster along demand career
pathways. Opportunity Grant funding is used to provide eligible
students with tuition and fee waivers, books, childcare support, and a
variety of student wrap-around support services.
The I-BEST program is an effective instructional approach that
pairs ESL/adult basic education instructors and professional-technical
instructors in the classroom to concurrently provide students with
literacy education and workforce skills. For instance, North Seattle
Community College's I-BEST Accounting Paraprofessional program provides
practical training to prepare ESL students for work as bookkeeping,
accounting or office clerks. Students will receive support from ESL
faculty while they complete four quarters (62 credits) of accounting
and business courses. Similarly, South Seattle Community
College has a large immigrant student population seeking job skills
training. To address the needs of these students, the college has
developed innovative health care job training courses that infuse ESL
instruction into the curriculum.
Comprehensive articulation agreements also support students
successfully transferring from our community and technical colleges to
4-year institutions. Almost 500 Seattle District students transferred
to the University of Washington Seattle campus in 2005-2006 and about
12,000 students transferred statewide to 4-year institutions. This is a
significant pipeline for first-generation college students, low-income
students, and students of color. Statewide, students are transferring
from community and technical colleges into high demand fields: 39
percent of math, science, engineering, engineering tech and computer
science baccalaureates, and 55 percent of math and science teacher
baccalaureates are 2-year college transfer students.
In addition to hosting 4-year university degree programs at our
campuses, another important initiative at our community and technical
colleges is applied baccalaureate degrees. South Seattle Community
College is one of four community and technical colleges statewide
authorized to offer an applied baccalaureate degree in Washington
State. This initiative will further enhance pathways for students to
gain the higher education skills needed to succeed in high-demand
occupational fields. Other innovative programs include Seattle Central
Community College's participation in the Lumina Foundation's Achieving
the Dream program, and development of a new Employment Resource Center
at North Seattle Community College that will co-locate several State
agencies to support better integration of employment, educational and
social service providers.
Federal programs are critical to community college initiatives to
improve student success. The Department of Education's TRIO program is
an important resource that provides early intervention and support
services to encourage disadvantaged youth to complete high school and
enter college. All of our colleges have benefited from the TRIO
program. Seattle Central Community College has participated in the TRIO
Student Services Support program since its inception and the colleges
also participate in the Upward Bound and Talent Search programs. For
instance, each year the TRIO Talent Search program provides educational
opportunities to more than 600 6th-12th grade school students from
seven schools in the Puget Sound region. More than 3,500 students have
benefited from the Talent Search program in its 7-year history at South
Seattle Community College. We have also received Federal title III
funding to increase the number of ESL students transitioning into
college-level coursework. Title III funding has been critical for non-
native English speakers to succeed: 85 percent of the nursing students
at South Seattle Community College were enrolled in the ESL program. In
addition, many community colleges are also deeply involved with their
local school systems through the Department of Education's GEAR UP
program. Finally, the Seattle Community Colleges receive significant
financial resources under the Perkins Act to support career and
technical education that prepares students both for further education
and for the workforce.
Another Federal program, the Department of Labor's Community-Based
Job Training Grant, has provided $2.8 million to the Seattle Community
Colleges to train more than 700 students in high-demand health care
occupations. The capacity-building program will have long-term positive
effects for our health care programs. As you can see, Federal support
is a critical component of our workforce development strategy.
3. successful partnerships that help youth gain career-building skills
and that develop a supply of highly skilled workers for employers
As I have discussed, we have extensive partnerships with our public
schools, universities, workforce development agencies, Federal
agencies, and business, labor and industry partners. In particular,
community and technical colleges in Washington State have close
relationships with business, labor and industry through our program
Technical Advisory Committees, through close coordination with our
workforce investment system, and through professional organizations,
associations and State economic development agencies.
Recognizing the need to fill high-skill, high-demand occupations
with qualified workers, the Washington State Legislature allocated
significant high demand funding to community and technical colleges
statewide in the right areas--science, technology, engineering, math,
health care, and manufacturing. This included funding for an additional
700 FTES statewide and 55 FTES for the Seattle District. At the Seattle
Community Colleges, we are using high-demand funding to respond to
critical shortages of skilled staff in health care through our Health
Care Education Institute and building successful career pathways for
our students in a variety of high-demand fields.
4. ways the federal government can serve as a catalyst in making
connections between high school and post-graduation opportunities for
students
Several trends affect how we deliver training and instruction:
Globalization and increasing international competition--
nations with strong educational systems are going to be the ultimate
economic leaders;
Rising skill requirements across the economy, ranging from
manufacturing to professional services--jobs that pay a living wage
increasingly require postsecondary education;
Rapidly increasing costs of education--rising costs of
tuition, textbooks and living costs are far outpacing income growth in
a period when advanced skills training and education requirements are
increasing; and
Increasing diversity in our population--Washington State
will become increasingly diverse, with the highest growth rates among
first generation students and students of color.
In response, community and technical colleges are:
Restructuring instructional programs and classrooms to
keep pace with global trends and new learning modes;
Launching new teacher-training partnerships with 4-year
colleges and universities to support student success;
Searching for new funding streams to ensure our students
have the resources they need to successfully meet these challenges,
especially first-generation and low-income students; and
Developing innovative instructional programs that focus on
first-generation and non-English speaking students with effective ESL
instruction. The Seattle Community Colleges are leaders in offering
health care training using this method of instruction.
I would commend to the committee the need to more closely examine
these trends, examine how Washington's community and technical colleges
are responding innovatively to these issues, and consider Federal
support for our efforts.
Congress plays a critical role in identifying and supporting
programs that have been proven to increase the success of community and
technical college students. The Federal TRIO programs, created within
Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, are educational
opportunity outreach programs designed to motivate and support students
from disadvantaged backgrounds. Their intent is to provide equal
educational opportunity for all Americans regardless of race, ethnic
background, or economic circumstance. As I noted previously, we have
several TRIO programs underway at the Seattle Community Colleges;
unfortunately, the programs have not received sufficient funding to
keep pace with inflation and rapidly increasing higher education costs.
This has resulted in drastic program cuts in staff development, student
support services, and other program costs, with a likely reduction in
program enrollment rates. Increased support is essential to maintain
the quality of this highly effective program.
In addition, funding provided through the Department of Labor
Community-Based Job Training Grant has allowed the Seattle Community
Colleges to substantially increase our capacity to serve students in
high-demand health care training programs. Designed to build long-term
capacity, these Federal resources are a critical catalyst in addressing
long-term workforce development needs and we hope the program
continues. And continued support under the Perkins Act is vital to the
long-term success of our career and technical education initiatives
with our K-12 partners.
Finally, I would like to point out that the singular importance of
Federal financial aid and the need to make it more accessible for
workforce-bound students. A recent study conducted by the Washington
State Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board found that
the financial costs of tuition, fees and living expenses, coupled with
lack of information about training opportunities and financial aid,
were the greatest barriers to student success.\1\ I would recommend
that Congress consider ways to further consolidate and simplify the
delivery of workforce education financial aid.
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\1\ The report, Workforce Education Financial Aid and Student
Access and Retention, may be retrieved online at: http://
www.wtb.wa.gov/Documents/Tab5-WorkforceEducationFinancial
Aid.doc.
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In closing, at the Seattle Community Colleges we are
``democratizing education'' by promoting diversity and excellence for
all our students . . . whether it's an immigrant learning a new field
while undertaking English instruction, a transfer student intent on
earning a baccalaureate degree, a dislocated worker seeking job
retraining, or a retiree preparing for a second career.
Thank you for your invitation to speak to the commission on behalf
of Washington's community and technical colleges. I am happy to answer
any questions that you may have at this time.
Senator Murray. Thank you very much.
Well, thank you, to all of our panelists. We have some
tremendous institutional knowledge here from many different
aspects, as we've all heard, from education, from business
owners, from labor, from workers, from young people themselves.
I think it's really clear why this hearing is so important and
what we hope to learn from it.
We cannot afford for a third of our young people today to
not graduate, and not have the skills they need to enter the
workforce. We need every single one of them, for our businesses
to expand, to grow, and continue the needed economic stability
in our region. Businesses need to work with us to make sure
students have the right skills and that we are educating young
people in those identified skills.
For me, the most important thing is showing every young
person out there that there is a pathway to success. We don't
just have the 50-year-ago model that said you went through
school, graduated, went on to college, or not, then got a job.
We have to find a way for every student, as Meisha pointed out,
to find the right career path for them. It's a tremendous
challenge for us.
I'm holding this hearing as a way to begin to understand
what some of these challenges are. I will continue to hold
hearings around the State and will be using what I learn from
here to work at the national level and make sure that our
national policies and resources are being used to meet these
needs.
I hope to throw out some questions to our panelists here
and for those of you who think you can contribute, please feel
free to answer.
Let me start by asking all of you, from your individual
experience, whether it's an employer or a student, whether it's
a worker, yourself, or whether it's clients that you work with
or programs that you work with, what are the barriers that you
have encountered finding skills training for yourself, for an
employee, or for your clients, or whoever you work with? What
are the barriers there to getting the proper skills training
for jobs we know are out there?
Let's start with you, Kris.
Ms. Stadelman. Well, I want to say, first, that I think we
know what works. I think, on the demand side, we have learned
that it really is about the connection of the employer with the
industry and with the company with education that makes a
difference. But, on the other hand, the barrier is that it's
generally one school at a time, one company at a time, one
industry at a time, personality-based, based on the person who
really drives that connection. Bob Markholt, from PACT, is a
perfect example of a program that is highly integrated with
industry, and that's why all of his students wind up in
apprenticeships and with good jobs. But, without him, I'm not
sure it would be the same. I think we lack a systemic approach
of involving employers with education.
On the supply side, I think we know what works in helping
young people, especially those at risk for homelessness, for
dropping out of school, being in trouble with the law. What
works is interaction with a single caring adult and also
experience on the job or knowledge of what a job might be,
seeing themselves in a job someday, whether it's an internship
or work experience or whatever. We know that that works. But
the resources keep getting smaller to deliver that case
management, that person who's going to help them with
structure, find the tutor, give them encouragement. I think we,
at the WDC, do a really good job of that, but last year,
Senator, we only served 870 young people, the smallest number
ever. Now we know, because of the Federal budget, that number
is going to get smaller again next year. Resources to deliver
what we know works is our barrier.
Senator Murray. Others?
Bob.
Mr. Drewel. Well, just following up on Kris's comments,
it's an access problem, either to community colleges, to
apprenticeship programs. I would suspect there is not a person
here, an employer, our friends from organized labor, educators,
or students who wouldn't agree with the comment, if you had
greater points of access, if you had resources that could be
deployed in a fashion, perhaps, with less strings attached to
them, because there are a lot of constraints that come with
these dollars, that we would do away with the problems of not
having enough nurses, but we know that community of medical
colleges have many more applicants for nursing programs than
they can possibly meet. I think the situation just grows in
community colleges, in engineering programs. They're programs
that cost something. Well, the future ought to cost us
something if we're going to be successful. I think Kris's
theme--and I'd be pleased to hear from our friends from labor
here on the apprentice programs or--how many applications do
you have, and how many opportunities do you have to respond to
them?
Senator Murray. Yes, Mr. Veliz.
Mr. Veliz. An invitation to the table on inclusion, Mr.
Drewel is talking about. It's--in the aerospace industry--and
that's what's worrying, as far as mechanical engineering and
being around for 10 years in this industry. I started my career
27 years ago, at Atari. Most of you guys don't know that, but
older folks--us--we know what Atari is.
[Laughter.]
So, a lot of years working in the high-tech industry. Of
course, someone who brought me here was mentors who basically
grabbed me by the shoulder and neck and said, ``Stay in school
and finish and move on.''
But, the biggest challenge--as I have said, it's an
invitation to the table on inclusion. Here's some of the things
that I wrote down about what that means.
We need to find a way to strategize with our youth today in
our school system, the same way we strategize in the business
industry. Yes, we have a need for a more inclusive workforce,
and we need corporations--we need small businesses that are
going to actually reach out to these mentoring and intern
programs. But, what's the vehicle? The vehicle is the pipeline,
the pipeline that comes from the larger corporations. It is not
the government's responsibility, it is not the corporation's
responsibility. It's the strategic plan of all us having to put
this plan together and say, ``OK, you know, if ''--I'm just
going to put a name out there, just because it's there--``the
Boeing company.'' Here, we have this incredible industry. It's
a company called the Boeing company, who, globally, is our wow
factor for Washington State. OK? So, they go and sell planes
all over the world, they open plants all over the world,
because they have to--that's their core competency, selling
planes. They have to. Well, we also need to make sure that we
have the backfill of that pipeline for the small corporations
in Washington State which feed our school system, which feed
you guys out there. That's the pipeline.
Here's an example. Snohomish High School, where J.D. came
from--what's the program?
Mr. Osborn. It's the precision machining and CAD.
Mr. Veliz. OK. Several million dollars of high-tech--they
can run their own company from Snohomish High School. They can
build their own airplanes from Snohomish High School. That's
how powerful this high school is. But they're producing
individuals that are coming out of the high school system into
the college system that are much more advanced. True?
Mr. Osborn. True.
Mr. Veliz. Here's this----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Veliz [continuing]. This path--here's this vehicle that
we have in our access today that--are we plugging into it? No.
Are we creating models that match that around the State? No.
Tulalip Tribes. Did you know that the Tulalip Tribe today
has the bandwidth to compete or surpass Comcast? Are we
plugging into them? No. It's a different topic. But there are
struggles there. OK? We can talk--we can discuss that.
Mr. Harrison. I want to build on it. I think that's
absolutely right. The vehicle, then, for making sure what
you're arguing should happen happens is much richer, vital
partnerships between individual companies, groups of companies,
and school systems. I was just going to add a little painful
part of that. Navigation One-on-One is the new instrument that
the school systems are supposed to use to help get a kid on a
path. Right now--so far, at least--that's working; it could be
wonderful, but it works better, I think, in terms of which
college do you want to go to than it does with which other
career or technical opportunity you might want to advance. We
have got to figure out a way to get the companies of Washington
into the school systems of Washington in huge new ways. For a
kid--``kid''--for a young person, there's got to be some kind
of new light that goes off. There are 100 different ways to
meet the needs of that kid.
Mr. Veliz. No, I disagree with that.
Mr. Harrison. Pardon.
Mr. Veliz. Excuse me. I disagree with that. When our youth
come to our schools every single day, there needs to be a door
that is inviting----
Mr. Harrison. You're agreeing with me. I'm not----
Mr. Veliz. Well, I want to--there's something that you
mentioned there that I don't agree with that----
Mr. Harrison. OK.
Mr. Veliz [continuing]. It has to be inviting, in a sense
where the students are engaging with the administration that
either are bilingual, that can actually relate to our students
that are walking in the door. Again, it's that invitation to
the table, and it's inclusion, right? What we have today in a
lot of our areas, in our schools, which is going to continue
unless we change something, and it's going to hurt all of us as
we move forward, whether we like this or not--what's happening
is that we're lopsided. We have the--whether it's the African-
American or the Hispanic community or the Asian, these
islanders, or the tribes around the State, they're wanting to
come into the system, they're wanting to be a part of the
table. But we're on the back end for our administrators, we're
not bringing enough of the matching and kind of----
Senator Murray. So, we're not----
Mr. Veliz [continuing]. Bringing that flow.
Senator Murray [continuing]. Inviting everyone to the
table.
Mr. Veliz. Exactly. And we need to do that, because----
Senator Murray. You're talking about students themselves?
Mr. Veliz. Well, we need to have for example, an
administrator--if I'm in the class, and I can mention--there's
a couple of high schools in Snohomish County that I think we
have like, 70 percent of minority students, and less than 5
percent of the administration is minority.
Mr. Harrison. Let me add one thing to that. I agree with
that 100 percent. While we're setting--it's another missing
dimension, and that is, when you're 14 or 15, you're developing
an idea of what you want. What you're saying is, have people
there that can help you do that. I think we have work to do
there. We're also sending the signal that career and technical
pathways are not--we're not sending the signal that they could
be pursued effortlessly and beneficially. Right now we have a
big tension over grade 11 and year 12. Director Stadelman said
it perfectly, it's ``both/and''--we want rigor, we want
relevance, we want academic preparation, and we want relevance
for career and technical skills. Right now in our WASL focus,
our understandable WASL focus, we have the danger that we
kneecap career and technical education on a regular basis, and
we've got to stop that.
[Applause.]
And we can stop that.
Senator Murray. Rick Bender.
Mr. Bender. Yes. Senator, I want to follow up with what
David said. The reality right now, we're not doing a very good
job in our K-12 system with our counselors, advising what the
opportunities are for young people, besides just going on to
college. Not every student wants to go on to college when they
get out of high school. But we've got to provide them the
information that they need to make good choices in terms of
pathways, where they can make a good living with benefits and
retirement security. We also need to take a look at our
approaches. We can't just teach the WASL. For example,
Retinville Tech has produced a text that is construction math.
How often do we hear from young people that, ``I'm never going
to need that math once I graduate from high school? ''
[Laughter.]
Well, what this does, it translates what you need to know
in mathematics to be a skilled carpenter or a skilled plumber/
pipefitter, or a skilled sheet-metal workers. We need to take a
different approach, in terms of embodiment of a different
pathway so that these students can get involved and engaged in
a career that they want, and understand what the requirements
are going to be----
Senator Murray. So, you're saying that the curriculum
itself in schools is a barrier to students seeing those other
career opportunities.
[Applause.]
Mr. Bender. Yes. It's directed toward going to college.
That's great, and I support that very strongly. But the reality
is, that's probably not the best way to teach a lot of young
people, where math is not really a prime interest of theirs,
but they need to understand that math does play a role in
various occupations and careers that they might want to go
into, and then teach it from that approach.
The other problem that we have, too, I think, in the K-12--
or whole system--it really isn't a seamless system. We want it,
but it isn't. I had a chance to go to Germany and take a look
at their apprenticeship programs, and I had a chance to visit
Siemens Corporation, which is a multinational corporation, very
big. They train 10,000 electrical apprentices every year, but
they have a system, where, if they so desire, they get 50
percent of the--those who complete their apprenticeship program
get an opportunity to go on to get an electrical engineering
degree. We don't have that. We have to start all over again,
once you go through your apprenticeship and you become a
journey craft level, if you want to become an engineer, you
have to start from ground zero, and that's a barrier. We need
to take a look at a system that's more seamless.
Senator Murray. Mr. Allen.
Mr. Allen. Yes, for a more holistic view, I think that a
real barrier that speaks to all of this is--and I see it in my
kids' schools--is that we need to have a societal paradigm
shift in how we're saying what a career is to kids. We don't
have any employees at McKinstry that we don't view as having a
career path, from the building trades--we have building trades
people--``I've done that for 4 years, I'd like to get more into
the building operation and the computer side of it. How do I do
that?'' We don't have any strata on who's better than anybody
else at the company. If what you say about passion drives a
successful career, I think a view of what's out there would
stimulate the passion, which would then work toward a career. I
think we're trying to get into the middle schools with the
plumbers and pipefitters trade--to get the families at the
table so that we tell--and there is a certain amount of
illusion--I have to be careful with this, because we hire 4-
year college graduates a lot--there's a certain amount of
illusion that a 4-year degree can get you to a higher wage--
family wage--faster than not doing that. I'm telling you right
now, well, I'll go on the record, I guess--the building trades
people that work for us make between $75,000 and $120,000 a
year. A 5-year apprenticeship, if you went in at 18, you'd be
23, you're making journeyman wage. I'm telling you, you could
take some time off and settle for $90,000.
[Laughter.]
I'm not advocating you tell your kid, ``Don't go to
Harvard, because you could be a plumber.'' What I'm saying is,
there's a lot of cool things about building trades, about
manufacturing, where they're having trouble with getting people
into manufacturing, because all of us adults have told kids
that manufacturing is an assembly line on the Ford Motor
Company in 1930, and it's dirty and you get hurt, which is not
true anymore. I just want to have some truth spoken in middle
school and high school about----
Senator Murray. Well, let me ask the students. Is there a
pressure feeling, beginning early on, middle school, that if
you don't have a 4-year Harvard degree, then you're not a
success in our society?
Mr. Osborn. To an extent, yes. Ever since I've been young,
people have told me that you need to have that piece of paper,
that's what gets you to the job and secures you when layoffs
come and everything else. For me college has been holding me
back, so far, at Everett Community College. I'd like to take a
class in green technology or sustainability or anything like
that, but, instead, I'm having to take courses like this
quarter, where I'm taking a CAD class, where I'm learning a
software that I've been using for 4 years already----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Osborn [continuing]. In industry and in high school.
[Applause.]
And it's holding me back, and it's making me pay for
classes that I don't feel are useful to me.
Mr. Veliz. May I, please? Just to be clear, we hire degreed
engineers. I mean, we have some of the best engineers that come
from----
Senator Murray. So----
Mr. Veliz [continuing]. The automotive industry----
Senator Murray [continuing]. We need that.
Mr. Veliz [continuing]. Aerospace, scientists. We have some
of the best. Of course, our young J.D., here, he seems to be
the ``Wonder Boy.''
Mr. Osborn. They call me ``Wonder Boy'' at work.
Mr. Veliz. That's right.
[Laughter.]
Senator Murray. Let me hear from this side over here. Yes.
Mr. Gulliot. I'd like to make a comment of what we were
talking about earlier, the apprenticeship programs. I had
mentioned, earlier in my introduction, that I represent the
utility workers, but I'm also a secretary-treasurer for the
Washington State Electrical Association, which we have 21,000
electrical workers. Now, just take this room here, and imagine
this is our workforce. In 10 years, take 60 percent out of it.
That's our problem. We're trying to get apprentices. The
building trades did a great job in getting that apprenticeship
issue. The problem that we have in the utility side is that the
employers aren't hiring, because they have--it goes back to the
1990s, when deregulation came down. The first thing the
utilities did to survive was to cut training, cut all the fat
out of the system. We have been going along, and generation has
gone up 30 percent, our infrastructure is in a mess, to be
honest with you--and it's gone up 30 percent, but the workforce
has gone down 27 percent. Now, that sounds like you're getting
a lot of stuff done with a few people, and that is correct.
These few people are working tremendous amounts of hours to
keep your system on. Believe me, right now, electricity is a
drug, because as soon as it goes out, you guys start calling
us.
[Laughter.]
No question about it. And it's the linemen, it's the
electricians, the people that install our solar panels. I mean,
there's all sorts of work for us. Not everybody in this room
needs to go to college, especially in our industry. It's nice.
But if you get into K-12 and teach these students, yes, there's
a certain level of math in our industry, but primarily it's on-
the-job training, but you have to have that certain math. If
you don't have that math, there's nothing we can do for you.
But, as mentioned earlier, if you get into this program, in 4
years you're pulling down 65,000 bucks, that's pretty good.
Mr. Harrison. Senator, one of the exciting things about
this is all these things are true, that is, we need more and
better high school graduates who stop right there. We need more
and better people with 1 and 2 years of technical training.
It's a big gap. And more and better college graduates. If you
could get that done by a couple of weeks from now----
[Laughter.]
Senator Murray. Tomorrow.
[Laughter.]
Bob, earlier, you were talking about 10,000 more slots
needed at our universities. That's really expensive. Our State
legislature just cannot implement that tomorrow, because you
have to hire all the instructors, arrange the classroom space,
all those things. Some of what I'm hearing is, there are a lot
of pathways to success that we could coordinate. Maybe you
don't necessarily need to get a diploma today if you're getting
some career training, or if these career skills can translate
into some of those needed college credits. Are we working on
that at all?
Mr. Drewel. Yes. The issue of seamlessness has come up, the
issue of how it is we get students to talk about these
opportunities. I think, just to sum up this part of the
conversation, and I'm going to give you plenty of time--you've
been so patient here--we talked about access points. We're just
talking about lining up these access points and making sure
that the resources that we now have, individually, are shared
in a collective fashion.
Second, the whole issue, if you will, of the 10,000 new
degrees, the State did step forward in this legislature--and
the Governor--and, at the expense of $93 million, funded these
baccalaureate degrees. But the community colleges, per capita,
got more of that investment, indeed, than did the 4-year
institutions. The reason is, it is a point of access. Dr.
Mitchell commented that if--40 percent of the transfer students
go on the 4-year schools. You can't develop the types of
industries I chatted about earlier if you don't have laboratory
technicians, if you don't have the individuals who really
understand how this works.
I hope that gets to the point, but what I'm hearing here--
and, unfortunately, crisis has become an overworked term,
certainly at this stage of this country's maturation--but, at
the end of the day, when you hear figures of not having
individuals to keep the lights on, keep the water running, and
conversations of that nature, I think what you've launched here
today is this discussion about, How do we give the citizens of
this country an opportunity to maintain the country, to advance
their own careers, and provide for a stable society? There
isn't a person at this table who wouldn't argue that education
is the answer to that, and we just simply have to meld these
access points together, and we have to be smarter about how we
do it.
For the students in the room, we need to get out of the
``telling you how to do it'' business and getting into options
so you can experience what it is that you might be able to do
in the future.
Senator Murray. Mr. Seaman.
Mr. Seaman. Thank you. First of all, I want to comment on
Rick's comment about the WASL. It's really true, I think, that
if you could do one thing that would improve test scores in the
WASL, it is to show students that the material being tested is
relevant to their lives. That would solve almost the whole
problem with the WASL, in my view.
On the issue of barriers, I run a small company--and Kris
can probably tell you, I'm not very good at theory, but I am
good at reality and----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Seaman [continuing]. Reality, for me, is the Seattle
area, because that's where our business is and where I've been
doing it for 32 years out of 101 years of the company's
existence. What I see as the barrier in Seattle for young
people--the biggest barrier is, frankly, the K-12 system here.
That's not to say that there aren't great teachers and
administrators in the Seattle school district, and that they
aren't doing terrific things. But, as a whole, I just don't see
that system serving a lot of these kids well. I mean, first of
all, there's a very high dropout rate. But even some of the
kids that don't drop out don't find themselves in--it's one of
the reasons why the average age in a place like this is 30
instead of 19 or 20, is that we're not serving them well in the
K-12 system.
One of the big specific barriers I see there in Seattle--
and I know this isn't always true elsewhere, there's been
examples of where it's not true, here today--is that we really
need a full-size rigorous--for old-fashioned term, ``vocational
high school''--skills center, if you want to call it that now,
whatever you want to call it. But we need a really committed
one, where both the academic and the vocational skills are held
in high regard and taught well, because a lot of kids will
learn better in that system--in that kind of situation. I think
that if we had such a school, first of all, it would probably
serve as a model for one or two more that we could use in this
area, and it would probably further serve as a model for how
some of that curriculum could be better adapted into the other
high school curriculums. Another example where it's not working
well is, as Dr. Mitchell says, the community colleges, which by
and large are doing a pretty doggone good job with the kids,
are spending a lot of time doing remedial work, because that's
what they've got to work with. They're doing a pretty good job
of it, but they shouldn't have to be spending their resources
on it.
I would advocate, in this specific area anyway, that a
barrier is the lack of that kind of vocational training in the
K-12 level.
Mr. Mitchell. I would agree that we need, especially in the
Seattle area, some type of skills center. They do have them in
some of the other colleges.
The other problem with that, and I don't blame the WASL for
everything, but----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Mitchell [continuing]. But one of the things--and we've
kind of created this monster, where all of the schools are
measured on how those students perform on the WASL. Sometimes
that can be a detriment. If you look at the funding of the
budgets--and say you're a high school principal, and you get so
much money based off of--if students have the free lunch, you
get more money, and so, you have a set amount of money, and
you're measured on how your students fare out in the WASL. And
so, you have a program--say, a vocational program that's--and
they're more expensive to run, because of equipment and so
forth. Where are you going to put your money? What's
happening--there's no incentive of putting that money into the
vocational programs, and that's the reason that we would like
an option, if we're not going to have them within the schools,
that we would like to have a skill center.
Senator Murray. Well, without putting words in anybody's
mouth, it sounds to me like we have focused our education
system on specific skills testing, through WASL and other
things, when what we need is a more diverse education system.
Mr. Mitchell. Right.
Senator Murray. Pathway to success that allows people to be
able to----
Mr. Mitchell. Especially----
Senator Murray [continuing]. To be successful in many
different ways.
Mr. Mitchell. Yes, especially, you have a school district
with close to 50--more than 50 percent students of color, low-
economic households, and so, many of those students, if they're
just measured by how they're going to fare out as a college
transfer student, then we're losing a lot of those students,
because they don't have that alternative to go into one of the
vocational programs, because many of the schools have dropped
those programs, just because they're more expensive to run.
Senator Murray. Bob, last comment on this, and then I want
to, kind of, change topics.
Mr. Drewel. Thank you.
I'll be very brief.
Again, we're returning to this flexibility and access
issue. But, in the absence of a teacher here on the panel, some
of us have been, on some occasion--and this idea that what
happens in our K-12 systems gets laid off at the feet of the
educators, I think, entirely too often. When you began the
panel here today, you were looking for a broad-based response,
and particularly on this question, What's the barrier? Well, I
think there is a problem with a decline in resources, that has
been referenced here, that if we don't address them through
this hearing and other efforts--for a couple of decades, this
country asked teachers to do everything but teach. We sent them
children who were just plain hungry, instead of hungry to
learn; we got into the business of not-safe environments at
home; we took that biggest building in the neighborhood--a
school--and made it not the community center anymore, but just
the biggest school--just the biggest building in the
neighborhood. We've got to help teachers, we have to help
administrators, we have to help these young folks have those
Formica-kitchen-tabletop conversations about the future again.
I remember, when I was growing up in this neck of the woods,
somebody had that conversation with me a number of times,
about, ``You know, you might want to go to work for the Boeing
company, or you might want to do this, or you might want to do
that.'' Those were meaningful conversations, because the
resources and opportunity were there. What you've launched
today is an opportunity to reassess that inventory, not only of
financial support, but community support and get this business
of literacy into the literacy of education so that this region
can continue to grow.
Senator Murray. Well, thank you. When I spoke, at the very
beginning, I talked about the skills gap that we have, the fact
that we have 87,000 job vacancies, and 164,000 people looking
for work. If all of you could take a minute and define for me,
from your perspective, What are the skills or requirements that
we're missing? What are we not getting in our education system
that businesses actually need? I would broaden it a little
bit--all of us need to call a plumber or an electrician
sometime in our lives, and boy, try doing that right now, it's
almost impossible. From some of your different perspectives,
what are some of those skills that we are missing today.
Mr. Harrison. Senator, the annual survey that the Workforce
Board does with its partners surveys Washington employers, and
it focuses, as you might expect, on both harder technical
skills, specific technical skills, and their absence. Employers
are faced with not hiring the job at all, because specific
technical skills are not present. But there's a lot of
attention in the employer survey on what has, I think,
unfortunately, been called softer skills, having to do with
basic computation work readiness and so forth. I know you've
thought about that, as well. On the Workforce Board, we've
worked with some national partners and developed what we're
calling a work readiness credential. There are some other
efforts to try and certify a job seeker with regard to their
work readiness, so that employers who might be concerned that
work readiness is absent, could get more comfort. The issue
there is, of course, How do you teach and advance work
readiness? But the survey does show that skill gap is not just
specific technical skills, but readiness to work.
Senator Murray. John, Aultman.
Mr. Aultman. I think that when you change the conversation
from, earlier, what the academic skills that we're lacking, and
when you ask the employer, on the other side, it ends up to be
the soft skills, the ability to show up to work, be on time,
``I'll train them, I'll go from there,'' but there's a blend in
between. It's that combination of the technical skill and the
academic skill and the chance for career and technical ed to
demonstrate the academic skill and give credit for that
academic content through cross-crediting as a method of
delivery, other activities around that. But the biggest skill,
when parents come in, is--my last 7 years as a director of a
skill center in Tumwater, at New Market--parents would come in,
and they would say, ``Johnny's not doing too well, so we're
going to bring him over here and put him into one of these
programs.'' Their parents may have only known about carpenter,
plumber, cook, or mechanic, and that was their perception of
that. But the student's perception was more around the 10
highest growing occupations: the healthcare, the clinical
scientific pieces, the computer science, the things that
engaged him. The skill piece there is one piece, but then the
knowledge gap is the other piece about what's available for
both parents and students, is probably the largest gap that, as
a educator, we find.
Senator Murray. Mr. Allen, you----
Mr. Allen. Yes, just real quick, on the soft skills, I'd
just like to report, I checked with our vice president, who--we
were in a hiring frenzy for 3 years, at all levels. There's
clearly a gap, in the last 20 years, especially, with
communications skills. The point is, the people that do well,
no matter if you're a machinist or an engineer or an apprentice
or a carpenter, the best--the people that are the most--have
the best ability to write, to present their position, to
communicate--and I think that goes back to school's fundamental
fear of teaching a lot of the softer skills, even the
vocational skills, because the maths and sciences has been such
a--with Google and Microsoft and Intel and Dell and all these
guys, there's this huge illusion on math and science, not that
it's not important, but I'm telling you, we're hiring--this is
our vice president--we hire best available athletes. She's--
what she means are people that are sitting in the interview
that are interested and enthusiastic and can communicate
themselves. I go to my son's high school, Bellevue High School.
I asked the principal last year, I said, ``How many kids take
debate? How many English classes actually have group working
sessions where everyone has to speak and present their
position? How much of that stuff 's going on? '' And he said,
``Not enough.'' And I think those are the soft skills I've
seen.
Senator Murray. On this side.
Mr. Drewel. There seems to be one new entry into the
calculus, as well, and that's--this is the subject of
creativity. I've just heard from a number of employers at all
levels--and I think we used to call it something like ``Send us
people who can think,'' which sets the bar relatively low.
But----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Drewel [continuing]. This idea that you have the
ability to be creative and that we provide an educational
environment as you come up through the learning process, that
there is some value in this creativity, whether you're hanging
a line or whatever the issue might be. We're hearing that more
and more. We're also hearing----
Senator Murray. Are we losing that in our education
system----
Mr. Drewel. Pardon me.
Senator Murray. Are we not teaching that? Are we losing
that in our----
Mr. Drewel. Again, I don't know enough about this subject
matter. I would defer to the experts. But what we're hearing is
that people need to think differently about today's problems in
the workforce. To do that, they have to have come from an
environment that spawns this sense of creativity, that there
are other ways to get to the end solution, other than the way
we've been doing it for the last X number of years. I don't
know if there is a creativity bend in the K-12 system or not.
Mr. Aultman. I can respond to that. There was--as one of
the outcomes of Washington Learns last year, creativity was one
of the goals that was added to that, so that all of your
applications, if it's in a healthcare area, you might be
solving a world issue, or you take that on as a real-life
issue, just like was mentioned earlier. If it's in the computer
science area, it may be a game design that is combined with
math, science, and graphic arts. DigiPen Institute of
Technology just had their first graduate out of a high school
program. The student had about 3 months to decide which job he
wanted as he graduated. It was one of those tough decisions,
which one best fit his need. So, creativity is coming back in.
It's not just the drill and application aspect of it.
Senator Murray. I would tell you that this is a little bit
disconcerting to me, being on the committee that is going to
reauthorize No Child Left Behind, creativity has not been a
word that has been put on the table. I appreciate that
knowledge. Thank you.
Other comments? Rick?
Mr. Bender. Senator, just one comment. I think there's been
a number of studies done, though, that a good teacher in the K-
12 system can tell you by the third grade who your dropouts are
going to be. That's why I think that the Governor's initiative
on early childhood education, and really concentrating on those
early grades--because once they start falling behind in those
early grades, those are the students who are not going to make
it through the system, and they're going to have a tough time
getting a good family wage job with benefits. I applaud those
efforts, because I think we really need to start concentrating,
focusing on, and figuring out ways to get those young children
up to standard so they can make it through the system.
Otherwise, if you just pass them on from grade to grade, and
they can't read or write, or don't have the basic math skills,
they're not going to be able to make it in any kind of
technical or apprenticeship program, let alone go on to
college.
Senator Murray. Yes, Mr. Seaman.
Mr. Seaman. Thank you. I agree with the folks here that
talked about the soft skills and the work readiness skills as
being necessary, especially for entry-level positions. I think
it goes beyond that, when I look at this, too. Because I also
agree with the folks that say we need to do more, in terms of
the academic and technical skills. But I would say that those
work readiness skills, those soft skills that make a person
equipped for an entry-level position--say at my plant--are
exactly the same skills that the student needs to learn the
academic skills. If they don't have the communication skills,
the teamwork skills, the sense of responsibility, you're not
going to be able to teach them the academic skills.
I think all the young people need these work readiness
skills. I think it's the foundation of everything.
Senator Murray. Dr. Mitchell.
Mr. Mitchell. Yes, I just want to go back--I know we talked
about this whole math problem, but I just don't want us to get
off of that, because, when I look at many of our students,
students coming in from high schools and students trying to get
out, we have so many students, that they might have a B average
in English and the other skills, but they cannot do the math.
Some way--and I agree with Rick, it would be better if we had
that at K-12, where they would grasp the math at an early age.
But that's a huge challenge for us. Because there are so many
students that come in that are taking developmental math and
spending a lot of time in that. I think that's something that
we really need to concentrate on.
I agree with Rick, too, that it should be more of applied
math, but, wherever you go in the industry, you have to know
some math. We have to find a way to improve the teaching and
learning in math.
Mr. Harrison. Senator, this is playing out right now in the
discussion over meaningful high school graduation requirements.
It's being voted upon by the State Board of Education, the
newly reconstituted board. The discussion is over third-year
math and whether there is an advanced algebra alternative that
is rigorous and relevant and meets curriculum standards, and
how those would be reviewed. It's what the workforce community,
education community, and corporate community is working on
right now. The Perkins connection, of course, is, you've
tightened, in reauthorization, a lot of the focus of Perkins
and ended up making resources available for programs of study
and curriculum improvements, and we're trying to use some of
that money here to work on what that third year looks like,
because it's so critical in all these discussions.
Senator Murray. Carlos, can I come back and ask you--you
were saying that some of the students--and J.D.'s a good
example--are beyond what even the colleges are teaching, or
high schools are teaching. Can you talk a little bit about some
of the skills you see that we're missing, as an employer?
Mr. Veliz. I agree with the soft skills, and that's why I
wasn't commenting, because these were good comments on the soft
skills. The only one that I could have added to that was
industry-centric. The education they're receiving on a daily
basis, is it industry-centric? Yes, we had, landscapers and
plumbers or electricians, but again, it was very minimal, or
things that weren't a part of what our core competency is. In
my opinion, I think those industries like that are good in some
other State--Idaho or Wyoming or something like that--where
maybe there's not a whole lot of industry, like Washington
State. I think that the fact that the students are kind of
being held back--or not coming out with soft skills--is an
issue, but it's also being fueled by the lack of--and we get
back to the very beginning here--is lack of inclusion, because,
again, there has to be some excitement of ``why I'm here
today'' at this institute or at the school or what have you.
When I have students every year that have come through our
company--and I think we had, what, five last year? About five?
I think we probably average four to six students a year that
come through our----
Senator Murray. Now, do you go out to the high school to
find those students or----
Mr. Veliz. Middle school.
Senator Murray. To middle school.
Mr. Veliz. Middle school. Every single year, I have two
middle schools run about a dozen or so students through the
summertime, and we have two sessions, so we have about 24 to 30
kids come through our office, and we sit there and try to
understand where they're at, where they're going, and what
their passion is. Then we follow them, or we invite them to our
Student of Color Conference that is being held at the Everett
Community College that we started 5 years ago. It's
interesting, because here we created this program called the
Student of Color Conference, where we give out scholarships and
we invite, all these kids from the local high schools and
middle schools. We have great sponsors. Our hat goes off to the
Boeing company, Microsoft, and Starbucks. But isn't it amazing,
though, that we have to create this Student of Color
Conference, that probably should have already been in place by,
maybe, the career center, reaching out to all these
communities? But yet, it takes two individuals to reach out to
500 kids in the local county to bring them in.
Again, I think it's part of that inclusion, of knowing what
your assets are in the community, and then plugging into them.
I just don't think we're doing that. That kind of goes hand-in-
hand with these lack of soft skills that they have, coming to
us. We spend our time trying to go out to the middle schools--
we just went, a couple of weeks ago, to a high school and
spoke, together, by an invite of a teacher that's seen the
interest of what we were doing. And they said, ``You know,
these guys, they're not a large company, they're a small
company, but they're sure interested in supporting''----
Senator Murray. J.D., how did you hear about this? How did
you get involved in this?
Mr. Osborn. Carlos came to my Intro to Engineering class my
first quarter at Everett Community College, and gave a speech
about what his company was doing. I personally wanted to be a
designer, so I chased him out the door and grabbed his business
card, sent him an e-mail the next day, got invited in for an
interview, and then got a job.
Senator Murray. All right. So, you were self-promoting
yourself.
Mr. Osborn. Yes.
Senator Murray. Let me turn to Meisha. You've described to
us a very rough beginning to your career, and some really
difficult challenges that you overcame. There's a lot of young
people out there exactly like you. A lot of them. You had a
little bit of personal gumption to get to where you are. How do
we reach all those other young people who are just like you out
there?
Ms. Nash. I don't know. I think that a lot of information
is really just not out there. I had no idea that I could return
to school after getting my GED. I happened to pick up the
newspaper one day--and usually I don't pick up the newspaper,
but----
[Laughter.]
Ms. Nash [continuing]. I did, and I saw that article, and
it was really interesting to me. I don't think that the
information is out there. I think a lot of kids don't know that
they can come back after they've been out for periods of time.
Senator Murray. What would have been a good way to reach
you if you hadn't lucked out and read a newspaper one day?
Ms. Nash. I'm really not quite sure. I don't watch TV,
either. But a lot of people do.
Senator Murray. So, we need to do a better job of
communicating?
Ms. Nash. Yes.
Senator Murray. I think Carlos said it--of reaching out and
finding those kids, and picking them up. That takes----
Ms. Nash. Yes.
Senator Murray [continuing]. Individual work, right?
Ms. Nash. The information really just isn't out there for
random people. You have to really be looking for it to know
it's there.
Senator Murray. David, talk to us a little bit about how
you found your path here.
Mr. Steinhoff. Well, it's exactly like how he said. You go
into the career office, all you'll see is college brochures,
this, that, and your technical and your vocational and your
apprenticeship offers are kind of shoved in the back, covered
in dust, and----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Steinhoff [continuing]. Two years old. It's exactly how
he says, you've got to go in and you've got to look for it, if
that's what you want.
Senator Murray. Is that how you----
Mr. Steinhoff. And that's----
Senator Murray [continuing]. Found the program?
Mr. Steinhoff. Yes, that's exactly how. I went into the
career office looking for a job. I knew I didn't want to do
McDonald's and didn't want to work at a grocery store, so I
wanted something a little bit more. They pulled out these three
little brochures that were in the back. There was Bonney Lake
Power and a Bates program, and then the Get Electrified
Program. Like I said, that was a year old, so it's really about
getting the programs out there. I've heard that it's gotten a
lot better and that they're--like, mainly the union, the IBEW--
is sending a representative to the schools and preaching about
the apprenticeship programs and the offers that they have.
Senator Murray. When do we need to start doing a better job
of reaching out and finding students and helping them find an
alternative path to success?
Mr. Steinhoff. I'd have to say probably the middle school.
I think that that's the perfect time to, before they start
realizing everything and what they want to do. It's a good time
to put the idea in their head, because, as I said, it's all
about college, from the high school I went to, and even after I
was in this program, they called me into the office and asked
me why I didn't take my last college requirement. And I said,
``I'm not going to college.''
Mr. Bender. Senator, if I could comment.
Senator Murray. Yes.
Mr. Bender. One of the problems that we're facing in this
country is, there's a stigma that, somehow if you don't have a
4-year degree or higher, you're a second-class citizen. We've
got to overcome that. I think we need to get the information
out there that there are some tremendous opportunities for
young people that pay a good family wage job with healthcare
and with pension, that you can live a good life. The other
issue, too--what I find is so frustrating--when I'm asked to
speak to the K-12 system about opportunities. They'll send me
to an alternative school, and they won't let me speak to the
main student body. I'm very happy to talk to alternative
schools; I want you to know that.
[Applause.]
But I would like to be able to talk to the main--I mean,
the streamline--the mainline students and let them know what
opportunities are there out there for young people who may not
want to go on to a college, but want to have a good career down
the road.
Senator Murray. Mr. Allen, I heard that figure of 90,000
that you were talking about. Tell me how we do this better.
Mr. Allen. Well, exactly, I was going to say the same
thing. It's in the counseling office. Middle school is a good
place to start getting kids out to the shops and out to the
businesses and see what happens in the kitchen of a restaurant.
I mean, there's all these great culinary jobs coming out of
here, and it's just--I'm telling you, I sat with my son's
counselor, in ninth grade--they gave it by alphabet, so you
know who you got--and it dawned on me, I've got 1,000 employees
without 4-year degrees, and probably 200 of the 500 office
workers don't either. And I'm sitting here, and they're not
saying one word about what you're talking about or what you
just talked about. I just can't believe we can't institute in
this country a dual opportunity counseling option so the
counselors do--maybe you bring in counselors that specialize in
tracking the trades and the career paths.
The last thing I want to say is, it is unfair--the stigma
is forever--it is unfair to say that 4-year equals career,
because I have lots of friends now whose kids are calling me,
wanting to come down for an interview, that have a 4-year
liberal arts degree from a small East Coast college. Now they
want to figure out what the heck they want to do, and I don't
think that that's wrong, either, doing that, if you opened your
mind. But I'm saying we need to get the counselors and the
educators having the mental paradigm shift and not--to
destigmatize things.
Senator Murray. Mr. Allen, so you know, I've introduced
legislation, and been working on it for 4 years now, trying to
get academic counselors into our middle schools to help
students find a career path, because most of our counselors
today are focused on the social challenges that they have
within their schools, as they should be. I think we need a
completely different person who's focused on academic
counseling.
Mr. Drewel. Senator, we have a wonderful opportunity in
this State--it's Senate bill 5731. It was a result of the work
that Prosperity Partnership did. The quid pro quo for the $93-
million investment in the very programs that we're talking
about is that we have to come together and develop a program
of, How do we get into the middle schools, how do we get into
the high schools, how do we have these opportunities? I'll
certainly talk with your staff about that.
Senator Murray. OK.
Carlos, you had something you wanted to add.
Mr. Veliz. Thank you, Senator.
Again, I just want to add this, just for the record. The
equation that I believe we should probably look at is that
small business is the asset to, in my opinion, our educational
system. The corporation's asset is a small business. If we can
find a way to improve that to the small businesses that are
here, and that will be listening or reading--feed our pipelines
so we can go do our due diligence in the community, the way we
enjoy doing it, because we are closest to the community where
we live. That big building in the community, that Mr. Drewel
was talking about, we feed that. We have to feed it, because
those are our employees, and those are our families that we
associate with daily. But we also need the support of that
pipeline from the corporations, and since you're a part of that
committee, you know the government contracts that are available
out there for small businesses that--and even ourselves that
are here--we're too many thousands of miles away from DC. to
have access to those. That's obviously a different topic. But,
again, those are the things that will help us be better
stewards to our local community.
Senator Murray. David Harrison, you had a comment?
Mr. Harrison. Senator, I just wanted to note that we
sometimes make it sound like these pathways are distant from
each other. Ms. Stadelman's ``both/and'' comes to mind again.
That is, the career and technical pathway and the B.A. pathway
are near each other and have to be caused to intersect when it
is the preference of the learner, going forward. We have to do
a better job of creating the consistency of curriculum to make
that possible over--that's what, of course, the applied
baccalaureate seeks to do, and we have to make it possible--for
someone who's selected a technical training path to circle
back, if they wish, to the baccalaureate, and you need to
expect more from us in that regard, too.
Senator Murray. I'm going to go to Don and then to Dr.
Mitchell.
Mr. Gulliot. First of all, I'd like to congratulate the
young gentleman down there that joined our ranks with IBEW. I
also admire his courage for taking the position that, ``I'm not
going to go to college. There's something else I want to do.''
There is a valuable need for apprentices in our program. I can
certainly assure you of this; a bachelor's degree, associate
degree, that does not make you a journeyman in our trade.
You're going to have to go through an apprenticeship program,
simply because of the hazards of our trade and the on-the-job
training that we have to do--and you have to be standing next
to a journeyman to do that. I have a real fear in our industry,
the electrical industry, because of the manpower shortage, that
the employers are going to start pushing to shorten the
training program. That bothers me a lot, because they have
failed to train.
But, once again, not everybody wants to go to college, and
some of them can't afford to go to college. There is a family
wage job out there, if you get into an apprenticeship program.
Senator Murray. You've identified a concern of mine, as we
reach this crisis where we need skilled employees in a lot of
different places--air traffic controllers, for example, who are
retiring dramatically, and we still haven't trained
replacements. We don't want to get to a point where we're
rushing education and skills and creating unqualified
employees.
Mr. Gulliot. Right.
Senator Murray. Putting all of us at risk in many different
ways for a lot of different reasons. We have to be very careful
of that.
Mr. Gulliot. Nationwide, Senator, we're probably--in our
journeymen classification for the utilities, we're 90,000
people short, and we need them today. We can't fill the jobs
today.
Senator Murray. And we don't want somebody untrained doing
that.
Mr. Gulliot. That's true, absolutely.
Senator Murray. Dr. Mitchell.
Mr. Mitchell. Well, David was trying to say something, so I
wanted him--you'll have your comment, and then----
Mr. Steinhoff. I was just----
Mr. Mitchell [continuing]. I'd like to go after David.
Mr. Steinhoff. I was just going to say that the IBEW
program that I went through also offers the option to go to
Pierce College and pick up your A.A. degree, as far as your
electrical training counts as all your core classes, and then
you just go back and take a couple of math and English classes
and you can get your A.A. degree through the union.
Senator Murray. So, it's not an either/or----
Mr. Steinhoff. Yes.
Senator Murray. Right.
Dr. Mitchell.
Mr. Mitchell. Yes. I had a comment. Earlier, when we opened
the comments, we were talking about some of those students that
are performing the lowest, and many of these are African-
American students, Hispanic students. It goes back--when we
talk about this negative stigma attached to vocational or
professional occupation programs, that still dwells within the
African-American community, as well. An example of that--even
the church that I attend--and we give scholarships out each
year, and I sit back--and so, if a student got a scholarship
and they're going to Seattle Central or South or North, get a
little applause, and then if they're going to the University of
Washington or Harvard, they get a loud applause. A lot of that,
frankly, is because--I know when I was in the Seattle school
district and I wanted to go to the University of Washington,
and the counselors were pointing me to a vocational school--
many of the parents from that age, or some of the kids, react
negatively to vocational programs and don't realize the wealth
that's in it, the salaries that you can make. And so, we have a
job to do, not only stigma within the schools, but within our
community and the parents. The parents make a big decision as
to the direction of where those students are going. That's one
of the things that I've tried to do personally, as well as our
schools, is get that word out there that these are great
professions to go into.
Senator Murray. Right.
Well, we are at the close of the time that we've been
allotted here, and I have to say this has been a very
fascinating and dynamic discussion. I'm excited by the fact
that a lot is going on in our State. I think we are really
beginning to focus in a very positive way on bringing together
our businesses, labor, students, and our education system to
address future opportunities.
My goal, at the end of the day, is for all the young people
out there to know that we want each one of them to be a success
and that there is a way for them to be a success in a career
that is important to them. We all have a lot of work ahead of
us. We've identified a lot of the challenges ahead of us. We
have identified a lot of the paths that we need to start
looking at. I certainly will be using this hearing, back in
Washington, DC., to look at ways that the Federal Government
can better support what is happening here, be a better partner,
and move us in a better direction.
This is just the first of several hearings that I intend to
have on this issue as chair of the Employment and Workplace
Safety Subcommittee. I hope that the excitement I feel today
from all of our participants is something that will help
motivate our entire country to really make this a priority. I
intend to use my position to help with that.
I want to thank all of our panelists again today for your
participation.
[Applause.]
I want to remind everyone who's here that the record will
remain open on this committee. We appreciate anybody's
willingness to write a comment. Again, my staff is outside,
ready and willing to take those comments.
I especially want to thank Bill Kamela, who's back here
behind us, my staff from Washington, DC., who's helped organize
this. Bill and his staff have done a tremendous job in putting
this hearing together, and will continue to work on this issue.
Bill, thank you, to you and all of your staff.
With that, this official hearing is adjourned. Again, I
want to remind all of you, your participation is important.
Please don't hesitate to comment.
Thank you.
[Additional material follows.]
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Prepared Statement of Dave Johnson, Executive Secretary, Washington
State Building & Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO
Honorable Chairwoman Senator Murray and members of the committee,
for over 50 years the Washington State Building and Construction Trades
Council has represented the interests of building and construction
trades affiliates in Olympia and within local communities. Our
affiliate unions have worked together to build communities and educate
highly skilled craftsmen and tradeswomen for over a century throughout
Washington. This effort exists within each State across the Nation as
well. Throughout history and in classrooms and on the job today, expert
professionals in their craft continue to educate youth through
apprenticeship in construction.
Unfortunately, over the past two decades apprenticeship and careers
in construction have suffered an unfair negative image, and at the
least, been forgotten as a career path for college-level attainment
that provides stability and value for individuals and families within
our communities.
Quality constructors, both as skilled crafts and contractors, are
local economic infrastructures that must be maintained to actually
construct local public and private development and improvements. In-
sourcing workers and management to perform these vital functions simply
weakens a State or communities ability to thrive. Any financial gains
recognized would be short sighted lacking economic strategy; now
obvious in our difficulty to supply quality contractors or sufficient
numbers of skilled labor to meet workforce and infrastructure demands
before us today and in the future. In 2005, the National Bureau of
Labor Statistics released a report projecting that nationwide 185,000
new apprentices would be needed per year for the next 10 years to meet
demands of our industry. Washington's future needs for skilled
constructors are expected to be greater than the national average.
Successful education partnerships have been in place between
management and labor in the construction industry through Joint
Apprenticeship and Training Committees (JATCs) working together to
educate the next generation with the latest techniques and technologies
in our construction professions. Affiliates of the Building Trades and
signatory Contractors have worked diligently to reconnect with K-12 and
our community college systems and universities to return construction
and the trades through apprenticeship to the minds of educators,
parents and especially students. We support our Career and Technical
Education community and their efforts to help us rebuild the bridge for
students to transition into rewarding careers within our industry.
Washington State is the first in the Nation to systematically build
into law apprenticeship utilization statutes that require the use of
apprentices on public works construction. The attached chart indicates
a direct correlation between the enactment of these State laws and the
increased number of apprentices entered into State-approved
apprenticeship programs. In fact, most of our JATCs are now working at
capacity year round filling educational facilities with the newest
generation of quality constructors. The efforts of the JATCs are
primarily private schools, funded by labor and employers, affording our
facilities, educators, equipment, tools and curriculum. Support from
government funding is appreciated, but most programs feel greater
support from our State and Federal Governments, as partners in
community and economic development, should be increased for qualified
apprenticeship programs. Apprenticeship is a proven educational and
workforce investment worth increased support.
Federal WIRED Grants are one example to bring best practices
together to support economic development within regions. We wisely
utilize the support from our Federal and State Governments, but we'd
welcome increased partnerships to support our JATCs. Apprentices young
and older have transitional needs to succeed in the trades; and
addressing the retention demands of apprentices on JATCs is an issue
that could be further explored with increased support for students of
all income levels. Raising a family within the demands of our industry
is not easy. Understanding that wages are good as long as our members
are working and the need to keep projects in the works to maintain
quality constructors within local communities must remain in view to
provide solutions. In closing, supporting the awareness and value of
our industry's successes for individuals, contractors and community and
economic development to K-12 and higher education communities also
needs support from government to inform the unaware and to change the
negative perspective that currently exists in some districts.
I invite you to visit our Web site at www.WaBuildingTrades.org to
make contact with our local JATCs, to view the DVD message marketed to
increase student awareness of apprenticeship and to take a copy of our
``Apprenticeship: The Original Four Year Degree'' packet to your high
school to help reach potential quality constructors within your
community.
Prepared Statement of Pat Martinez Johnson, King County
Work Training Program
I am a youth educator and employment professional with 30 years of
experience working with at-risk youth. I work for King County and have
been a program designer and manager and a partnership builder for 20 of
those 30 years. I currently coordinate a learning center--Learning
Center North. Learning Center North is a collaboration of Shoreline
Community College, King County Work Training, Seattle-King County
Workforce Development Council, and the Shoreline School District. The
center effectively reengages 16-21-year-old high school dropouts and
helps them move on to advanced training and/or employment.
effective dropout reengagement
1. Approximately 30 percent of the youth who start high school do
not graduate. The options open to these dropouts are limited. If these
youth are not reengaged in education, our potential and needed
workforce is severely depleted. We lose skill, productivity, and
potential at an enormous economic and social cost. This situation is
exacerbated by the astronomical costs of the services that high school
dropouts often end up needing in terms of public assistance, mental
health services, or incarceration.
2. Many high school dropouts will not return or cannot return to
high school. This can be true for many reasons: Their skills are too
low; their behavior records too severe; their lack of success too
personally overwhelming; and/or their personal barriers too great.
Bottom line, at some point, they are too old with too few credits to go
back to seek a high school diploma. Again, remember the 30 percent
number.
3. Effective programs exist that offer GED Plus. These are programs
that usually involve a community-based organization, school district,
or college as well as employers. Individualized instruction, case
management or mentoring, a focus on basic skills remediation, GED
preparation, and assistance in transitioning to college and/or work are
provided. These programs offer the only hope for a significant number
of dropouts who are not going to return to high school and are not
ready for college.
4. Workforce Investment Act (WIA), grant, and local funding are key
funding elements for these centers but State Basic Education funding
has to be the foundation. The major obstacle preventing the
establishment and continued existence of GED Plus programs is ``No
Child Left Behind.''
5. ``No Child Left Behind'' (NCLB) says a GED is a negative
outcome. Students who are reengaged in education, attain their GED and
go on to short- or long-term training and employment are considered
failures by the Federal standards of ``No Child Left Behind.'' School
districts and States do not want these negative statistics.
6. ``No Child Left Behind'' needs to be changed so that GED is
either a positive outcome--as it is in federally funded WIA programs
or, at a minimum, students who attain their GED's need to be taken out
of the denominator for NCLB when dropout rates are calculated for
schools, school districts, and States.
7. A GED alone should not be used to measure student success. GED
Plus programs should also be measured by the extent to which students
make measurable gains in key basic skills areas and the extent to which
youth transition on to apprenticeship, professional technical advanced
certificate or degree programs, or to traditional college or
employment.
8. States and school districts need to be encouraged and sanctioned
to build, support, and fund networks of GED Plus centers with public
education dollars as the foundation and other leveraged funding and
partnerships as key components. These should not replace all the
critical efforts to prevent youth from becoming academically at risk
and all the efforts in place to keep our youth in school through
graduation and beyond. But the white elephant in the room needs to be
recognized--not all students do or will get their diploma and we cannot
afford to lose these youth either.
workforce investment act funding
1. The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) youth program funds have been
steadily deteriorating--year by year--for decades. These funds, and the
programs that operate with these funds, are critical to supporting and
helping low-income, at risk youth achieve key benchmarks in basic
education, work readiness, skills training, higher education, and
employment.
2. WIA funding for youth needs to be maintained or, ideally,
restored to the levels that existed under the Comprehensive Employment
Training Act (CETA) or the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA).
3. Programs funded through WIA build and rely on partnerships with
business, labor, school districts and higher education. These programs
provide needed intensive support to youth with multiple barriers. They
provide long-term follow up and transition services. Programs funded
through WIA have to meet tough, specific performance measures related
to employment and education and retention if they are going to continue
to receive funding.
Prepared Statement of Bob Markholt, Program Director, Seattle
Vocational Institute Pre-Apprenticeship Construction Training (SVI
PACT)
introduction
Need for a Skilled Construction Workforce in the Puget Sound Area
The Puget Sound region is in a construction boom. Private and
public construction projects are creating a huge demand for new
workers. Projections from Washington State Employment Security Division
suggest there will be about 10,427 annual job openings in Washington's
construction industry over the next few years to 2014. According to the
Workforce Board's recent survey, employers are having difficulty
filling current openings. Among firms attempting to hire construction
workers, 71 percent had difficulty finding qualified job applicants--
the highest reported percentage of any sector.\1\
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\1\ From High Skills, High Wages 2006, Washington Training and
Education Coordinating Board. The full report is at www.wtb.wa.gov/
documents/hshw06_fullreport.pdf.
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Need for High-Wage Career Training in the Puget Sound Area
An increasing number of people are left out of the economic
vitality of our region. This is part of a national trend (the growing
income gap between the very rich and the rest of us) but it is also due
to regional factors such as the high cost of housing and other living
expenses, and a large high school drop out rate.\2\ Additionally, much
of society and the educational system are laboring under the false
assumption that everyone will go to college. This has never been true
in the history of the United States. Traditional forms of training,
such as apprenticeship, are not touted as viable career paths in our
schools, and most students do not know about the high-wage, high-demand
career opportunities they provide.
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\2\ Thirty-three percent of the high school class of 2001 did not
graduate in Washington State. Washington State High School Graduation
Rates, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, 2002, funded by the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/
html/cr_27.htm.
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SVI PACT Construction Career Pathway
Pre-Apprenticeship Construction Training (PACT) began in 1998 to
prepare its graduates to enter construction trade apprenticeships. Over
150 graduates have become carpenters, electricians, laborers, painters,
sheet metal workers, iron workers, cement masons, and plumbers.
Before they enrolled in the PACT program, nearly all were very poor
and unemployed or marginally employed. Now, they are working at leading
construction companies such as Mowat Construction, Hoffman
Construction, Lease Crutcher Lewis, Merlino Construction, and Absher
Construction. These companies will attest that PACT provides well-
trained, dedicated and reliable employees. There are countless stories
of PACT graduates whose lives have literally been turned around by this
program. They are now paying taxes and building our city.
PACT has achieved these results by addressing our students'
barriers to entry into construction trade apprenticeships and by
forging strong partnerships with the apprenticeships, unions,
construction companies and the community.
Since the majority of PACT's students are minorities, opening doors
within the construction industry for people of color has been critical.
Great strides have been made in this regard due to strong leadership in
the building trades and a strong job market. Another key factor has
been EEO and apprentice utilization requirements on publicly funded
projects such as Sound Transit, Federal Highway Administration
projects, and King County's Brightwater Sewage Treatment Project.
pact facts
Program Background
90 percent of students graduate. Ninety percent of
graduates enter a construction apprenticeship program.\3\
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\3\ Statistics from 2004 through the end of 2006. In 2004 the
program was reconfigured to its present length and curriculum.
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Program training is focused solely on preparation for
construction trade apprenticeships.
Program is comprehensive: recruitment, training, support
services, and placement are all done within the program.
Program works with students to remove barriers to
employment such as lack of a driver's license, poor math skills, poor
job skills.
Program expanded in January 2007 increasing capacity by 50
percent.
The retention rate of PACT graduates in the building trade
apprenticeships is 10 percent higher than the average.
Students
100 percent low-income
10 percent female, 90 percent male
26 percent immigrants
43 percent have been incarcerated
Asian/Pacific Islander: 7 percent
Black: 72 percent
Hispanic: 7 percent
Native: 4 percent
White: 7 percent
Other: 1 percent
Advisory Board/Partners
PACT Advisory Board is made up of representatives from
construction companies, labor, and the public and non-profit sectors.
Articulation agreements are in place with most
apprenticeship programs.
Community and support service partners: Therapeutic Health
Services, Unity House re-entry housing, TRAC Associates, DADS Program,
Urban League, Apprenticeship Opportunities Project.
PACT graduates are the largest source of recruitment.
Challenges
One-third of program's cost is provided by community
college district. The program must raise the remaining \2/3\ of program
costs.
Keeping pace with construction industry demand for new
workers.
federal support for the construction trades career pathway
The Federal Government can provide support for low-income people
moving into high-skill and high-wage careers through a variety of
policy and funding measures:
Funding for training, including pre-apprenticeship
training,
EEO & apprenticeship requirements on federally funded
construction projects, and
Confronting the prevailing myth that everyone is going to
college and providing leadership on post-secondary training, such as
apprenticeship, that leads to strong skills and good paying jobs.
______
Attachment.--John Collins, Journeyman Laborer
Prepared Statement of Shepherd Siegel, Seattle Public Schools
Career & Technical Education is 21st century education. It will
increase the number of youths who live meaningful lives, and it will
rescue and strengthen our economy. Thus, all educators must bring fresh
eyes to our calling, and to this pedagogy that serves virtually all
learning styles. Career & Technical Education is about our young
people's quest to continue building the world. It is about ethical
business that serves our great society; human services that nurture the
caring relations we all depend upon; media that increases communication
and decreases distance in the global village; and the science,
engineering & industry that will preserve our environment, feed our
poor, house and transport us for all generations.
Who are the advocates for Career & Technical Education? They are
citizens and parents, educators and employers, colleagues and mentors
who want the best secondary education and the best and most meaningful
lives for high school graduates. Not a self-serving special interest
group but servants of community, who work for social justice that does
not come without a foundation of economic justice. Not advocates of an
obsolete or archaic system, but those ready to rip the shroud of an
obsolete and archaic stereotype that gives way to a substance and style
of education, re-tooled and reborn, ready to play a major role in 21st
century secondary public education.
Two arguments dominate the landscape: CTE as alternative learning
and dropout prevention, and CTE as the key to economic revival. Both
arguments have merit, and together the poignancy that the kids in our
school systems are pushing out are the ones who will save our economy
and redeem our democracy.
While State after State moves into an educational landscape of
standards based on the needs of humanities-based baccalaureate
institutions (and subsequently come to doubt these high-stakes one-
size-fits-all approaches), the emerging realization is of the need to
offer students varied modes of learning, without relapsing into a
tracked environment. The most reliable tradition of secondary
alternative learning--one that with continuous improvement can provide
all students with the context and hands-on approach that will lead them
to academic and adult life success--is Career & Technical Education.
The stories of students who finally mastered math, learned to write and
speak clearly and with purpose, found a reason to stay in school, put
history in a meaningful economic context, discovered passion, pride in
product, and their career pathway . . . are endless. Leading models of
small schools like The Met in Providence, New Jersey, synthesize the
best of the independent study model of alternative schooling and the
context and engagement of Career & Technical Education. It's a powerful
combination with implications for every high school. And just under the
surface of these academic successes is the true dynamic of the
``holding power'' of CTE.\1\ That dynamic is fueled by the replication
of our local community on the high school campus. That is, our students
arrive in exceedingly diverse packages, and our teaching corps must
reflect that diversity, not only as men and women, not only as being
racially and culturally diverse, but our teachers must also represent
the diversity of learning styles, and of the intellectual, visceral,
kinesthetic, and streetwise wisdom that CTE teachers, schooled less so
by universities and more by industries, bring to our high school
students.
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\1\ See University of Minnesota, St. Paul, National Research Center
for Career and Technical Education. (2001). Career and Technical
Education in the Balance: An Analysis of High School Persistence,
Academic Achievement and Postsecondary Destinations. Retrieved August
19, 2005, from the National Dissemination Center for Career and
Technical Education Web site: http:
//www.nccte.org/publications/infosynthesis/r&dreport/
CTE_in_Blnce_Plank/CTE%20in%20
Blnce_Plank.html.
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The second argument, equally valid, is that our country needs to
increase the amount of and access to Career & Technical Education in
order to reclaim jobs that are currently going offshore; to regain
primacy in innovation and engineering; and to provide employers in all
industries with workers who know how to craft, repair and build things,
to care for and educate our young, to care for the environment and feed
the hungry, to practice ethical and competitive businesses, to make our
national economy strong and replete with meaningful and well-paying
jobs. This ``vocational'' argument is often rejected out-of-hand, based
not on data and research, but upon the folk belief that CTE represents
a form of tracking, that it is racist in its 19th and 20th century
roots (i.e., following the Industrial Revolution).
It is a life-and-death issue for our economy in particular and
American society in general that this misunderstanding be resolved,
that we learn, as other industrialized nations have learned, that
dignity, gainful employment, intellectual challenge, and social justice
are all to be found in the pursuit of non-baccalaureate educational
paths that lead to anything from a career in automotive technology to
child-care, from small business to teaching, from information or
engineering technology to farming or sign language interpreting.\2\
There is nothing racist in that. Quite the reverse. When vocational
education makes a promise to oppressed minorities and then does not
deliver on that promise . . . that is racist, and that was indeed the
case in the early to mid-20th century. That is no longer true, and it
is the responsibility of every CTE educator to ensure that it is never
true again. Today, it is Career & Technical Education, CTE, that can
and will deliver diversity and equity, and narrow the educational,
skills, and citizenship gaps between the races, men and women, rich and
poor, those with and those without disabilities.
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\2\ These pathways are frequently referred to as ``sub-
baccalaureate'', a more than unfortunate term. So long as the sub-
baccalaureate career path carries the cultural stigma of a ``less
than'' career course, we will continue to have a ``sub-Asian'' and
``sub-European'' economy.
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A strong and sustainable economy will require millions of educated
technical workers, child-care providers, schoolteachers, entrepreneurs,
agricultural scientists, nurses, engineers, information technology
professionals and the like. The myth that any kind of technical
training focus at the secondary level repudiates educating citizens for
active participation in a democracy, or that it ``dumbs-down'' literacy
and numeracy skills has been disproved for decades by the success of
European economies and nations who provide serious technical training
to a populace more politically aware, more historically conscious, and
more democratically active than Americans. Data consistently show that
Career & Technical Education programs increase college enrollment and
reduce dropouts, and do not negatively impact test scores.\3\
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\3\ Plank, S. (2001). Career and technical education in the
balance: An analysis of high school persistence, academic achievement,
and postsecondary destinations. Maryland: Johns Hopkins.
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In other words, our responsibility is to do more than deliver on
the career-related skills and standards found in our curriculum. We
must also ensure that graduates of our programs are finding adult
success. That is the only real accountability measure that matters.
State exams pale in comparison to the truly high stakes of our
commitment to prepare students for an adult life well-lived and
prosperous, with not a single life wasted.
The way to accomplish this is through a rebuilding of our CTE
programs in a manner that is fully integrated with the mainstream life
of the comprehensive secondary school, or of each and every small
middle or high school. Urban school systems have a unique opportunity
to create varied, comprehensive, and robust CTE offerings that provide
opportunities for all students, opportunities directly related to their
adult lives as citizens, workers, scholars and lifelong learners.
Unlike small rural or suburban systems, or a stand-alone small school,
a large school system can create a full menu of CTE offerings, using
economy of scale and making the most of the diverse interests and
talents of an urban population. Unlike a vocational-technical center,
technical high school, or regional CTE school, CTE in a large school
system can be integrated with the academic life and educational
pursuits of a heterogeneous population of students, reflecting the
purpose and inhabiting the very highest ground of what a democracy can
be: full mobility for student interest, full access to all aspects of
an industry, full respect and dignity for all pathways that lead to a
gainful and meaningful adult life.
There is a vital conversation about why large school districts have
not always taken full advantage of this opportunity, but my purpose
here is more to present a plan for how, given the will of our
community--teachers, administrators, leaders, families, employers--our
public secondary schools can become just such a place of comprehensive
opportunity for all students. To build robust CTE programming that
serves all students, every CTE course must be closely associated with
career pathways. Every CTE class must have the necessary relevance,
rigor, relationships and results.
When a critical mass of American educators are convinced that
building such a CTE system is essential, we will need to find new and
better ways to define Career & Technical Education, to put it into a
language that leads to constructive dialogue and viable proposals that
create the interdisciplinary teaching teams, the fun and valuable
project- and community-based learning opportunities, and the 21st
century high school that leaves no child without an exciting and
meaningful future. There is a vital place for CTE in every high school.
To that end, I am proposing a four-approach model of Career & Technical
Education. These approaches are anything but discrete: they overlap and
commingle in a rich swirl of purposeful and focused education that
leads students to their passions, their minds, and their purpose. And
all of these approaches can be found in the five broad categories, or
pathways, which CTE uses to deliver its content and as a taxonomy to
help young people get a grasp on the adult world they will soon enter:
1. Science, Engineering & Industry
2. Health & Human Services
3. Business, Marketing & Information Technology
4. Arts, Communications & Media
5. Agriculture and Environmental Science
approach one: industry certification
This is a critical approach to Career & Technical Education. As our
Nation's workforce and economy create new and more technical/
professional careers, high schools that invest in Career & Technical
Education programs that grant marketable industry certifications will
offer their students great benefits. This approach is the equivalent of
what we in Washington State call preparatory CTE course sequences. This
type of CTE provides context and specific outcome. These require the
scheduling, counseling, equipment and facilities to sustain student
enrollment over a 2- or 3-year period. In most cases, this provides
students with advanced placement in community colleges. Research bears
out that students in this pathway, contrary to popular belief, attend
college at a high rate, and fare well in their careers and income
levels. In 2005, Washington's State legislature began consideration of
legislation whereby students could opt for certain industry-
certification course sequences in lieu of taking the State's 10th grade
exam. Demonstration pilots are planned. Examples of CTE Industry
Certification routes include Cisco Networking; tech prep and other
higher education articulations; pre-teaching/child care; pre-
engineering (Project Lead the Way); and Automotive Youth Educational
Systems.
approach two: college and university preparation
These are CTE courses that function as providing a context, but not
necessarily an industry-specific outcome. In other words, these CTE
courses engage and interest students through their real world
relevance, but the measure of each course's worth is its ability to
prepare students for State exams and entrance into baccalaureate
institutions. Virtually all CTE taught to standards is excellent
preparation for college or other postsecondary education or training.
These are CTE equivalents of core academic courses. Students benefit
from the career pathway interest they provide, and from the opportunity
to exceed academic standards through alternative learning modes, and in
alternative contexts. These courses will help to close the achievement
gap, and students of a wider range of abilities will be able to
successfully reach for a 4-year college education. More importantly,
they will develop strong learning and thinking skills. This approach to
CTE is best exemplified by school system initiatives to cross-credit
CTE courses with core academic courses (Applied Math, Pre-
Engineering, Accounting, American Sign Language, Photography, Nutrition
and Wellness, Graphic Design, Education, and Family Health are all good
examples). The No Child Left Behind Act's definition of ``highly
qualified teacher,'' as it is currently written, unfairly limits what
CTE can do for our students' academic achievement. That is, with few
exceptions, teachers must hold a baccalaureate degree in the subject to
be cross-credited to, in order for that cross-credit to count.
approach three: career academies
Career academies are perhaps the most exciting and successful high
school reform effort of the past 50 years. And their success in
retaining students and launching them into positive post-high school
outcomes is extensively documented by the research.\4\ Career academies
are defined as an integrated team of academic and CTE teachers.
Students form cohorts who take at least half of their scheduled classes
together. Classes revolve around a career theme. Students generally
participate in job shadows, career conferences, mentoring, and student
leadership activities in and out of the classroom. Paid summer
internships help students connect the classroom activities and
instruction with real-world experiences. While CTE in these academies
less often lead directly to industry certification, the students are
deeply immersed in all aspects of a particular industry, and they
graduate able to pursue a variety of pathways, which most often
includes a college education. In other words, career academies are
examples of context and approximate outcome. Academies rely on strong
and consistent support from advisory boards, and need the support of
counselors and principals at their school in order to schedule and
group students to provide a deep experience of the chosen career theme.
Academies work so well because teachers come together with an emphasis
of students in common instead of specific subject matter, i.e.,
academies are the original, contemporary small learning community.
Academies also have the advantage of accommodating heterogeneous
groupings of students, and data are now being collected on student
outcomes. Seattle Public Schools has 14 career academies in six high
schools.\5\ They are in Architecture, Construction & Engineering;
Biotechnology; Environmental Science; Finance; Global Studies;
Hospitality & Tourism; Health & Environment; Information Technology;
Maritime Studies; and Public Service.
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\4\ See http://casn.berkeley.edu/clearinghouse.html for links to
recent published research.
\5\ At one high school, wall-to-wall small learning communities
manifest as three career academies, and another is headed in a similar
direction.
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approach four: the art of craft
This type of CTE, most frequently found in the Science, Engineering
& Industry pathway, is the one that has taken the most serious beatings
in high school reform debates. It is not organized around formal
industry certification, nor the most common academic standards, and is
unfortunately taught apart from the mainstream of the high school. It
has less specific context, and less specific outcomes, which is what
makes it, like art, so vulnerable in a standards-based educational
environment. Yet there is a significant minority of students and
graduates who will tell you that their experiences in just such
``hobby'' courses were the most important ones in their high school
experience. That these classes gave them a reason to stay in school and
not drop out. That their minds were opened to thinking and learning
through the hand or the heart, in a way that other classes could not
reach them. That they got started on learning in a way that DID lead to
industry certification, a gainful career, and/or a college degree. That
through the explorations in this woodworking, sewing, entrepreneurship,
photography, or other CTE ``craft'' course, they went through a process
of self-discovery that was essential to them finding their true and
successful course in life. We may live to regret the rapid elimination
of courses that take this approach.
A full and common grasp of these four approaches to Career &
Technical Education will equip CTE teachers, administrators, education
reformers, facilities planners, school board members, community groups,
students and their families to look at high school reform in a fresh
and grounded way. It will provide us all with the tools to continue to
redesign our high schools to become centers of our communities where
students do not drop out, where graduates have the skills, knowledge
and direction our country needs in order to create a higher quality of
living, and a place where students find their passions, their
direction, and the power to provide value to their own community, their
own family, their country and the world.
Prepared Statement of Linda Tieman, RN, MN, FACE, Executive Director,
Washington Center for Nursing
As the population in Washington State ages, the caregiving
population is aging too. The ``Nursing Supply and Demand through 2025''
study completed by the University of Washington Center for Health
Workforce Studies under contract from the Washington Center for
Nursing, indicates that must increase the numbers of RN graduates by
400/year, every year, from 2010-2025 to mitigate the shortage. The
average RN in WA is 48.5 years of age, older than the national average
age. The WA State Department of Labor continues to identify Registered
Nurse as one of the top 10 professions with significant vacancies and
continued growth of jobs; currently, they report 5,000 vacancies.
Supply and demand are the two sides of this equation.
supply
Our schools of nursing are able to accept 51 percent of the
qualified applications (actual applicants with duplicate applications
removed from the count) into their programs. This number is
approximately 700 individuals who, if accepted, would most likely
complete the RN program and join our workforce. The limiting factor in
the supply side of this equation is the lack of qualified faculty to
teach nursing. Salary is the issue in this limiting factor; community
college nursing faculty experience up to a 50 percent salary reduction
if they leave the professional practice world and accept a teaching
position. Even with adjustments for 9-, 10-, or 12-month contracts,
this fact is accurate. Most report that their new graduates earn 40
percent more than they do when they begin working. The workload of
faculty has been poorly documented but when one adds this to the low
salary, it's not surprising that Master's- and Ph.D.-prepared nurses
are not attracted to the educational world. In many cases, a nurse with
the education to teach must wait until he/she retires from another role
to begin teaching. While this individual brings important experience to
their teaching, their ``life'' as an educator is much shorter than if
he/she had begun teaching earlier in the career. To attract younger,
appropriately-educated teachers, the compensation must be competitive.
We know through a recent survey of our nursing programs that 83
full-time faculty will be retiring by 2010. Forty percent of the Deans
and Directors of our programs are retiring in the next 2 years. Who
will replace these educators and educational administrators? This
salary issue is a serious barrier to our ability to meet the promise to
Washingtonians that they will receive healthcare when and where they
need it.
Our State has not addressed this severe salary differential between
education and practice, and must do so. A number of States have
implemented salary adjustments for both public and private nursing
program faculty. The prolonged wait to be accepted into a nursing
program discourages talented individuals and drives them to other
professions. In addition, the inability to be accepted discourages
incumbent workers and second-careerists. Thus we lose nurses from three
potential recruitment areas. We have not yet seen the retirement coming
in the direct care, leadership and educational sectors of nursing, but
we know that 2010 is the year that the first significant wave of ``baby
boomers'' will reach 65 and potentially retire. Our timeline is short.
If we do not address this issue we will begin to see frightening gaps
in our ability to provide care, to mentor new graduate nurses as they
make the transition into the profession, and to retain nurses.
A number of interventions are already in place to address the
supply issues:
Our nursing schools have increased capacity and graduates
by 80 percent since 2001.
Partnerships with industry have supported working RN's to
participate as clinical faculty.
The State's loan repayment program recently amended its
policy to include educational programs to become nursing faculty as
eligible for these dollars.
Partnerships between Associate Degree and upper division
RN programs can be found across the State, expediting the educational
journey for students.
Our State is a leader in its distance learning
capabilities (on-line and TV learning) and we can do more.
Coordination of clinical placement sites, which can
prevent nursing programs from accomplishing their goals, is expanding
statewide, based on success in the Pierce county-southwest WA Clinical
Placement consortium.
Expansion and coordination of High Fidelity Simulation to
enhance education is occurring across the State. The sooner we ensure
that every program and care-site has access to well-managed simulation
the better.
A Master Plan for Nursing Education has been under
development since 2006, and will be delivered to the Department of
Health in December 2007. Required by a grant to WCN, its goal is to
assure the health of Washington's residents by having a sufficient
supply of appropriately educated nurses to care for them; additionally,
it seeks to be student-friendly, effective, efficient, educationally
sound, and collaborative with industry. The plan speaks to the faculty
issues as well. (I am happy to supply either the latest draft or the
final version when completed).
Because nursing, like all clinical programs, is more
expensive for a college or university, the methodology for how the
State allocates funds must be altered. Funding a History student FTE at
the same level as a nursing FTE makes no sense; the latter requires
more resources in terms of people, equipment, and time, than the
former. This old methodology is a barrier to nursing programs.
A program to bring nursing education to the rural areas of
the State is in process; this is a collaborative effort of the AHEC's,
WCN, Lower Columbia College, WSHA, the State Board of Community and
Technical Colleges and several rural organizations. This innovative
program addresses the dilemmas of place bound individuals who want to
become RN's but cannot leave their home areas, and the desire of rural
organizations to have a well-educated workforce that remains in their
communities.
Several programs are looking at specific underrepresented
populations' needs for assistance in becoming nurses.
A plan is under way in Pierce County to create a program
for internationally (formerly ``foreign'') educated RN's who are not
practicing as RN's to prepare themselves to take the NCLEX and become
licensed in WA. Once funded and implemented, it can be replicated in
other areas of the State.
The Governor's Healthcare Disparities Council is
interested in exploring the application of its' goals and principles to
expanding a diverse healthcare workforce.
There is a desire to work with DOD to create pathways that
are effective and educationally sound so that military personnel can
transition into a civilian educational program to advance their
education. Work in this area was completed last year by the Nursing
Care Quality Assurance Commission and interest in this area is high.
WA has been a leader in expanding the role of the Advanced
Practice Nurses, so that patients can be served by them as their
primary providers. We have 6.7 percent more ARNP's in WA today than we
did last year, and our schools are preparing more each year.
demand
On the opposite side of the scale is the demand for nurses. Again,
DOL tells us that employers report an increasing need for Registered
Nurses in most venues for care, and a need for more Licensed Practical
Nurses (LPN's) in Long Term Care and Home Care. Over 50 percent of our
nurses work in the 109 Acute Care Hospitals across the State. As
``acute'' care continues to move into Long Term Care and the Home, the
need for nurses grows in those areas; concurrently, the patients who
are in the acute hospitals are extremely ill or have complex surgeries
that cannot be done in the outpatient setting, and thus require intense
care. Older patients consume more healthcare resources, often have
fewer support systems in terms of family, and have the limitations that
normal aging brings. As our State's population continues to expand, our
hospitals are seeing increasing numbers of patients even as acute care
moves to other settings.
Stabilization of the workforce through improvement of what is
called the workplace environment is critical, and is in the hands of
leadership in an organization. Data show us that salary & benefits
continue not to be the most important issue for nurses but involvement
in the workplace decisions, a focus on patients first, flexibility in
scheduling, attention to the needs of aging nurses, access to
educational advancement, positive MD-RN relationships, support systems
so that a nurse can do nursing work, appropriate staffing, a nurse
leader who is at the executive level of the organization to impact
decisions that affect patient safety and staff satisfaction, and
recognition are all important. Clearly there are work situations where
compensation may not be competitive or appropriate for the work done;
again, it's incumbent on the employer to address those issues.
Redesigning how care is delivered is an important component of
retention; patients, care, and knowledge is different than when the
systems we still use were designed. We need new and different answers
to the questions of how to ensure that patients in all settings receive
the right care, from the right person, at the right price.
According to the UW Center for Health Workforce Studies,
approximately 85 percent of licensed RN's who are healthy & less than
69 years of age are working. Retaining these nurses is critical to
ensuring the health of our citizens.
One aspect of retention that has just been studied in WA is the
transition of new graduate RN's from school into their first
professional roles. This is the most vulnerable time for us to retain
or lose nurses. Data verify that hospitals in WA that have a planned
program of transition have a 90 percent retention rate of new graduates
after 1 year of employment. Because national data report that up to \1/
3\ of new RN graduates report that they plan to leave nursing within a
few years, we must intervene to retain these nurses. Nursing is unique
in its historical thrusting of educated but inexperienced nurses into
positions of great responsibility with little support or transition.
Other professions approach this period of transition differently;
teachers complete a student teaching period, new accountants start at
firms ``crunching'' numbers, engineers have at least a year of
learning, physicians complete residencies. The complexity of patient
needs, the expansion of medications, technology, and information demand
that we ensure that every new graduate have an effective transition
from student to novice professional. Recently a nurse told me that she
cares for ``x'' patients each shift and adds ``technology'' as an
additional patient needing her time and energy. It's no surprise that
dissatisfaction is high in this new graduate workgroup if minimal
acknowledgement of what is needed exists in an organization.
Traditionally, Home Care and Public Health have not hired new
graduates because those roles require high levels of independence,
critical judgments, knowledge of community health and population
management. Given that the average Public Health Nurse is >50, and that
our Public Health Department budgets preclude their paying salaries
that are competitive, there is new thinking about whether a new RN
graduate could be successful in this area. Corollary to this is the
question about how to help nurses who have been in the acute hospital
make the transition into either Home Care or Public Health. My recent
meeting with several directors of large Home Care agencies revolved
around the same issues, though salaries are not so much on an issue.
Lack of funding to study, design, implement and evaluate transition
programs into these areas, where more and more patients now receive
care, is a barrier for them.
We all know the complexity of these issues and share the worries
about whether we're doing enough, well enough, quickly enough. WCN was
created to ensure that we have enough nurses with the appropriate
education to care for WA's citizens both now and in the future. All of
the work that has been done since its creation is in service to that
mission.
I welcome the opportunity to speak with any/all of you about the
information submitted here, and hope that this has been helpful to you.
______
Manufacturing Industrial Council (MIC),
Seattle, WA,
November 21, 2007.
Hon. Patty Murray,
U.S. Senator,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety,
Russell Senate Office Building,
Washington, DC. 20510.
Dear Senator Murray: Thank you for the opportunity to participate
in the November 27, 2007 field hearing of the HELP subcommittee.
The Manufacturing Industrial Council is a non-profit advocacy group
for industrial businesses in greater Seattle. I am a former co-chair of
the MIC. In my professional life, I am the vice president of a 101-
year-old steel fabricating firm in Seattle, Seidelhuber Ironworks. Over
the past decade and a half, I have also served as a volunteer member of
the King County Workforce Development Council, the King County Child
and Family Commission, the advisory board for the King County Youth
Center (a juvenile detention facility) and the advisory board for
``ArtWorks,'' a non-profit program that uses art to help develop
stronger self confidence and career directions for disadvantaged young
people.
This letter and my testimony to the committee reflect both the
collective view of the MIC and my personal views and experiences
involving youth programs and the industrial business sector.
In my experience, too many people and agencies in the public sector
dismiss ``industry'' as a relic of the past while they rush to identify
and embrace the ``next big thing.'' In fact, companies like mine and
others that are represented by the MIC are part of a growing, dynamic
economic force that continues to provide the economic and social
bedrock of our Nation and many pillars of the so-called ``new
economy.'' At the same time, industry continues to provide good job and
career opportunities on an extremely large scale. Contrary to common
misconceptions, many industrial sectors are also suffering from a
shortage of skilled workers and professionals that appears to be
growing more and more severe.
You and your staff have correctly identified the enormous
opportunity that exists to better link these career and job
opportunities with young people who need to gain a toe hold in the
workforce and find their place in the global economy.
Are these career opportunities good opportunities for every one?
No. But for young people with the right aptitudes and attitudes, these
opportunities often prove to be literally transformative, empowering
them to lead productive, rewarding lives in which they are capable of
supporting themselves and their loved ones. There's a good reason
people call these ``family-wage'' jobs and I see the proof every day at
Seidelhuber Ironworks as I watch our employees come to work.
The extent of the industrial labor shortage is reflected in a
survey of job vacancies that is conducted on an ongoing basis by the
Washington State Department of Employment Security. The survey
conducted last spring which showed industrial employers with openings
for:
4,362 employees in construction;
6,595 employees in manufacturing;
2,527 employees in wholesale distribution; and
2,135 workers in transportation.
These numbers added up to 15,619 openings. Among the four business
groups with the most job openings, the industrial sector placed second
to health care (17,000), and ahead of retail (10,000) or restaurants
and hotels, (8,000).
In my experience, public sector workforce and education agencies
tend to divide the industrial sector into its individual components,
and seldom look at them in the aggregate. This is a huge mistake that
blinds people to the full range and size of the available industrial
career opportunities.
Industrial career opportunities share many key characteristics that
are highly relevant to your focus on career paths, upward mobility and
the needs of employers and young people.
All industrial sectors are dominated by activities and working
environments that tend to appeal to people who share similar aptitudes
and attitudes toward physical work and challenges. As stated earlier,
these environments are not suited to every one, but they often work
best for people who may struggle to find success in retail or service
sectors.
All industrial sectors also provide a large number of entry-level
positions that are highly accessible to people who may not find
comparable wages or benefits in other employment sectors. Each also
tends to offer career pathways that can lead to excellent pay and other
rewards for individuals who are willing and able to obtain higher
skills and more education.
Employers in these sectors also tend to be forgiving. At most
companies, your ``record'' starts with your first day on the job and if
you can put in an honest day's work every day, that's more important
than any poor life choices you may have made in the past.
These industrial sectors also tend to be very healthy, contrary to
popular misconceptions. For instance, our company is part of a business
cluster called the metal trades. This cluster includes the metal
fabricators and machine manufacturers who make the structural parts,
gears, engines, pumps, and contraptions that drive modern industry.
Five years ago, many ``experts'' considered metal trades doomed to
economic obsolescence due to inexorable changes in the global economy.
But, instead of going away, the metal trades enjoyed a remarkable boom.
According to State B&O tax records, metal trade companies in Washington
enjoyed 96 percent revenue growth over the past 5 years, reaching
collective revenues of $9.2 billion, and 15 percent job growth, to more
than 32,000 employees.
That was significantly faster revenue and job growth than the
economy as a whole (39 percent for revenue and 12 percent for jobs). As
a result, the metal trades cluster is now a bigger sector in Washington
than many other, much more visible sectors. For example, companies
engaged in real estate generated $8.9 billion in revenues;
telecommunications, $8.8 billion; insurance, $6.3 billion, and private
sector legal services, $4 billion. Metal trades revenues and jobs even
grew faster than companies engaged in computer services, which
collectively recorded 65 percent revenue growth and 8 percent job
growth.
While this success was notable, it was not truly exceptional. Over
the past 5 years, construction revenues were up 56 percent to nearly
$42 billion, and jobs grew 34 percent. Other industrial sectors also
grew faster than the overall economy, including boat building, aircraft
and aircraft parts manufacturing, wood products and furniture making.
Good economic development policies build on a region's strengths.
Our workforce and youth programs should do the same. One of our
greatest economic strengths is industry. We applaud you for conducting
this hearing and urge you to provide the leadership that this issue so
badly needs. We look forward to supporting your efforts in the future.
Sincerely,
Terry Seaman, Vice-President,
Seidelhuber Ironworks.
[Whereupon, at 11:28 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]