Narrative: II. a. 2.

The core public workforce system programs include WIOA Title I-B, Wagner-Peyser, Adult Education, and Rehabilitation Services, which provide several educational training activities through their respective programs to populations with barriers to employment. All these programs are represented on the Alabama Workforce Development Board (AWDB). The AWDB also has cross representation from the private business sector membership on the Alabama Workforce Council. The Alabama Workforce System (AWS) includes the following programs and entities operated through the following programs:

Secondary Career and Technical Education (CTE)

Career and Technical Education (CTE) aims to develop skills in K-12 students and prepare them for secondary education. It oversees a wide variety of student organizations furthering that mission and building leadership in their student participants. The program offers classes in finance, business management and administration, and marketing alongside similar classes taught at the middle school level and work-based learning.

CTE is administered largely through classes, alongside cooperation with LEA’s and local workforce councils, regional career fairs and training, and individual participation of its programs such as Jobs for Alabama’s Graduates (JAG). CTE is aimed at producing credentials in students. CTE credentials are largely industry-recognized and noted as indicators for graduation. The program focuses heavily on work- based learning and dual enrollment.

In January 2022, Alabama’s Every Student Succeeds Act state plan (ESSA) amendments were approved by the U.S. Department of Education to include new college and career readiness indicators for completing a Career and Technical Education program of study and for completing an in-school youth apprenticeship. The Alabama Credential Quality and Transparency Act (Act 2023-365), sponsored by Rep. Terri Collins and championed in the Senate by Sen. Chesteen, passed the House of Representatives on March 22, 2023 by a vote of 104-0, passed the Senate by a vote of 35-0 on May 24, 2023, and was signed into law by Governor Ivey on June 1, 2023. Act 2023-365 codifies the requirement to graduate college and career readiness beginning with the 2025-2026 school year. This requirement was initially enacted as an administrative rule code by the Alabama State Board of Education. Closing the 9- percentage point gap between the 2022 graduation rate of 88 percent and the 2022 college and career readiness rate of 79 percent. This effort will be bolstered by $25 million of additional funding included in the 2024 Education Trust Fund (ETF) budget and supplemental budget to help schools expand access to more of the 10 college and career readiness indicators currently available to students.

The Alabama Community College System (ACCS)

The Alabama Community College System (ACCS) consists of 24 colleges with more than 130 locations across the state, including the Alabama Technology Network (ATN) and Marion Military Institute. The ACCS offers “life-long learning opportunities through academic transfer, adult education, and workforce development programs that help students achieve their greatest goals and chart a path of success in life”. The ACCS works with business and industry to provide customized workforce training solutions to meet their needs. It also cooperates with public and private schools and four-year universities. Each college has a strong advisory committee made up of business and industry leaders to validate the alignment of career technical programs. The ACCS board of trustees is also made up of leaders in business and industry. The ACCS partners with several key organizations such as the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE), Alabama Industrial Development Training (AIDT), the Regional Workforce Councils (RWCs), and the Alabama Department of Labor (ADOL) to fulfill its workforce development mission.

Postsecondary Career and Technical Education

At the postsecondary level, CTE is delivered through Alabama’s community colleges. In 2022, 51,795 postsecondary students participated in CTE with 58.9 percent being female students and 40.2 percent male. The CTE Division at ACCS assists with developing, planning, implementing, and assessing occupational and technical education programs and in implementing state and federal career and technical education statutes and regulations. The CTE Division works to ensure consistency in the quality and delivery of CTE programs by reviewing, auditing, and updating plans of instruction as well as through professional development training. ACCS offers dual enrollment and statewide articulation agreements to ease the transition from secondary to postsecondary CTE programs, and Alabama’s postsecondary CTE career clusters are aligned with the secondary career clusters. The Alabama ESSA and WIOA State Plans both indicate that career cluster implementation will provide a smooth transition between secondary and postsecondary education and will eliminate the duplication of coursework for students.

AdultEducation

ACCS is the state agency designated to receive the federal Adult Education and Family Literacy Act funds under WIOA. These federal funds are received from the United States Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE). State funds for adult education come from the ETF. The mission of the ACCS Adult Education Division is to provide adults with academic instruction and education or remedial services necessary for the attainment of a secondary school diploma or its recognized equivalent. Adult Education works to transition an individual from postsecondary education and training into the workforce. The Adult Education Division is the state entity responsible for administration of general education diploma (GED) program. By incorporating courses and programs offered to traditional students in workforce development pathways such as Ready to Work and MSSC, the Adult Education Division is creating pathways for students to simultaneously learn basic education skills and earn workforce credentials needed to increase their chances of obtaining sustainable employment.

There are 25 adult education providers that cover all 67 counties in Alabama. Every county has adult education classes offered through one of 22 community colleges, two community-based organizations (Goodwill Easter Seals of the Gulf Coast and Autauga Family Support), and one state agency (E.H. Gentry AIDB). These providers collectively have a staff of 776 (144 fulltime and 632 part-time) with over 400 locations holding 1,000+ classes each day. Nearly 28,000 individuals were served across the state in 2017, and 3,198 GEDs or high school diplomas and 2,494 National Career and Readiness Certificates (NCRC) were awarded. Adult Education serves Alabamians who are 16 years or older, are not required to be enrolled by law in secondary school who, and are basic skills deficient or lack sufficient mastery of basic educational skills to function effectively in society; do not have a secondary school diploma or its recognized equivalent or have not achieved an equivalent level of education; or are unable to speak, read, write, or comprehend the English language.

The Alabama Technology Network (ATN)

The Alabama Technology Network (ATN) is an entity under the ACCS and is the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) MEP (Manufacturing Extension Partnership) affiliate for the State of Alabama. ATN has served as the Alabama MEP since 1996. MEP has a public-private partnership with Centers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico dedicated to serving small and medium- sized manufacturers. The mission of ATN is to provide existing industry (primarily manufacturers) the tools, technical assistance, resources, and customized training needed to grow and excel. ATN is located throughout Alabama with offices on 18 community college campuses and 3 research universities (the University of Alabama, the University of Alabama at Huntsville, and Auburn). The ATN, along with its partners (including community colleges, universities, AIDT, and third-party training providers), works to provide innovative solutions to the training needs of Alabama businesses. In 2022 ATN served 432 companies with economic impacts reported by clients including: $437 million in new and retained sales; $7.3 million in cost savings for manufacturers; and 2,628 new and retained jobs.

ACCS Innovation Center

The Innovation Center is a division of ACCS that provides quick Workforce Training at no cost. The courses have two parts for fast completion: an online section, consisting of interactive self-paced learning, and a lab section, providing hands-on experience in a simulated lab environment at one of Alabama’s 24 community colleges. Those who succeed receive an ACCS credential and a certificate from the college at which they underwent the program. The Innovation Center has a budget of $16 million for 2024, an increase from $10 million in 2022, and 5,361 enrolled. It supplies 12 courses, with 18 more in development, including a litany of industries and capabilities.

Alabama Department of Commerce

The AWC made several recommendations in its 2015 report to the Governor related to workforce development program alignment. As a result, the Alabama Legislature passed legislation in 2015 moving several workforce programs to the Alabama Department of Commerce, thereby creating the Department of Commerce’s Workforce Development Division. The Commerce Workforce Development Division is comprised of Alabama Industrial Development Training (AIDT), WIOA Programs; Regional Workforce Councils; and management and administrative support for the Alabama Workforce Council. A Deputy Secretary of Commerce position was created to lead the Commerce Workforce Development Division.

Regional Workforce Councils

The Regional Workforce Councils are business-driven and work with their member counties to develop a regional strategic plan and comprehensive workforce development system that supports local economic and job development activities. The Regional Workforce Councils determine the needs of their regions through industry clusters that range from healthcare to automotive, transportation to aerospace, and construction to machining. The seven new regions are geographically concurrent with the Workforce Investment Board regions to better align the use of federal WIOA funds with state workforce development activities.

Alabama Industrial Development Training (AIDT)

Alabama Industrial Development Training (AIDT) is an independent agency under the supervision and oversight of the Secretary of Commerce and the Deputy Secretary of the Commerce Workforce Development Division, encourages economic development through job-specific training. The purpose of AIDT is to recruit and train a skilled workforce to attract possible new industries to the state. This organization not only supports the citizens of Alabama, but also supports the current, possible, and future businesses entering the Alabamian industry. Training services are offered in many areas, at no cost, to new and expanding businesses throughout Alabama. AIDT is Alabama’s job training incentive program for attracting and retaining new and expanding businesses. AIDT focuses primarily on recruiting, assessing, and training new employees for new businesses or expansions of existing businesses. Job-specific pre-employment and on-the-job training programs are provided. The program provides a full range of customized technical training programs, offered at no cost to employers or to the trainees.

The Alabama Office of Apprenticeship (AOA)

Under the provisions of the National Apprenticeship Act (50 Stat. 664; 29 U.S.C. 50) and 29 CFR Part 29 § 29.1-14, a state may use the National Office of Apprenticeship governed by the U.S. Department of Labor or may seek permission from the U.S. Department of Labor to establish a state apprenticeship agency (SAA) to register registered-apprenticeship programs operating within the state. Thirty-one states and territories currently operate a SAA, which is an increase of six additional states since the AOA was created. On June 30, 2019, the Alabama Office of Apprenticeship was established by Executive Order No. 717. Act 2019-506 codified the Alabama Office of Apprenticeship as Alabama’s State Apprenticeship Agency. On March 12, 2020, the Alabama Office of Apprenticeship was approved by the U.S. Department of Labor as the first new State Apprenticeship Agency in over 20 years. The AOA is the first SAA to be recognized by USDOL in over twenty years. The AOA has a mandate to expand all forms of work-based learning.

On May 22, 2019, Governor Ivey’s request to allow in-school youth ages 16-24 to access WIOA Individual Training Accounts (ITAs) was approved by the U.S. Department of Labor. In-school youth who are WIOA-eligible and who are participating in a pre-apprenticeship or a youth apprenticeship program will use ITAs to support the required technical instruction component of youth apprenticeship, costs associated with dual enrollment course or CTE courses, and to procure supportive services such as transportation and childcare needed to persist in a career pathway. Act 2019-527, the Eliminating Legal Barrier to Apprenticeship (ELBA) Act—passed by the Alabama Legislature and signed into law by Governor Ivey in 2019—removed legal barriers that prevented 16- and 17-year-olds from completing apprenticeship programs in apprenticeable occupations if the in- school youth apprenticeship is supervised by the Alabama Department of Education and the Alabama Department of Labor and if the hazards associated with an apprenticeable occupation are merely incidental to the apprenticeship. Act 2019-506, the Alabama Industry-Recognized and Registered Apprenticeship Act—passed by the Alabama Legislature and signed into law by Governor Ivey in 2019—created a $500 enhancement for the Apprenticeship Alabama Tax Credit for hiring in-school youth apprentices.

On September 18, 2019, Alabama adopted a formal definition for work-based learning, which was modeled from the definition for work-based learning (WBL) in Perkins V. The AOA has gone on to become the state’s champion agency in the promotion and expansion of WBL. Through prior NGA policy academy work, Alabama developed a statewide set of definitions for specific types of work- based learning, a continuum for the classification of WBL types by their purpose, and regional and state competitions to identify the state’s best practices in WBL.

Governor Ivey’s foresight in the creation of the AOA has paid dividends. In a few short years, the AOA has established a track record of performance and a reputation for quality. Policies that are employer-driven, flexible, and aimed squarely at removing barriers for Alabama citizens to enter the workforce have enabled the AOA to move at the speed of business and quickly accomplish the kinds of successful innovations not previously associated with apprenticeship in Alabama. Among other recent successes, the AOA created the nation’s first master’s degree apprenticeship, the nation’s first apprenticeship for registered and licensed nurses, improved gender diversity among apprentices by more than 7% in a one-year span and, established a certification process for the recognition of high-quality pre-apprenticeship programs. The AOA is an active and recognized participant on the national policy level in discussions about pending updates to the Code of Federal Regulations and the establishment of a national definition for youth apprenticeship.

Overcoming an inherited reticence from employers to the adoption of youth apprenticeship is among the AOA’s biggest outstanding challenges and greatest opportunities for growth. Alabama is focused on using work-based learning as a modality for increasing the number of Alabamians aged 18-24 who are connected with postsecondary education and the workforce. Based on a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Alabama has the highest rate of disconnected youth in the nation at 18 percent. Governor Ivey is committed to expanding youth apprenticeship as a means for increasing the youth labor force participation and postsecondary attainment rates. Participation in this policy academy will serve as an opportunity for Alabama to share our successes and learn from the other participating states how we might bring youth apprenticeship to its full potential in the state.

AlabamaWorkforceCouncil

The Alabama Workforce Council (AWC) is Alabama’s top-most workforce development organization, and it is composed of Alabama’s leading industry, education, and workforce executives. The AWC advocates for cutting-edge workforce policies at the highest levels of government to provide a talented workforce for every business in Alabama and to provide every Alabamian with access to an in-demand job.

AWC Vision: Aligned Systems + Educated Workforce = Prosperous Economy

“By 2025, all Alabamians are connected to career opportunities by prioritizing learning aligned to the needs of our economy. To prioritize learning opportunities for Alabamians that are aligned to the needs of the economy, state education and workforce agencies must align their resource and programs.”

AWC Mission: Understand. Align. Impact. Assess. Repeat.

The members of the AWC and the leaders of the state agencies tasked with education and workforce training must understand the mission and vision. The state agencies must align funding and resources. The state agencies must impact the 16 discrete populations we are targeting through the attainment and labor force participation goals. We must assess our progress towards increasing the postsecondary attainment and labor force participation rates. We must repeat the cycle of year and measure results until the final goal is due on April 30, 2025 of adding 500,000 credentialed Alabamians to workforce and reaching the national labor force participation rate.

Vocational Rehabilitation Service

The Vocational Rehabilitation Service has the purpose of enabling individuals with disabilities to increase self-sufficiency through employment and to enhance the opportunities of employment. As of 2022, 3,944 disabled individuals were assisted in achieving their goals of employment. The Vocational Rehabilitation Service received $13,894,212 in state funding, $65,021,487 in federal funding, and $7,054,763 through other sources of funding. These sources combined totaling $85,970,462 in funding. As of 2022, the vocational rehabilitation service has served 38,936 individuals including potentially eligible students.

Alabama Career Center System

The Alabama Career Center System was developed to meet the WIOA requirement that a “One- Stop” system of service delivery be made available to customers. The system is designed to offer a variety of services to customers through the coordinated efforts of several agencies, whether on-site or through electronic connections. Customers, as defined by WIOA, are both job seekers and employers. The Alabama Career Center System, with ADOL as the lead agency, provides job seekers and employers with a full range of employment and training services in 56 “One-Stop Career Centers” located throughout the state. Customers in the One-Stop Centers have access to high-speed internet, computers, software designed to aid job seekers, and a vast array of resource materials, including the latest labor market information to assist with career and job search and employer recruitment. Job seekers receive services such as training, education, and other employment- related services, that include resume development and access to labor market information. Employers use the One-Stop Centers to post job orders, review résumés, and find job-ready, skilled workers who meet their current employment needs. Employers also utilize available Career Center office space and video capabilities to conduct job interviews for qualified applicants recruited through the Career Center. Full-time WIOA and Employment Service staff of the Career Centers are well-trained professionals who specialize in providing customer-focused services. The Alabama Career Center System will embark on increasing virtual service delivery to ensure citizens can access career services and employment opportunities digitally. The DAVID and Talent Triad usage policies requiring career center staff to utilize DAVID and the Talent Triad for WIOA intake, assessment, and career services will enhance and incentivize virtual service delivery.

Alabama Committee on Credentialing and Career Pathways (ACCCP)

The ACCCP is a public-private non-degree credential quality-assurance entity, which was codified by Act 2019-506. The ACCCP is tasked with a two-fold mission: (1) to identify Alabama’s regional and statewide in-demand occupations and (2) to identify competency models, career pathways, and credentials of value linked to those in-demand occupations. The ACCCP uses a process called the five-star rubric to create the list of in-demand occupations and uses a ten-point quality assurance criteria process to develop the compendium of valuable credentials that are aligned to in-demand occupations. Credentials of value are also linked to one or more specific competencies for which the credential denotes mastery using the Alabama Occupational Ontology and the Alabama Talent Triad. Connecting the credentials and competencies that makeup the “DNA” of in-demand jobs allows for the development of dynamic career pathways that are based on the connection between skills across jobs, rather than static career pathways that assume a linear progression of jobs. This strategy also allows for unbundling and modularizing traditional degrees (particularly associate degrees). The ACCCP is composed of nine ex officio members and seven gubernatorial appointments who each represent one of the seven Alabama workforce regions, who are the members of the Alabama Workforce Council’s (AWC) ACCCP Committee. The ACCCP includes 16 TACs that are each composed of seven gubernatorial appointed members who are members of business and industry and four or more non-voting subject- matter experts (SMEs) from business and industry who support the seven voting TAC members. Each of the seven members of each TAC represents one of the seven Alabama workforce regions.

Alabama Committee on Credential Quality and Transparency (ACCQT)

Alabama Act 2023-365, sponsored by Rep. Terri Collins, codified the Alabama Workforce Council Committee on Credential Quality and Transparency as a committee of the Alabama Workforce Council to implement the non-degree credential quality and transparency processes and to provide information to the public on quality and the linkage to in-demand jobs for the thousands of non- degree credentials (such as micro-credentials and digital badges) available in Alabama through the Alabama Credential Registry. This will primarily be done through the Compendium of Valuable Credentials, which will categorize credentials in Alabama’s Credential Registry. These credentials will align to the Alabama list of in-demand occupations and the Alabama competency models to feed into the Alabama Talent Triad, the nation’s first full-scale talent marketplace.

Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR)

The Alabama TANF Program operated by the Alabama Department of Human Resources. TANF provides family assistance to provide income to low income one parent families to furnish basic needs for dependents. The welfare to work component of family assistance is known as the JOBS program. All clients receiving assistance are referred to the JOBS Unit for assessment in regard to their skills, prior work experience, and employability. Individuals on family assistance determined to be ready to engage in work activities will be placed in a work-related activity such as subsidized/unsubsidized employment, job search, job readiness classes, skills training or GED classes. The SNAP or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), managed by DHR, also operated a work-related program through a contract with the Alabama Department of Labor for job search assistance.

Alabama Department of Senior Services

The Senior Community Service Employment Program provides work-based job training for older Americans aged 55 and up.

B. The Strengths and Weaknesses of Workforce Development Activities

The greatest strengths of Alabama’s public workforce development system are strong support from state government leadership, sustained involvement from the business community, state funding to extend federal investments, increased levels of data integration, and revised policies to increase program performance. Weaknesses include too much of the WIOA Title I-b allocation being used for Career Center operations, a low level of training-related employment, and limited penetration of WIOA-funded programs due to onerous budget cuts over the past five program years. Core program performance is of high-quality, as is attested by Alabama’s PY2022 outcomes data; however, the quantity of participants served must increase markedly without sacrificing performance. For PY2022, there are troubling signs for quantity in the adult program. For example, for PY 2021, 3,708 Adults received training, 4,727 were employed in the 4^th quarter, and 2,783 earned credentials. For PY 2022, 3,008 adults received training, 3,445 were employed in the 4^th quarter, and 1,867 earned credentials. Local areas must ensure that as many participants are served as possible, rather than serving those most likely to succeed.

C. State Workforce Development Capacity

The State Workforce Development Board and the GOEWT are working with former Assistant U.S. Secretary of Labor, John Pallasch, to integrate Alabama’s workforce and human services systems into a “no-wrong-door” system that allows people to access human resources, such as SNAP and TANF, and workforce services in one location.

At a minimum, core workforce system partners program services included in the WIOA State Plan, will be assessed using the six (6) common measures as provided in WIOA Section 116(b) and outlined in Training and Employment Guidance Letter WIOA No. 10-16, Change 1. The performance will be reported on the state and local area level. Each core partners’ performance in each of the primary indicators of performance will be a start point for the further evaluation of quality, effectiveness, and opportunities for improvement. Each core partner program will submit their performance metrics in a statewide dashboard report on a quarterly basis. The quarterly dashboard report will be provided to the State Board’s executive committee with accomplishments, plans, and strategies to continue successes or make improvements, as necessary, how partners address areas that are not being met and the identification of resources or supports needed to move forward.

The State Workforce Board reviews annual performance reports made available on www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/performance/results. The review process will include recommendations to improve or enhance performance outcomes at the regional and local levels. The State will also form a Technical Assistance Plan and seek guidance from federal agencies, www.workforcegps.org, and other resources. An assessment for PY 2019 will be performed after the end of the program year on June 30, 2020.

Alabama applied in August 2021 for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Evaluation Peer Learning Cohort (EvalPLC). Alabama was accepted into the cohort in October 2021. ​ Over a timespan of six months, the EvalPLC used virtual 90-minute work sessions to build knowledge, facilitate peer learning, and develop specific action steps as part of a plan to conduct core WIOA program evaluations. State teams that represent core Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) programs will collaborate and develop capstone projects to support their development and implementation of state and local research and evaluations. In this cohort, participants will: (1) learn from experienced evaluators, state and national subject matters (SME’s), and each other during the development of their capstone projects; (2) use the Evaluation Toolkit: Key elements for State Workforce Agencies, the Evaluation Readiness Assessment ( accesses the degree to which your state is ready to implement research evaluation activities and projects), and the Evaluation Design Assessment ( developed to support states in designing a plan for evaluation); (3) exchange ideas to support the creation of other evaluation tools and resources to enhance evaluation capacity for workforce systems. The EvalPLC concluded in April 2022. Alabama’s EvalPLC Planning included logic model development, evaluation planning, evaluation design, developing data collection protocols, and developing data collection reports.

Alabama will use the EvalPLC model to conduct case studies, fidelity studies, performance studies, site comparison studies, longitudinal studies, cross-sectional studies, experimental studies, quasi-experimental studies, cost-analysis studies, cost-effectiveness studies, and benefit-cost studies to assess core program partner effectiveness. Assessment results will be used by the State Workforce Development Board to: improve SWA program(s), services, interventions or activities; increase or improve outcomes for the population served; determine state policy, planning, and funding priorities, secure other funding to sustain or scale up a state initiative, demonstrate long-term impacts, and to educate the larger workforce community. Alabama has received technical assistance from the USDOL ETA Director of Evaluation and Research, Wayne Gordon, on how to enhance Alabama’s empirical evaluation methods for core and partner programs. Nathan Rankin has been hired as the Director of Alabama’s Office of Education and Workforce Statistics, and he is working closely with the Alabama Department of Commerce on expanding the number of WIOA specific research questions conducted by the ATLAS on Career Pathways over the life of the 2024 plan.