“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river.

We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” 

― Desmond Tutu

The Challenge:

CAP Ownership: 

• Pennsylvania has no solely-dedicated state-level entity to asssure equity, quality, and accessibility for Career Awareness & Preparation (CAP). 

• Many PA regions, communities, and localities voice the challenges they have with filling jobs now - so what about the future? 

• As a state, we poorly address the great chasm between high school graduation and career. Everyone "owns" a piece, which effectively means that no one does.

CAP Funding: 

• Pennsylvania has no dedicated, sheltered budget funding line that assures Career Awareness & Preparation (CAP) work is accessible and available for all. 

• CAP work is inequitable, inconsistent, and poorly supported / funded  - with good efforts that are heavily reliant on volunteer time, and scraps of funding. Authentic, high quality CAP work should be assessed, defined, and supported.

• In regions of high population density, where foundations, industry, and state-level focus is abundant, there are more resources available. In rural areas - the geographic majority of the state - we struggle to assure students have access to programs, transportation, and needs.

Clear & Defined Vision for Success: 

• Pennsylvania does not define the CAP vision for success with a common set of metrics. The result is a jumble of initiatives, efforts, and programs that culminate using the provider's own metrics. 

• Just about every school, business, industry, and organization is searching for solutions, often duplicating work. 

• Overall, the consensus is that CAP work should be inexpensive or free, it should reach as many students as possible, in the shortest amount of time. 

This “fast food” approach for CAP is not yielding the results PA needs to compete in a global marketplace.

the ask

collaboration

Assembling a cross-collaborative steering committee is the first step to creating and launching a standalone state-level entity to house and forward this work. A more equitable and accessible system can be developed with singular focus. 

PA has done a similar development work, creating the Apprenticeship and Training Office (ATO), under Labor & Industry. A CAP Entity could develop in a similar manner, but rather than the sole responsibility of one state agency, be an independent, collaborative, cross-agency alliance, allowing each agency voice and activity, and gathering cooperatively to develop common measures, metrics, locating and sheltering funding, and developing common language.

define Vision:

• PA must develop an equitable and accessible vision for Pennsylvania for Career Awareness & Preparation that includes, supports, and addresses robust CTE & WBL models comprehensively. 

• Supporting CTE for all students means every student graduates with a skill. Supporting WBL means that every student is prepared to compete in the PA & global talent marketplace understanding what the work, education, and skills are necessary. 

Define Success: 

• Create data points & common metrics to demonstrate how we are winning. 

• Inventory and assess robust models to catalog, scale and expand best practices.

• Create a state-level online database, and work-based learning access tool like North Carolina, Massachusetts, Washington, Virginia, and other states have implemented. This offering will provide measurable data points, and could be linked to existing job placement sites like PA's One Stop, Indeed, Zip Recruiter, and more.

Fund it:

• Investing in CAP has the potential to alleviate long-term costs related to underemployment, school drop out rates, skilling, and more. Funding Career and Technical Education (CTE) / Intermediaries / Work-Based Learning programs, and the like, has the potential to effectively pay for itself, over time. By dedicating sheltered funding for this work, and defining what success looks like, we can assure quality work is being supported.

• By incentivizing organizations, communities, and industries to invest and participate, we can braid and leverage public/private funding.

• Federal agency and foundation funding sources can also be tapped, using a centralized, equitable, state-level approach.

CAP has been researched and shown to strengthen:

• The workforce

• The economy

• Communities 

• Mental health

PA Impact

Lynda Morris, Partnership for Career Development: Lead

Marissa Bankert, ISFA

Saundra Judge – PA Department of Human Services

Jane Stein, Montgomery County Workforce Development Board