Speech by Secretary DeRocco - January 31, 2002

The GigaPop Challenge:
Training at the Speed of I2
AACC Workforce Development Institute
January 31, 2002

Thank you, Kathie, for that kind introduction. I’m very happy to be with you today.

I want to congratulate you, Kathie, for the remarkable work you are doing at the Medical Center Campus at Miami-Dade Community College. I understand enrollment is up over last year, giving you your largest enrollment ever in allied health and nursing fields.

This is great news because, as you well know, the need for qualified workers in health care, especially nurses, is so great.

Other great things are happening at Miami-Dade Community College. Just this month, the college entered a partnership with Terremark Worldwide, which is a global leader in Internet connectivity. I want to read you a couple of lines from the news release about this company:

"The company owns and operates the only carrier-neutral Tier-1 Network Access Point in the world. The NAP of the Americas is home to more than 55 leading telecommunications carriers, ISPs and others, including the AMPATH Network and South Florida’s Internet2 GigaPop."

Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a clue what that means! Except, that this is a very high-tech company, a global leader in the technology that is the future of the Internet, and this company has chosen Miami-Dade as its training center. And it’s willing to put some dollars behind that commitment.

As I understand Miami Dade’s Emerging Technologies Center of the Americas, this state-of-the-art information technology center will have the capacity to graduate 10,000 students a year, trained in the latest advances in information technologies. I hope I will have an opportunity some time to visit this center.

Good ideas seem to flourish here in Florida. Just recently, Governor Jeb Bush launched Operation Paycheck, to help workers who were displaced by the economic consequences of the terrorist attacks in September. Operation Paycheck recognizes that many workers, especially those in tourism-related fields, may need to acquire some skills -- but not necessarily complete a full, lengthy training program -- to be re-employed in jobs in information technology, health care, and construction.

I believe Miami Dade is one of the partners in Operation Paycheck, which is part of Governor Bush’s economic recovery effort for Florida. I’m told Operation Paycheck has already served more than 7,000 people, with 1,087 enrolled in training and another 6,162 in orientation or assessment. What a great job this state is doing in its workforce partnerships.

I also want to thank all of you for being here and participating in this annual Workforce Development Institute. What a wonderful program you’ve put together. I hope the experience of being here is stirring your creative juices and that each of you goes home with new ideas.

You know, I’m the first Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training to come to this Institute. I am here because the President, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, and I are committed to the nation’s community colleges.

With that introduction, I want to return to that news release about Miami-Dade’s partnership with Terremark. I was fascinated by that term "GigaPop." And I was intrigued to learn that it’s an access point to the new, faster Internet, Internet 2 or I 2, for short. And that today this faster system primarily links universities and research centers. And that usage has doubled in the last year.

Some 300 universities and research labs are now connected, including corporate and government users. They are the vanguard of new technologies that are, quite literally, about to POP onto the larger Internet and into fields like telemedicine.

It occurred to me that this is our challenge in workforce development. "The GigaPop Challenge: Training at the Speed of I 2." The challenge of keeping up and changing at very high speeds. I think that no where more than in the community colleges are we experiencing the challenge of keeping up with the pace of technology.

You are increasingly the front line in high-tech training. Increasingly the front line in post-secondary education or job training for those students who will not get a four-year degree. Increasingly the front line for job-specific training and certification programs. Increasingly the front line for the 21st century workforce.

And you are increasingly the innovators, the creative thinkers, and the quick-change artists. Maybe we should start calling you the "GigaPop Artists."

You are all too aware of the recent stresses on the workforce system. The dot.com bust, the decline in durable goods orders, the recession, the dip in consumer confidence, and the impact of terrorism added up to job losses and a decline in job creation. This put a tight squeeze on workers.

The community colleges have also been stressed. The recession has meant increased demand for classes, especially high-tech classes, at a time when state revenues are down because of the recession.

But the worst economic news may be over. Like the first buds of spring, we are beginning to see bits of economic data that suggest a new blossoming of the economy lies ahead:

New orders for durable goods were up 2.4 percent in November, and high-tech orders, which had fallen since the middle of 2000, were up for the second month in a row;

Job losses have slowed, with UI claims down to 376,000 last week, down 15,000 from the previous week;

Consumer confidence has made a strong comeback; and even Alan Greenspan’s confidence has bounced back.

Economists are shaking off their mantle of gloom and are optimistic about a moderate recovery by mid-year. As any farmer or gardener knows, spring is the time for fertilizing as well as planting, and the President’s economic security package is the fertilizer we need so that these new roots take hold and produce a bumper crop. Passage of his plan would go a long way to strengthen the safety net for workers.

The President has said that in tough times people need an unemployment check but for the long term what they need is a paycheck. That’s why his economic security package is a jobs creation package. And for workers his plan includes:

We are plowing through an unsettling and anxious time, but a time when our service to the American workforce has never been more urgent, more needed, and appreciated. In the first recession since enactment the Workforce Investment Act, the nation is watching to see if the workforce investment system can respond and perform effectively.

The President and the Cabinet are now very knowledgeable about national emergency grants, unemployment insurance, and other system services, including the community colleges. The Administration has demonstrated its belief in the ability of the workforce investment system to produce – and therein lies the risk of failure.

Behind every opportunity lies risk. I believe that we can produce. But, if we don’t, we will have missed our golden opportunity. And community colleges are part of the call to produce.

As we approach this challenge, we cannot ignore the all-too-familiar statistics:

The fastest growing jobs will be those that require the highest education and those that require the least; the best jobs and the lowliest.

In 1979, the average college graduate earned 38 percent more than a high school graduate. By 1998, the wage disparity had nearly doubled, to 71 percent;

The most educationally disadvantaged also represent the fastest-growing groups in the workforce. High-school dropout rates for Hispanic students are more than four times higher than for white students; black students have a dropout rate nearly double that of white students;

Rates of unemployment and poverty are 5 – 10 times higher for those without a high-school education.

Skills and education will be a dominant, if not decisive, factor in our ability to compete in the global economy. And low-income workers want in on the action. They want to acquire skills and move ahead. According to a recent Work Trends Survey, workers with the most anxiety about the future are those who know they are being left out of the technology revolution – the "digital exiles."

Just as the President said that "no child should be left behind" in getting a good education, no worker should be left behind in having the skills necessary to find a place in the 21st Century workplace.

Having the best skilled workforce is as crucial to our economic growth and the kind of society we will have as technology itself. The President has said that a better educated workforce means America is more productive and that means more jobs and higher paychecks.

The largest number of new job entrants are women and minorities, but they are the very groups that are not finishing high school or getting four-year degrees; that are not going into engineering and science careers; that will miss out on the opportunities if we don’t reverse these trends.

No other institution is as involved in increasing opportunities for Americans at every age and every stage as the community colleges. You build bridges to the secondary schools with dual enrollments and other programs to convince young people to stay in school, to graduate, and to get advanced training. You enroll nearly 11 million students, most of them in two-year degree programs and who will go on to complete a four-year degree. You have the greatest opportunity to influence them to do so.

You do more to train adult workers and to train older workers in new skills. You reach out to women and minorities.

You are among the leaders in your local communities in setting the agenda for the workforce system. And you work in close partnership with local businesses.

That is why I wanted to come here today to share a few thoughts on some directions that I’m aggressively moving in that impact the whole workforce investment system.

First, I am convinced that we must move to a demand-driven system where business needs dictate employment and training activity and structure, rather than a supply-driven system where job seekers are pushed into the job market even when their skills and abilities may not be tailored to available employment.

Second, we must have a commitment to performance – by that I mean outcomes. Make no mistake: there will be an accountability process in the workforce system. Congress wants it; the President wants it; and the American people want it.

The more we take our lead from the business community the more we will produce training and employment results that keep up with the speed of the new technologies, including Internet 2.

We have seen some terrific examples of how business is ready and eager to participate in the workforce investment system. Not a week goes by that I haven’t visited with one or more businesses or business associations – mostly from growth sectors of the economy – that have jobs to fill and need workers with the right skills. They bring creative proposals that would benefit business, workers, and the economy.

For instance, the American Health Care Association came in with the American Hotel and Motel Lodging Association to suggest ways to help those workers who are losing jobs in the hotel business use their transferable skills to get jobs in health care, a lot like Operation Paycheck here in Florida.

HCA, the hospital management company, joined us in a $10 million initiative to train workers displaced by the terrorist attacks for health care careers. They provided $5 million in scholarships and job training and ETA is providing $5 million to build the capacity of One Stops to conduct screening and referral. The interest from workers has been so strong that HCA hasn’t had to spend a dime on marketing.

There are many opportunities for community colleges to join these partnerships with business.

We have tremendous opportunities to understand and respond to business’s needs for a skilled workforce. And that, ladies and gentlemen, should be our central mission.

And I’m convinced that if we follow that mission with the zeal and creativity that is so much a part of the workforce investment system and the community colleges, that we will get one heck of a GigaPop for our investment.

It’s been such a pleasure for me to be here with you today. I wish you the greatest success through the remainder of the Institute and I expect that I will hear about the many creative ideas that blossom as a result.