Located in:
- III. Operational Planning Elements
The Unified or Combined State Plan must include an Operational Planning Elements section that supports the State’s strategy and the system-wide vision described in Section II(c) above. Unless otherwise noted, all Operational Planning Elements apply to Combined State Plan partner programs included in the plan as well as to core programs. This section must include—
- b. State Operating Systems and Policies
The Unified or Combined State Plan must include a description of the State operating systems and policies that will support the implementation of the State strategy described in section II Strategic Elements. This includes—
- b. State Operating Systems and Policies
III. b. 6. B. Assessment of Participants’ Post-program Success
Describe how lead State agencies will use the workforce development system to assess the progress of participants who are exiting from core programs in entering, persisting in, and completing postsecondary education, or entering or remaining in employment. States may choose to set additional indicators of performance.
Current Narrative:
LWC applies the statutorily prescribed performance measures to assess participants’ post-program success across the six core programs. LWC also applies state-prescribed performance measures and—with input from Boards, grantees, and other partners—works to continuously develop and test other measures that may provide a more meaningful way of communicating strengths and identifying areas of improvement. Through case management follow-up services, OWD assesses the progress of participants exiting to jobs and post-secondary education. These approaches are improved through the local MOU service agreements developed with required one-stop partners. At the state level, LWC also works with state partners to share data and develop methods to evaluate outcomes for participants served through their respective programs.
In addition, LWC is currently working to incorporate evaluation strategies into all of its programs and initiatives, and develop additional outcome measures, such as wage progression, to help determine the effectiveness of strategies such as sectors and career pathways.
Data regarding the progress of participants exiting the adult education and family literacy program into post-secondary education and training and employment will be analyzed annually as part of the program annual performance report process and the grant continuation application process.
Louisiana’s Workforce Investment Council (WIC) works closely with LWC’s research and statistics team as well as the Labor Market Information team to ensure data alignment, data sharing and the integration of such data as it relates to WIOA. Those teams evaluate each core partner’s current collection method of the required data elements. Specifically, the teams examine what is collected, how it is collected and how and where data is stored. Collection process changes are the outcome of the evaluation and are incorporated into a data storage system that cooperates when possible with other partner agencies.
LWC’s vision under the LA First Initiative, is the next generation of an integrated performance reporting system that will involve the incorporation of customer data from all state- and federally funded employment and training programs and a customer-focused data model that supports the aggregation of data into any combination of programs and characteristics. This incorporation of data will allow the system to meet program reporting requirements while enabling the user to customize how they view the data. To ensure its effectiveness and ability to support transparency and accountability, the system must be able to report customer outcomes the same way for each program or aggregation of data while ensuring the security and confidentiality of such data.
Evaluating participant outcomes is important to ensuring accountability. Lastly, LWC evaluates current and historic data to understand what factors influence performance in order to determine whether the results achieved were reasonable, predict what levels of performance are likely to be achieved in the future, and identify what actions the system should take when serving specific customers to achieve effective outcomes. These efforts support continuous improvement and set the foundation for developing the means to measure the return on investment.