Emily Stover DeRocco Speech

TALKING POINTS For
CAREER ACADEMY NATIONAL STANDARDS OF PRACTICE
Wednesday, December 1, 2004
1:30 pm - 3:30pm

I am pleased to be a part of this important conversation around the career academy standards of practice and the significance of career academies both within the context of high school redesign efforts as well as the workforce investment system's commitment to serve at risk youth.

I commend the work of the organizations represented here today to develop the Career Academy National Standards of Practice and want to thank Betsy for the kind invitation to join you.

It is critical that career academies be held to the highest standards.

The ten elements of successful implementation will help educators, employers, parents, students and the community as a whole assess whether career academies are striving for excellence and are positioned to lead to both positive academic and labor market outcomes.

The Administration is committed to trying bold, innovative and flexible initiatives to prepare the most at-risk and neediest youth for jobs in our changing economy. The White House Task Force Report on Disadvantaged Youth, released in December, 2003, articulated a set of broad goals for disadvantaged youth in the country, including that they "grow up ready for work, college and military service."

As a follow up to the White House Task Force Report on Disadvantaged Youth, the Department of Labor released a new strategic vision for youth services under the Workforce Investment Act. This vision recognizes that "Out- of- school youth and those most at risk of dropping out are an important part of the workforce "supply pipeline" needed by businesses to fill job vacancies in the knowledge economy.

WIA funded youth programs should serve as a catalyst to connect these youth with quality secondary and postsecondary educational opportunities and high-growth and other employment opportunities."

Career Academies can and should play an important role in carrying out this vision.

The Department of Labor is particularly interested in career academies for several reasons: (1) to learn how they can improve the academic and labor market outcomes of at-risk youth -- and we are encouraged by evaluation findings that show significant employment and earning gains for young at-risk men, (2) to ensure a pipeline of and pathway for skilled young workers into the workforce ready to taking advantage of career enhancing opportunities in high-growth occupations; and (3) to build stronger linkages between secondary and postsecondary education.

The Department of Labor views career academies as an important "solution" to test as part of the President's High Growth Job Training Initiative.

We spent a good deal of time last year meeting with industry leaders to establish what their needs were as they face the hiring challenges of the 21st century. We also did in-depth research into ten high growth or economically vital industries. This resulted in a strategy which began two years ago called the High Growth Job Training Initiative.

The High Growth Job Training Initiative is a strategic effort to direct the investment of WIA resources into preparing workers for new and increasing opportunities in growth sectors of the economy.

The Foundation of this initiative is partnerships that include the public workforce system, business and industry, and education and training providers working collaboratively to develop solutions to the workforce challenges facing these industries.

ETA has focused our discretionary resources on this effort so that we are investing strategically in national models and demonstrations of solution sets in each of the targeted industries.

To date, ETA has funded 73 High Growth Job Training Initiative pilot and demonstration projects totaling $130 million in the following areas:

Advanced manufacturing

Aerospace

Automotive services

Biotechnology

Energy

Geospatial Technology

Health Care Services

Information Technology

Hospitality and Retail

The high growth projects are implementing innovative workforce solutions that address issues such as:

expanding the pipeline of youth entering high growth industries; accessing new labor pools;

developing alternative training strategies for educating and training industry-specific professionals, such as apprenticeship, distance learning, and accelerated training; and

developing industry-defined career ladders and lattices and corresponding competency models and curriculum.

The Department of Labor recently awarded $1.4 million to Honolulu Community College to create a Construction Career Academy to provide high school students with an array of construction-specific courses, internships and exposure to career opportunities in the construction industry. Honolulu Community College and its partners will develop a standards-based curriculum that articulates with construction certificate and degree programs at Hawaii's community colleges.

I anticipate that in the future we will continue to look for additional opportunities to support career academies as part of our High Growth Job Training investments.

Career Academies need to play an important role in leading more students to postsecondary educational and training opportunities. Department of Labor statistics show that of the 30 fastest growing occupations, 21 require a postsecondary vocational award, an associate's degree, a bachelor's degree or higher. Twelve out of the 30 fastest growing occupations require at least a bachelor's degree. We also know that there are significant earnings gains with an associate's degree or a postsecondary credential. We need to do a much better job of ensuring that our at-risk young people are continuing their education after high school.

As part of this and future forums exploring career academies, as well as in our ongoing research and evaluation, there are a number of areas that we need to pay close attention to:

How can Career Academies improve levels of educational attainment and college enrollment and completion? This is particularly important if career academies are to be viewed as a viable strategy for high school reform and transforming the traditional, comprehensive high school.

The evaluation of Career Academies shows significant labor market outcomes for at-risk young men but there do not appear to be equivalent gains for young women. What are the causes of this disparity?

Can Career Academies adhere to their principles and maintain their quality if they are transferred to non-high school settings or if they are expanded to serve larger groups of students?

What are the specific elements of the Career Academy experience that lead to the positive outcomes on employment and earnings? Is it the quality of the career related experienced and higher quality work-based learning experiences or are there other factors?

Do subgroups of students have significantly different outcomes within the career academy experience?

The Department of Labor is supporting the evaluation of Career Academies being conducted by MDRC. We believe more experimental and non-experimental analysis is necessary to gain a better understanding of the factors driving the employment and earning impacts, to address the issues that I have cited and to determine whether there are other impacts that have not yet surfaced.

I look forward to hearing more about the promising future and successes of Career Academies and we thank you for your hard work to ensure this future.