Iowa colleges focus on retraining, retention

Retraining adults for high-demand jobs and improving graduation rates are the priorities for Iowa community colleges, reports the Gazette. Half the students who enrolled in 2009-10 earned a credential or transferred within three years. Colleges are trying to improve that number.

Des Moines Area Community College is among the schools that now requires an orientation course for all students, said Jeremy Varner, administrator of the community colleges division with the Iowa Department of Education. Other colleges are putting resources into more advising and early-warning programs for when students begin to struggle, he said.

“Getting more through to graduation — that’s where a lot of that focus is,” Varner said.

Kirkwood Community College hopes its math “emporium” will improve retention, ’said Math and Science Dean Lori Woeste.

Students work in a computer lab where an instructor is always on hand for one-on-one discussion, and the students work at their own pace. . . . students signs up for the Prep for College Math course, where they demonstrate competency in the “modules” they are confident about and then focus their time on the areas where they need work, Woeste said.

College officials hope state funding will improve next year, easing the tuition burden on students and funding job training. Iowa is focusing on training workers for jobs in nursing, information technology and advanced manufacturing.

Job certificate students denied aid

More students are trying to earn vocational certificates, but most don’t qualify for federal student aid, reports the New York Times. Federal aid “goes overwhelmingly” to students in degree programs, while many certificate students have to pay their own way.

Federal financial aid, like Pell grants, is not available to students who take noncredit courses, and many certificate programs, whether to be a certified nurse’s aide or to fix air-conditioners and heating systems, are not for credit.

Suri Duitch, dean of continuing education at the City University of New York, said federal programs often treated certificate students like second-class citizens. “These programs are less expensive than the degree programs at many four-year schools, but this student population generally has fewer resources,” said Ms. Duitch, whose university has more than 220,000 students in nondegree programs.

Federal job training funds are limited and workers who want to upgrade their skills may not qualify.

Vocational certificates are growing in popularity. In a few months to a few years, workers can improve their employability and earnings significantly, especially in technical fields. Men with certificates in computer/information services earned $72,498 a year on average, more than  54 percent of men with bachelor’s degrees, according to a Georgetown study; women earned more than 64 percent of women with bachelor’s degrees.

Massachusetts links colleges, employers

Massachusetts’ 15 community colleges are working with industry on workforce development with the help of a $20 million federal grant, reports Worcester Business Journal.

The Massachusetts Community Colleges and Workforce Development Transformation Agenda (MCCWDTA) is redesigning degree and certificate programs in six high-demand industries: health care, biotechnology and life sciences, advanced manufacturing, clean energy and sustainability, information technology and financial services.

Students will brush up on academic skills while training for jobs, said Assistant Secretary of Labor Jane Oates in a speech at Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester. “They cannot sit in a classroom for two semesters because they need to brush up on fractions and decimals,” Oates said.

College and career navigators will help students enroll in courses and use the One‐Stop Career Center on each campus under the new initiative. Industry representatives, college administrators and faculty will design job training programs together.

Pathway to technology degrees, jobs

Students are competing for a shot at a six-year high school in Brooklyn that offers vocational training and college classes, reports the New York Times.

By 2017, the first wave of students of P-Tech — Pathways in Technology Early College High School — is expected to emerge with associate’s degrees in applied science in computer information systems or electromechanical engineering technology, following a course of studies developed in consultation with I.B.M.

“I mean, in 10th grade, doing college work?” said Monesia McKnight, 15, as she sat in an introduction to computer systems course taught by a college professor. “How great is that?”

New York City plans to open several more schools on the P-Tech model, and other states are following suit.

“When we view high-quality C.T.E. programs, we see how engaged those students are and what clear aspirations they have for their future,” said John B. King Jr., the state education commissioner. “Unfortunately, that’s not always present in some of our struggling schools.”

In its second year, P-Tech houses ninth and 1oth graders at Paul Robeson High School, which is being phased out because of poor performance. Some 88 percent of P-Tech students qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch. Half tested below proficiency in eighth grade, but they’re already passing state Regents exams and taking college courses.

Students attend from 8:35 a.m. to 4:06 p.m., in 10-period days that intersperse traditional classes like math and English with technology and business-centric courses like “workplace learning,” which teaches networking, critical thinking and presentation skills. Second-year students are offered physics and global studies as well as the business courses and college-level courses in speech or logic and problem solving — or both. There is also a six-week summer academy for geometry.

Students who straight to the workforce will be prepared for “entry-level technology jobs paying around $40,000 a year, like software specialists who answer questions from I.B.M.’s business customers or “deskside support” workers who answer calls from PC users,” reports the Times. Students aren’t guaranteed a job at IBM, but they should have skills required by many companies as well as the opportunity to earn a bachelor’s degree in two years.

Each student also is paired with an IBM mentor and visits the company’s offices and labs. The principal also has an IBM mentor. The company helped train the school’s teachers and funds a full-time liaison to work with college faculty, who also helped develop the curriculum.

How employers see IT associate degrees

When employers in Seattle and Detroit look for information technology technicians, they expect applicants with associate degrees to share some characteristics with bachelor’s degree holders, including technical skills and knowledge, thinking skills, communication skills, and discipline, concludes a working paper from the Community College Research Center by Michelle Van Noy and James Jacobs. However, many hiring managers also feared associate degree holders would lack academic ability, initiative or skill compared to techs with four-year degrees.

Employers did not expect associate or bachelor’s degrees to provide information about certain key qualities, including competency in customer service and teamwork, and personal interest in technology.

$8 billion for ‘community career centers’

An $8 billion Community College to Career Fund will reward colleges that partner with local employers to train 2 million workers for high-demand, well-paying jobs in advanced manufacturing, information technology, health care and “green” tech. That’s if President Obama persuades Congress to pass his budget.  In a speech at Northern Virginia Community College yesterday, the president linked “America’s comeback” to investing in education.  ”We can’t just cut our way into growth,” he said.

A key component of the community college plan would institute “pay for performance” in job training, meaning there would be financial incentives to ensure that trainees find permanent jobs – particularly for programs that place individuals facing the greatest hurdles getting work. It also would promote training of entrepreneurs, provide grants for state and local government to recruit companies, and support paid internships for low-income community college students.

Despite the recession, some high-tech industries report shortages of skilled workers. As the economy recovers and baby boomers retire, there will be 2 million job openings in manufacturing through 2018, according to the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown. But there’s a catch, reports AP.

. . . these types of jobs frequently require the ability to operate complicated machinery and follow detailed instructions, as well as some expertise in subjects like math and statistics.

. . . Mark Schneider, the former U.S. commissioner of education statistics who now serves as vice president at the American Institutes for Research, said there’s no doubt that high-tech companies need skilled workers. But he said there are challenges with leaning heavily on community colleges. Many students enter community colleges lacking math skills. The sophisticated equipment needed for training is expensive, and there’s little known about the effectiveness of individual community colleges programs across the country, he said.

In particular, “green” job training programs have produced disappointing results.

Community colleges have been partnering with industry on job training for many years. “Community colleges understand the needs of local employers,” said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in a White House press conference yesterday. The fund would allow colleges to hire staff, buy equipment and develop curriculum, she said.  (I wanted to ask why taxpayers should fund training for employers, but I was too far back in the phone queue.)

“We will give community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan, echoing President Obama’s line from the State of the Union speech.  We will create “an America built to last,” said Duncan. Also “an economy built to last.” And a workforce “built to last.”

President Obama’s past budgets have been “rife with unfilled promises” to community colleges, notes Inside Higher Ed.

‘Dual’ students learn IT skills

A Florida magnet school is graduating students with information technology certificates and college credits, reports U.S. News. Crooms Academy of Information Technology offers college-level courses in computer networking, software programming, and web design, earning Crooms the title of Most Connected Classroom in U.S. News‘s inaugural ranking of tech-focused high schools.

Crooms offers 16 courses developed at Seminole State College,using the same materials, books, and assignments.

Not all of Crooms’s students plan to go into the IT field, so the school meshes its technology electives with core classes, such as physics and government, to teach students how to apply their skills across different subject areas. With access to hardware, software, production equipment, and their own school-issued laptops, technology is a constant element of each student’s day.

“I think it makes me more adaptable to whatever situation comes up,” says Shelby Koos, who plans to major in international studies.

Employers complain, but don’t train

Employers complain they can’t find skilled workers, but they’re demanding too much and refusing to train new workers, Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources.

To get America’s job engine revving again, companies need to stop pinning so much of the blame on our nation’s education system. They need to drop the idea of finding perfect candidates and look for people who could do the job with a bit of training and practice.

Half of employers surveyed by Manpower say they have difficulty finding skilled workers. That’s because they want experienced workers with exactly the right skill set, Cappelli writes.

Notice the shortage of skilled tradesmen, sales reps, drivers, admins and machinists on the Manpower survey. These are jobs that typically don’t require  bachelor’s degree.

Employers should work with colleges to ensure that job candidates developed needed skills, Cappelli writes.

Community colleges in many states, especially North Carolina, have proved to be good partners with employers by tailoring very applied course work to the specific needs of the employer.

Candidates qualify to be hired once they complete the courses—which they pay for themselves, at least in part. For instance, a manufacturer might require that prospective job candidates first pass a course on quality control or using certain machine tools.

Employers also can create apprenticeships, when possible, or longer probationary periods for novices to get up to speed, he suggests.

In Capelli’s follow-up — he got tons of mail — he concedes there’s a shortage of  information technology graduates with skills in mobile devices and data mining. That’s because students choosing majors four years ago didn’t anticipate the mobile boom.  “We cannot expect schools and students to guess what skills employers will need,” Cappelli writes. “Employers have to do more.”

Chicago plans six-year high schools

Chicago will open as many as five high-school, community-college hybrids next fall, reports the Chicago Tribune. Students could enroll for up to six years to earn a high school diploma and associate degree in technical fields.

IBM is giving Chicago a $400,000 grant and helping develop the schools,which will be modeled on New York City’s newly opened Pathways in Technology Early College High School. P-Tech is a partnership between IBM, the New York City College of Technology and the City University of New York.

IBM will recruit Chicago Public Schools teachers who want to be trained to work in the new schools.

“If we’re going to really meet our commitment to young people to say, ‘You’re going to be prepared for entry-level jobs in a good-paying career, not just a job that leads to a dead end,’ they’re going to need an associate’s degree,” said Robin Willner, an IBM executive who’s overseeing the Chicago initiative. “This is not about narrowing a student’s opportunity. It’s saying not only will you be first in line for a job at IBM, but also prepared for an IT career (elsewhere).”

The P-Tech model assumes that some students will go on to earn a bachelor’s degree, while others will be able to start a career immediately.

Pathways to learning, careers

Students need new options beyond a four-year college for all, write Stanley S. Litow, president of the IBM Foundation, and Robert B. Schwartz,  academic dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and co-author of the Pathways to Prosperity report. New York City is opening a model school that will take students from ninth through “14th grade.”

. . . while preparing for college has become the nearly exclusive focus of educators, the fact is that seven in 10 Americans don’t earn a bachelor’s degree by their mid-20s. Moreover, only slightly more than 20 percent of students who enroll in community colleges obtain a two-year associate degree, even after three years. . . . roughly one-third of new jobs over the next decade will require some form of postsecondary education or training but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree.

Pathways in Technology Early College High School, or P-TECH, is a collaboration between the New York City schools, City University of New York (CUNY), New York City College of Technology (City Tech) and IBM. Students will have the opportunity to complete a high school diploma and an associate degree in applied science. Some will go on to a four-year institution, while others will be first in line for a job at IBM or other companies with a demand for IT workers.

Students will begin earning college credit in the 9th grade through a curriculum that combines the best in STEM education—or science, technology, engineering, and math. As part of this program, students will be immersed in project-based and workplace learning experiences that will provide them with academic and career skills. The focus is on mastery, not seat time, so students who excel can earn their degrees at an accelerated pace. Because the demands will be great, students will be supported with mentoring and extended-day and summer learning opportunities.

IBM will provide information for curriculum development by defining the skills it seeks in new IT hires with an associate in applied science degree.

The city hopes to open similar schools focused on health, banking and other fields where industry partners are available.