Narrative: e. 2.

Additionally, the Commission may designate other activities of statewide significance that promote the purpose of WIOA, including, but not limited to, the following:

• Assistance to local providers in developing and implementing programs that achieve WIOA’s objectives, and in measuring the progress of those programs in achieving the objectives, including meeting state performance;
• Promotion of workplace AEL activities;
• Continued development and dissemination of curriculum frameworks;
• Continued rollout and professional development on the content standards
• Outreach, develop, and pilot strategies for improving teacher quality and retention; and
• Development and implementation of programs and services to meet the needs of adults with learning disabilities or limited English-language proficiency.
• Performance enhancement mentor initiatives to support performance accountability
• Performance follow-up and case management activities
• Support and promotion of integration efforts between workforce system partners
• Promotion and support for reaching special populations in receiving AEL services

The following descriptions below provide more detail on allowable State Leadership Activities for which the Commission may designate section 223 funds.

AEL Performance Quality Improvement Awards

The Performance Quality Improvement Awards support Adult Education and Literacy (AEL) grant recipient project performance and innovation through dissemination of information about models and proven or promising practices in the state. These awards recognize AEL grant recipients’ overall program performance and efforts in employer partnerships.

Pell Grant Ability to Benefit Capacity Expansion

The Ability to Benefit initiative provides funding to support colleges in developing services for students who lack a high school diploma or high school equivalency and qualify for Pell Grants under new federal Ability to Benefit provisions in federal financial aid regulations.

Student Support Call Center

The purpose of the Student Support Call Center is to support AEL students with a focus on high school equivalency mathematics instruction. The call center operates within the infrastructure of TWC’s call center phone system and is staffed by individuals trained to provide remote mathematics support. In addition to phone support, call center staff uses online tutoring software to provide visual support to students as they work through questions.

Professional Development Center

The Professional Development (PD) Center is a statewide support system for AEL grant recipients and service providers, Boards, and community- and faith-based organizations engaged in AEL services. The PD Center provides a comprehensive statewide support system that includes, but is not limited to:

• statewide PD training for more than 6,000 local AEL staff and partner agencies;
• trainers located in different regions of Texas to ensure relevance and responsiveness;
• ongoing recruitment and vetting of PD subject matter expert trainers and maintenance of an online, searchable trainer index;
• development, conversion, and adaptation of curricula and multimedia course content;
• management of an online learning management system;
• event management;
• statewide purchases of PD services; and
• statewide and local needs analyses and research to improve local performance, promote innovation, and strengthen service quality to students and staff.

Learning Management System

The Learning Management System (LMS) is a cloud-based, full-featured, off-the-shelf secure system with course registration and management for in-person, hybrid, and online training events. Funds support access to a cloud-based course library and interactive resources, a web conferencing integrated add-in, and training fees to sufficiently accommodate instructors, administrators, and software content to provide a full array of PD services across Texas. The LMS:

• enables the PD Center to deliver training using a variety of modalities, including online, face-to-face, and hybrid;
• allows for content authoring, training materials storage, and content import/export;
• centralizes and automates the registration, management, and tracking of both external and internal PD trainings and certifications at individual, sub-recipient, grant recipient, and statewide levels;
• provides transcripts for staff trained through the AEL system; and
• provides a 24/7 option for professional development, increasing skills, knowledge, and abilities for AEL staff and stakeholders.

Distance Learning Mentor Initiative

This initiative provides funding to implement consortia to build capacity, expand, and/or improve performance of AEL Distance Learning (DL) initiatives throughout Texas. Consortia take advantage of the economy of scale by creating a larger network of resources and encouraging relationships, so organizations are not working in isolation but instead identifying common needs, goals, and resolutions. Mentor sites:

• serve as single point of contact to AEL on DL initiatives;
• support mentee pilots;
• develop DL curricula and blended learning models; and
• establish and maintain a resource platform for AEL providers who are new to DL in Texas.

Professional Development for Nonprofit Adult Literacy Organizations

Professional Development for Nonprofit Adult Literacy Organizations include PD services for tutors, instructors, program administrative staff, and trainers of nonprofit adult literacy organizations. These services include:

• training on literacy volunteer management, which may include volunteer recruitment, training, placement, monitoring, and retention;
• low literacy instruction/tutoring for either native English or nonnative English speakers;
• development of collaborative partnerships and data sharing relationships with AEL grant recipients, libraries, Boards, and VR;
• data sharing relationships with collaborating entities; and
• other services based on the results of a statewide needs assessment and in collaboration with TWC.

Leadership Excellence Academy

The Leadership Excellence Academy (LEA) program builds leadership capacity within AEL local-grantee management, with the objective to develop, implement, and sustain LEAs that provide access to LEA workshops, webcasts, online courses, technical assistance, and electronic portfolios. TWC will continue to provide access to both an Instructional LEA and Administrator LEA to support providers through an intensive, year-long professional development opportunity to support program growth and performance.

Texas AEL Content Standards Update

To further the alignment of Adult Education and Literacy competencies in demand by employers, TWC contracted to facilitate the addition of entry-level industry skill requirements to the AEL Content Standards. Four lead organizations, along with industry experts and adult educators, worked with TWC to align standards to four target industries. The result of this project, which was completed in 2018, was the Texas Adult Education and Literacy Content Standards 2.0 (Standards 2.0), which updates and aligns the 2016 Texas Adult Education and Literacy Standards with the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for success in in-demand entry- and intermediate-level jobs in four industry clusters: advanced manufacturing; construction and extraction; health care sciences; and transportation, distribution, and logistics. While the 2016 content standards were unchanged with this update, Standards 2.0 aligns academic standards with jobs and provides a resource for workforce development specialists and educators to focus instruction and career guidance, guide the skills development needed for work, and to define skills and tasks not easily identified in academic standards.

Beginning in PY’19, Texas will continue to advance the standards by incorporating civics and community and family content competencies to the standards to ensure that all facets of AEL activity have alignment to recognized proficiencies.

Performance Follow-Up and Case Management

The Performance Follow-Up and Case Management program supports performance data on exit-based measures. Funds support an allocation for grant recipients to provide staff time for follow-up and case management or to purchase such services from entities, including Workforce Boards for students who are not coenrolled in Board services. Funds are allocated through a proportionate distribution with a base amount.  

Performance Enhancement Mentor Initiative

The Performance Enhancement Mentor Initiative supports poor-performing providers through intensive program support and mentoring delivered by the initiative, with high-performing peer providers.

Integration Funding

The objective of the Integration Funding initiative is to promote and facilitate integration efforts between WIOA core programs and other workforce system partners. TWC has funded these integration initiatives in previous program years and will pursue continuous improvement around integration in the future.

Initiatives for Special Populations

This initiative promotes and supports efforts to reach special populations in receiving AEL services, such as, but not limited to, serving opportunity youth, serving skilled immigrants, expansion of reentry and post-release service models, and capacity-building for workplace AEL models.