All right, good afternoon and welcome to our webinar on State Strategies to Support Apprenticeship Expansion. Good morning to those of you joining us from the West Coast. This webinar is being hosted by the National Governors Association, specifically NGA Solutions, and the Center on Education and Skills at New America. This is Michael Prebble, the Center on Education and Skills. Thanks to all of us, all of you who are joining us today. So we'll bring up the agenda for the event here. Before I pass it off to my colleague Lil Tesfai to get us started, we'll just get just run through a few housekeeping items. So for the moment, we have everyone for our presenters on mute. You're welcome to mute your own line, but there's absolutely no need to. We've got some really knowledgeable practitioners today from three states who will be sharing their experiences with us. As much as possible, we'd like to keep the tone of this webinar conversational within the time constraints we've got. So if you've got a question that comes up during any of the following presentations, we'd ask that you enter it in the chat box. You can also, there's a button that allows you to raise your hand. You can do that if you prefer. If you send a chat, you can send it to the whole group or you can send it to New America directly. If we have time at the end of each presentation, we'll put those questions to the presenters. If not, we'll do our best to field them during the question period at the end of the day. Also, just to let you know, we are recording this webinar and we'll be able to share the conversation and the slides around after the event. So with that, I'll pass it off to my colleague Lil Tesfai, a senior policy analyst at New America's Center on Education and Skills, who will provide an overview of New America's research and advocacy around apprenticeship. Great, thank you, Mike. And hello to everyone on the line. New America is a nonpartisan think tank that's based here in Washington, D.C., with offices around the country. And our team, the Center on Education and Skills at New America, is a research and development program focused on the intersection of education, job training, and workforce development. Over the last few years, we've done a lot of work related to apprenticeship, everything from researching, promising practices and core components of youth apprenticeship programs that support the attainment of portable credentials, to analyzing connections between apprenticeship and higher education systems to support the development of programs that result in post-secondary credentials and degrees that are required for entry to and advancement in high growth, high wage careers. We've also done some sector-specific work, looking at apprenticeship in nursing occupations. And today, we're really excited to talk about our research related to state policies to support apprenticeship. But you might be wondering, what is apprenticeship? Late last year, the Apprenticeship Forward Collaborative, which is co-led by New America and the National Skills Coalition and includes about a dozen national organizations, including NGA, released a definition of a quality apprenticeship program. And the purpose of this definition is to level-set and make sure that there's a common understanding of the core components of a quality apprenticeship program. And those include paid structure on the job training combined with classroom instruction, also known as related technical instruction. Clearly defined wage structure with pay increases as individuals increase their skills. High quality and standards-based evaluation of program content and ongoing assessments of the program that culminates in an industry recognized credential, as well as full-time employment. And while apprenticeship has many benefits for students and workers and employers, it remains an underutilized education workforce strategy with apprentices and registered apprenticeship programs making up less than 1% of the workforce. Employers in industry play an integral role in the development and delivery of apprenticeships at the local level. However, state leadership is particularly important for expanding apprenticeship into key regions and to key industry sectors. States are uniquely positioned to facilitate collaboration between stakeholders to mitigate financial and logistical challenges to standing up apprenticeship programs, to ensuring adherence to quality and equity frameworks, and to supporting the continuous improvement of programs through policy and practice. And state leaders can also foster the development of pathways to apprenticeship for underrepresented populations. By developing these systems to support the expansion and diversification of apprenticeship, states can also play a significant role in developing solutions that help their residents find good jobs, but also help businesses find good workers. So earlier this year, New America released our synthesis of the core components of a robust state apprenticeship infrastructure. And this work was based on an extensive review of effective apprenticeship programs operating at the local and regional levels, but also the facilitating conditions within states that made these quality programs possible. So I'll talk through those core components today. The first is really helping create and sustain employer engagement. A high quality state apprenticeship system is one that recruits and supports employers of different sizes in various sector areas to develop and deliver apprenticeship programs. And because apprenticeship cannot grow without steady demand from employers, ongoing research, marketing, and technical assistance are critical to helping employers understand how apprenticeship can meet their talent development needs. And South Carolina is a state that's done this particularly well through its apprenticeship Carolina initiative. Over the last 10 years, South Carolina has managed to grow from 90 registered apprenticeships to more than 1,000 and to serve over 28,000 people through both their youth and adult apprenticeship programs in the last decade. Their success has been part through the deployment reports to employers across the state to help them stand up programs, register and run programs. And the services received through applicants was at no cost to the employer. And it's really paid off. Another core element of a quality state apprenticeship infrastructure is encouraging robust partnerships between employers and education providers. Apprenticeship combines rigorous on the job and classroom learning, which means that educators and employers have to work together on program design. And a high quality state apprenticeship system connects apprenticeship to formal education at the secondary and sometimes also at the post-secondary level to increase the portability and transfer of credentials of value, as well as degrees that are needed for career entry and advancement. Colorado is a really good example of the strong partnerships that exist. For years, Colorado has been investing in public-private partnerships. It's known as career-wise Colorado. And it was really built on work from the former governor, John Hickenlooper, who established the Business Experimental Learning Commission, an industry-led cross-system coalition of state agencies that ultimately resulted in the career-wise initiative, which is a public-private partnership that coordinates all the efforts throughout the state. A third element of a robust apprenticeship infrastructure at the state level is coordinating across state and local agencies. There is wide variation in the systems for apprenticeship from state to state. And how apprenticeships operate in a state could depend on which agency or agencies have the jurisdiction to fund, approve, and monitor apprenticeship programs. So a high-quality state apprenticeship system really facilitates cross-agency as well as industry partnerships that support the development, implementation, maintenance, and scaling of high-quality apprenticeship programs. Another element is targeted funding and incentives. Quality apprenticeship programs sometimes require a considerable amount of time and resources to stand up, everything from developing the curriculum for the classroom component to funding the tuition of the classroom component to training mentors who will support apprentices, and then also offering supplemental support services to assist apprentices through program completion. My colleague, Mike Herbal, is going to talk a little bit more about the innovative ways that states have been investing in the nuts and bolts of apprenticeship development and implementation. And last but not least, collecting and evaluating data is another key component of a quality apprenticeship system. Using this data to monitor and evaluate apprenticeship systems is really important, but also to monitor program and participant outcomes. So with that, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Kimberly Egg with NGA Solutions. Kimberly is a senior policy analyst with NGA Solutions Economic Opportunity Division, where she works to identify and promote innovative policy and practice in developing a talent pipeline of skilled workers. Today she'll give us an overview of the state policy landscape that she's encountered in NGA's work. Kimberly, over to you. Thanks, Lola. Appreciate the introduction and for the ability to join this webinar along with you. So building off of your introduction on the value of apprenticeship and general infrastructure that states are taking to scale apprenticeship, what those core commonalities are, I'm excited to share a little bit more detail and some specific ideas of what governors are doing and states are doing to scale apprenticeship as a workforce development strategy. But first, as you see in front of you, just a few details about NGA and the National Governors Association. It's a bipartisan association of the 55 governors of the nation states and territories dedicated to identifying solutions to public policy and governance issues on the state, national and global levels. Next slide. I sit within the NGA solutions. It's the Center for Best Practices. That's the consulting arm of NGA, providing information, research, policy analysts, analysis and technical assistance for governors and their staff across a range of policy issues. Specifically, I work within economic opportunity and that includes programs of workforce development, human services, post-secondary and economic development issues. So apprenticeship is a perfect example of a strategy that governors are taking that touches all those program areas that helps prepare a workforce poised to meet the needs of business and ultimately to make the state more economically competitive. Governors are exploring ways to increase access to apprenticeship to prepare their citizens and their residents for the modern workforce. Next slide. So we've seen a lot of growth in apprenticeship nationwide, especially in recent years. You can see here that 499,000 plus apprentices has started since January 1, sorry, previous slide still, and there's been 56% growth since 2013. We've also seen over 10,800 new apprenticeship programs created within the last five years thanks to significant investment. But there's still room for growth. Next slide. Barriers of scale, you know, as Azul said, apprenticeship is still very much underutilized, especially in non-additional careers and cited a very low number, 1% of the workforce is in apprenticeship programs. So we can see, I mean, many reasons for that, but it kind of fall into these buckets. We see just a lack of awareness, first of all, on behalf of businesses as a workforce and economic development strategy for preparing their workers for the skills of the future. There's a lack of awareness on the participant side that apprenticeship can be a viable career pathway. And then of course there's also affordability for businesses. Sometimes it's a lack of understanding, but also for just converting a system or an onboarding program into a new program can be costly, especially in the beginning. And so especially if you consider that apprenticeship, high quality apprenticeship does include a high level of mentorship and education. Next slide. Fortunately, there are many governors who realize and understand these barriers and are working to counter them. So just within the last several months of the 2019 State of State addresses, 10 governors have called out apprenticeships specifically in their state and state address. I put up seven of the quotes here, so there are several more as well. So I think you'll get these slides afterwards too, but you can always look it up on our website on nga.org. We add all of the state of the state addresses and you can see the quotes there. Here are some examples of evolving government structures. So government structures that governor, things that governors have done to strategically scale apprenticeship. Sometimes there's been a shift of leadership to be able to better focus on this and better strategize business interaction with the state agencies, education, workforce and economic development agencies. So here are some examples I just wanted to highlight. In Indiana, the governor set up the Office of Work-Based Learning and Apprenticeship located within the Department of Workforce Development. It's part of governor Holcomb's next level agenda and serves to develop and implement a framework of work-based learning pathways for both youth and adult population. So they first, they coordinated efforts. This office coordinates with the US Department of Labor to expand registered apprenticeship. Second, it also develops other flexible and scalable programs that focus on states' key economic sectors and regional high-wage, high-demand growth occupations. And third, they also work to build public-private partnerships to increase business and industry engagement with the education system. Next is Utah. Utah was the first state. This just happened earlier this year. It became the first state in the country to establish a position of a commissioner of apprenticeship programs. And in this position, they're meant to promote, coordinate, and educate the public about apprenticeship programs. Third, in Maryland, Governor Larry Hogan had the state legislature move oversight of its apprenticeship from the labor and industry division over to the workforce division. Previously, the Office of Apprenticeships had a more passive regulatory role tracking registered apprenticeship, making sure their paperwork was up-to-date, which is very important. But in the reshuffle, the apprenticeship office was placed in a cultural setting where the mission of the division is to put people to work and to increase creativity of workforce training programs such as apprenticeship. And then fourth here, we have North Carolina, a bill passed that shifts the control of the state's apprenticeship program, which is known as Apprenticeship NC, from the Department of Commerce over to the community college system. And the goal was to streamline the program and make it more aligned with some of the community college's workforce development initiatives. As a result, it helps provide students more post-secondary options and gives them an effective low-cost alternative to the traditional college pathway. So I put links here. If you want to learn more about any of these initiatives, you can get a copy of the slides and it'll go to either a press release on the governor's office or directly to the office that is in charge of apprenticeship. So on this slide, I just wanted to share, you can go to this website at the bottom here, the Department of Labor websites. It has a whole list of the states that are providing tax credits and supporting tuition, but I just put a couple of highlights here. A lot of states do provide tuition tax credit to businesses that have apprenticeship. So this is really meant to address that third barrier of affordability, especially for businesses starting up a new apprenticeship program, especially non-traditional career occupations and career paths where apprenticeship was not the norm. Sometimes it helps for states to provide this tax credit to get them off their feet. So here are a couple of examples from Rhode Island and Alabama. And then in terms of tuition support for apprentices, covering the cost of tuition, either community college or elsewhere. We have examples here from Tennessee and Washington of some of the tuition reductions and tuition assistance available. But I'm going to pass it on over now to this other speakers who are going to share and some of the findings from the report from New America, who are going to share a little bit more of the how of that tuition support for apprentices. Thank you. Thanks very much, Kimberly. So yes, before we'll get into our state practitioners presentations, we'll take a minute to kind of give everyone a sense of why we're digging into this particular topic of apprenticeship finance today. A lot of the excitement that we see about apprenticeship centers on the premise of a debt free education for apprentices, the fact that this is an earn and learn strategy that avoids a lot of the pitfalls of student debt that come along with tuition costs of conventional higher education. But as much as that can be true when we're talking about expanding apprenticeship into non-traditional sectors and into populations that are underrepresented in American apprenticeship today, we're talking about significant changes to systems and practices that will work the same way for a very long time. So for my team at New America, we see an emblem of that kind of systems change in the concept of a degree apprenticeship, just something we thought a lot about since we began looking at this topic in 2016. A degree apprenticeship is one of those beautifully simple things. It's just what it sounds like. It's a model where a learner pursues an apprenticeship at the same time as they pursue a college degree. And we think it can be an ideal model for a lot of the demands that learners and employers are facing in today's economy. So most of the new job growth that we've seen since the end of the Great Recession has benefited workers with a college degree. That's a trend we expect to see continue. Apart from being more rich, there aren't that many things that you can do on average that will increase your lifetime earnings more than getting a college degree. On the other hand, going to college is getting more and more expensive. Two-thirds of graduating college seniors will leave their four-year institution with debt, about an average of $29,000 each in 2017. So a lot of our learners could use more affordable pathways to and through college degree programs. And employers, for their part, are increasingly looking for job candidates who aren't just college educated but who have that applied experience that you earn through an apprenticeship. So it's in that gap between conventional college education and traditional apprenticeship programs that we see a real opportunity space for degree apprenticeships. The difficulty with that, as we've said, is that apprenticeship and higher education systems were never really intended to work together. By and large, apprentices historically haven't taken their related technical instruction, their RTI coursework at colleges. If they have, they haven't done it for credit. And for the moment, the vast majority of college students are just college students. They're not apprentices. We know that doesn't have to be the case. There are new degree apprenticeships starting in European countries every month in the United States. We've seen some great examples, too. We've seen mechatronics degree apprenticeships at Siemens USA, Insurance and Business Services at Aion in Chicago. One of our attendees today, a company called Ishpey, about 30 people in Peoria, Illinois, provides degree apprenticeships in secure software development. So we know this is possible. But given the amount of interest we're seeing from states, as Kimberly described in her presentation, we also know that there's an appetite to see more of these programs grow faster. So as our team has been looking at state strategies to support the expansion of degree and college connected apprenticeships, we've started to look more closely at different financing strategies that can make it easier for colleges to forge these new connections with apprenticeship. One way we've done that recently was by interviewing practitioners from 12 states. You can see them up here. We started from what we already knew from existing DOL resources, Department of Labor Resources, and from New America's other advocacy efforts. We know that there are a lot of states that have looked into tax credits to incentivize apprenticeship expansion. Some of these have been extremely successful. But as we spoke to more and more practitioners, we started to focus more on strategies that provide targeted support to help colleges deliver more RTI that can help really build that infrastructure for degree apprenticeships going forward. And we've been trying to get a sense of just how these different financing strategies developed in different states and how states that are just starting to consider these policy options or whose policymakers are just starting to consider these options can conceptualize the different approaches that are available to them. So I won't give you an exhaustive overview of our policy brief today. We'll be releasing it later. Probably next month. We'll be sure to send it around to all of you in attendance. We'd love to stay engaged with work that's going on in your states. But before we move on to our practitioners presentations where we can see some of these strategies in action, I'd like to give just a quick overview of the basic typology that we settled on and some of the examples of different policy types that we looked at. So as you can see, our typology contains four basic types. We've got student financial aid, startup grants, reimbursement systems, and tuition waivers. Each of these models functions a little bit differently and affects a different part of the apprenticeship lifecycle. But there's a lot of overlap as well. And what I'd like to emphasize in presenting these different models and as we hear from our state representatives is that there's really no one way for states to do this. Every state has its own political constraints, got their own economic conditions that policymakers have to consider. And what struck me working on this project is that there are a lot of different combinations states can use to kind of crack this code of degree apprenticeship. So you'll hear about three of the four strategies from our state representatives today. I'll give you a very quick rundown of them. Student financial aid strategies. Of course, here we need state-funded student financial aid. Grants or scholarships that apprentices use to pursue RTI at colleges. A good example of this is the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship that Mary Taylor, one of our guests, will discuss in a moment. Startup grants are something you've likely heard a lot about. Kimberly mentioned several governors who've launched that type of grant in their states. For our part, we focused on the PACE and GAINS Act in New Jersey, which together put about $10 million in grant funding towards pre-apprenticeship and registered apprenticeship programs that include support for coursework and curriculum development. Reimbursement systems are somewhat less common model. We found these being used in Texas, California, and Wisconsin. These systems reimburse apprenticeship coursework providers for their services at an hourly rate. And because that money can, in fact, in Texas, California, and Wisconsin, often is used by colleges in all three of these states, we consider it a really valuable tool for building long-term apprenticeship infrastructure. So finally, then, we've got tuition waivers, which can actually combine some of the characteristics of financial aid and reimbursement systems. Waivers work by reducing or eliminating the cost of apprenticeship coursework for learners. So primarily, there are student-focused strategy. But in North Carolina's youth apprenticeship waiver, which you'll hear about today, institutions are actually reimbursed for those tuition fees that aren't paid by apprentices. So that importantly preserves the financial incentive that colleges have to continue to participate in apprenticeship. At the same time, it reduces that cost burden on students. On the other hand, I mentioned just briefly, we saw some more cautionary examples of waivers where these policies can actually create a disincentive for colleges. Unfunded waivers or tuition exemptions are where states don't reimburse colleges for the RTI, the coursework that they provide. And that basically serves to reward colleges less for apprenticeship coursework. So it's something to watch out for there. So our policy recommendations and lighted the experiences of folks we spoke to in different states are listed up on the slide here. They vary, as you can see, from pretty light lifts, like creating a single procedures manual, something the Texas did very well to heavier lifts, like changing legislation or budget formulas that reward colleges less for apprenticeship coursework than for other students, or even working with the creditors to begin awarding college credit for the on-the-job portion of apprenticeship. That's something we've got a lot of interest in. One last thing worth noting here, while acknowledging the tons of hard work and commitment that we'll see behind state policies that are already doing a good job of supporting college-connected apprenticeships, there are a lot of states that already have the groundwork to start building these kinds of policies. So there are 16 states out there that have statewide college promise programs. There are at least nine that fully fund career and technical education. There are more and more states that are looking at allowing community colleges to provide bachelor degrees. There's a lot of work going on in this country that can plug into this broader policy effort of supporting college-connected RTI. So with that in mind, we'll move on to our main event. We have representatives joining us from three states today, Kentucky, Texas, and North Carolina. These folks will be discussing how different RTI supports have factored into their broader efforts to expand and modernize apprenticeship. So first up, we have Mary Taylor of the Kentucky Department of Education's Office of Career and Technical Education. Mary is a workforce training development specialist who worked for three years to adapt the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship. That's a program that Kentucky had available for 25 years. But now it can support it can support apprenticeship as well. So I'll remind our audience that if you have any questions for Mary or any of our other presenters, you can just send them through the chat box. We'll do our best to get to those questions after each presentation. In the worst case, we will get to them at the end of the webinar. So without further ado, thanks, Mary, for joining us. We'll send it over to you. OK, are we there? We're on. Sorry about that, Mary. You're on. OK, so good afternoon. Thank you, Mike. And thank you to New America for giving Kentucky the opportunity to talk a little bit about what we have going on today and thank the audience for tuning in. As you can see on the screen, that is our brand, Kentucky's brand of youth apprenticeship. Of course, you know, we have the acronym. It's legal to have that acronym. So it's Tech Ready Apprentices for Careers in Kentucky or affectionately, we call track, which we think being in the horse capital of the world, that it suits us. And so Kentucky, Mike, if you would advance, please, we have a movement to grow and expand our youth apprenticeship model. And so a couple of strategies and ideas that we have to do that are incentivize employers to participate and entice students to participate. And so through that, well, first of all, the incentivization to employers has not been able to pass yet. That is something that we still hope will pass. So it's kind of, you know, sweetens both sides of this, both sides for each party involved. But on the youth apprentice or the key side, if you advance, Mike, this is how we think we are going to entice students. So this is the Kentucky Educational Scholarship, what we call keys. And it's funded by the Kentucky Lottery to provide a merit-based scholarship given to students contingent upon their high school GPAs, ACT, SAT scores. Students earn this scholarship, as you can see, through the GPA. It's a recurring amount that's available for four years up to five years after the student graduates.  So, yeah. So there is the actual statute that we have. That's the actual language. Like Mike mentioned, it did take us three years to get this through legislation. The keys, this aspect of the keys had not been touched for over 20 years. And so it took us a few tries to get it through, but it's definitely worth it. So these are the allowable expenses, equipment, tools, licensure, uniforms, tuition, books. It looks completely different than the traditional keys. Traditionally, keys would go to a two- or four-year post-secondary institution. The student never saw it, never touched it. It just went directly to help pay that tuition expense. In this aspect, the student is actually reimbursed for these items. So, to date, the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority, they are the ones that regulate our keys money, has reimbursed $41,505 in some change. And so this is money that would have been sitting on the table that maybe these students could not have had access to, but had earned if they didn't go onto a traditional post-secondary school. So this has just happened. This started about 10 months ago. So we're really excited that this number and students are already being reimbursed its amount of money. So we feel that there are four facets to growing apprenticeship in Kentucky, our youth apprenticeship model. The first one is this is going to encourage for students to do better in school that normally didn't care about keys money because they didn't see that as an avenue for them after they graduated. We feel that more high-performing students will look at apprenticeship as a post-secondary option because they know they've earned keys money. One of their goals was to earn keys money. And so they will see this as an option to use it. It will create an awareness of the benefits of apprenticeship for students, parents, and educators. We need to do a lot of education because education has done a pretty good sale job of you have to get a degree to be successful. And we look at apprenticeship as the other degree. And so we are hoping we have to get parents to see it as that way and educators for sure to see it that way and students to all buy in. And then we want to demonstrate to employers that education is very committed to apprenticeship as a career path. Now, students do have a one-time opportunity. They decide that apprenticeship is not for them to transfer that money back to the post-secondary institution, but also vice versa if they decide that they want to go to a post-secondary institution and then want to enter an apprenticeship, they can switch that money over. In addition to the keys money, Kentucky also has a work-ready scholarship and that is for certificates and degrees in our five high-demand sectors as you can see there. And so actually this can be stacked. So it is, you know, the related technical instruction is employer-driven. They determine what that looks like. So if they do stack it with an associate's degree, which I feel is probably best practice. However, the student can also take advantage of this. Maybe if it's not part of their apprenticeship to get the degree, they can choose on their own to utilize the scholarship and work around their work schedule for their apprenticeship to then work on a degree or a certificate in a high-demand sector. Excellent. Thanks so much, Mary. So we want to open it up to questions. We're right on time. So if anybody has a particular question they'd like to address to Mary, you can send that through the chat. Otherwise you can raise your hand or unmute yourself. Anything works. Just feel free to kind of jump in. But Mary, maybe to start it off. Can you tell us just a bit, you know, you mentioned that there was this work on a tax incentive that sort of led up to the adaptation of keys to allow registered apprentices to participate. Is there anything else you're still working on going forward that you sort of want to link into this policy effort? Well, we still would love to see something to incentivize employers because one of the barriers to getting our youth apprenticeship program to grow is the lack of employer engagement and buy-in. So we are still looking and I'd like to tap into some of the other states that I saw on the slides earlier to take a deeper dive to see what they are doing to incentivize employers to participate. Excellent. And then from sort of an industry perspective, can you just give us a sense of, so you've got the five high demand sectors up here. Can you give us a sense of what the sort of the economic landscape of Kentucky is looking like right now and how your workforce efforts are supporting that? Well, we are a very strong manufacturing state and certainly that's where we started with our youth apprenticeship model, but it has grown into, our youth apprenticeship has grown into all of these other high demand sectors plus the sub-sectors and support sectors of that. So we are seeing movement, we are gaining momentum, but again, we need more employers to buy-in and honestly on the youth side of apprenticeship, transportation continues to be a barrier for us. So we are working on some solutions for that though as well. Got it, Mary. Thanks again for joining us.  Okay, cause I wasn't hearing you. Anyway, thank you for including the state of Texas and actually asking me and I have my backups here from the state, Desi Holmes and Tara Cole, that can perhaps share a little bit more after I share with you what we do. But here in the state of Texas, we're very fortunate to have our Texas workforce system as well as our Texas Higher Ed Coordinating Board that work together in what we call a 60 by 30 that actually uses the high schools and the ISDs as well. As we move forward. But in 2015, someone from our Houston area Department of Labor contacted me to see if I would facilitate a committee that actually looked at growing apprenticeships in the Houston area. One of our goals in trying to increase those apprenticeships as we looked at everything, we saw that they were inconsistencies with the registered apprenticeships and the MOUs with community colleges and the courses that a journeyman who had completed the apprenticeship were actually getting. And so one of our main initiatives was to set up a crosswalk that could be used by community colleges and registered apprenticeships who do their own training so that those journeymen could get credit at a community college once they had finished their training. And we got funding from both TWC, the Texas Workforce Commission and the Texas Higher Ed Coordinating Board to do this. And in one year, we completed 18 crosswalks. So we did 18 areas. And the crosswalk at this time takes the learning and that certificate, let's say for an electrician or a plumber or whatever, can take their completion certificate to a community college in Texas, basically any community college in Texas. And that community college can look at the crosswalk and say, we can give you credit for these courses because they're taught at our college. Now, all of that depends on the guidelines of the community college, but we do have the crosswalk that really helps community colleges work better and more with our already registered apprenticeships. It also encourages them to look for those opportunities because we can't train them all and once they get that journeyman certificate, we can get our Associate of Applied Science going with them. So it works well that way. We're not competing, we are collaborating between the registered apprenticeships and the community colleges. The other thing that this does, as I said, is to help the community colleges open their doors and work more with the registered apprenticeships. What we also do for those registered are those apprenticeships that work with the community colleges. We have contact hour funding. So the reason the crosswalk doesn't work both ways right now is because if the RTI is done by the community college, they are already receiving college credit. And so that comes in with the contact hour funding that we already get. So the co-board can pay and is paying for the classroom instruction that's taken care of for those apprentices. Another thing that we are doing now with this committee and actually collaboratives around the state is actually looking at those youth apprenticeships and using the courses that could be taught there in a variety of areas in the dual credit programs that we already have working with the ISDs, the Independent School Districts. So they will get the dual credit funding. It's already college credit. And then we work with the industry to keep them on and keep on going on this pathway. So from a colleges and from the point of view in Texas, the Texas Higher Ed Coordinating Board pays for the RTI by contact hour funding to the apprenticeships. Now with the registered apprenticeships, I'm gonna turn it over to Desi Holmes because that's where the Texas Workforce Commission comes in and where they can then provide funding. Desi? Actually, Sarah, if we could jump in just quickly, we've got a couple of questions I'd like to just put to you before we turn it over to Desi, which is one sort of procedural one real quick. Can you just give us just a quick kind of breakdown? We've got a question from Patrick Mitchell about sort of the technical aspects of a crosswalk. So you mentioned that several times in your presentation. Can you just draw that out a little bit for us? Oh, certainly. And I'll be glad to provide it for anybody that wants it. It's out on the TWC website and the co-board website as well. What we did, we looked at, well, first of all, we had the college faculty sitting in a particular area, sitting in the same room at the same table with a subject matter expert from the registered apprenticeship. So they could really talk the skills that are listed on the registered apprenticeship with the Department of Labor. So these are the skills that the registered apprenticeship is addressing their training to so that the community college folks could clearly understand what was being taught. So what we did, we basically just set up a matrix and down the left side of the matrix are all of the different skills that are taught. Across the top, we listed all of our workforce education curriculum manual courses that are approved for any community college to teach in Texas. And so the folks at the table said, okay, they looked at the skill and said, in what courses is this skill taught? And so they put X's in all of the courses that they were taught. Now, there are different levels of the skill learning and mastery that they might not get all in one course and they may have to take it, it could go over several courses. So that's why we put it in a matrix form and it's not a course by course direct crosswalk. And that's why we don't accept a course by course crosswalk at any of the community colleges. That has to be after the completion of the apprenticeship. That way, we cover two bases here. We're not coaching the apprenticeship programs that are already there, but we're giving those students, those apprentices an opportunity to continue their education. And then this way, it's consistent across the state. Got it. That's really helpful for your question. Yep, that's really helpful, Sally Kaye. And that's one of the things I think that we sort of drew out in some of the interviews we conducted in our recent research is that anything that's, that makes it easier for sort of non-traditional apprenticeships to coexist peacefully alongside well-established programs is really helpful in the state policy realm.  Right now, let's see. If she doesn't come on, I can fill in. Great. Yeah, you can go ahead. Okay, well, the Texas Education Code is called Chapter 133 Funding. And we are a partner with several registered apprenticeships. And what this Chapter 133 funding does, it pays the contact hour funding to the registered apprenticeships that do their own training. So we partner with them, we find out how many apprentices that they plan on having for the coming year and how many courses they're gonna take and how many hours that each of those courses would be in their training situation. And we apply for funding. And nobody has really turned down it's just a matter of the state needs to know how many apprentices for how many hours are gonna be out there. And we serve as the reporter of that information and certify that it was so many apprentices for this many hours in certain classes. And so once they know exactly how many, they take that total funding pot for the year and divide it by the number of apprentices and the number of hours. And so it usually ends up being approximately the same thing that we would get from the Texas Higher Ed Coordinating Board for the training that we're doing by contact hour. So they're both contact hour funding, but we get them from two different sources. And the reason that I say that it's typically the registered apprenticeship that does their own training is because if we do the training, we can't double dip and get that contact hour funding from TWC and get it from the Texas Higher Ed Coordinating Board. And so it just simplifies it if when we work with a registered apprenticeship that's doing their own training, then we do chapter 133 if we're doing it. Hey, Sally? Yes. Oh, good, you're on. So finally got this unmuted. I had to send in a message. Oh, please take over and correct whatever I said. No corrections needed. Tara's gonna give us the update since she's the lead for chapter 133 in Texas. She's gonna give you a few of the details. Just follow up on what you had started saying. Thanks, Sally. So I'm Tara Cole. I serve as the program lead for the state-funded apprenticeship training program. And in Texas, we are authorized under the Education Code chapter 133 to grant funds to support the costs of related classroom instruction in registered apprenticeship training programs, whether that be in traditional or non-traditional industries. And chapter 133 is a state biennium appropriation that the state receives with the upcoming biennium for 2021. Texas is currently has a proposed legislation to increase this amount to approximately about $12.5 million. Eligible grantees under chapter 133 consist of local education agencies which Sally Kay spoke to such as public school district and post-secondary institutions. And apprenticeship committees, operating apprenticeship training programs as designated in the program's Department of Labor approved standard. Chapter 133 funds are used to support a portion of the related classroom instruction costs of participating registered apprenticeship training programs. And Texas grants or rather contracts these funds based on a statewide contact hour rate just like Sally spoke to. And contracts are funded in a distributed annually on a per fiscal year basis which for us runs September 1st through August 31st. And currently Texas has approximately about 18,000 registered apprentices. With chapter 133 funds, we support roughly one-third of that which is over just 6,000 registered apprentices. Does he have anything to ask? Well, I just answered a question that was on the screen. Somebody asked if chapter 133 supported youth and adult, it only supports adult full-time paid employees in the private sector. Got it. Thanks for that clarification, Desi. And just to be clear then too, that's a registered apprenticeship where there's release from work to take classes, for example, you'd still be eligible for chapter 133. Right. Taking the classes is just part of the apprenticeship agreement. Great. Thanks. And Sally Kay and Mary, if you'd like to jump in on this one too, we had a question for Najib Ahmad a little bit earlier about labor shortages within your state. And Sally Kay, I know that you sort of done a bit of a shoe leather campaign as well too, sort of getting out there to different employers. I'm wondering if you, Sally Kay or Mary, if you'd like to jump back on, can speak to any of the particular outreach that you do with an eye towards labor shortages in your state. Any particular strategies that you've been using that make that effort a little bit easier? Well, actually our committee sponsors a spring apprenticeship seminar and we just had it on May 3rd and we invite all of the, anybody, quite honestly, and particularly those that work through our Euston Galveston Area Council on Workforce and bring people in to learn about apprenticeships that can help them out in the training and whatnot. And this last week we had 22 new companies attend that are interested in their small companies. They didn't realize that even a mom-and-pop shop, so to speak, could have an apprenticeship program and work with a community college that was a rack, a registered apprenticeship community college, and that we could work with them that way so that they don't have to be a Dow or a BASF or a Siemens to have an apprentice or several apprentices. And so this, you know, we're gonna keep building on this. This was our third one and they continue to grow. We also include public schools and other community colleges so that we have the three major elements there, whether it's youth apprenticeships, apprenticeships and wherever the RTI can go. So that's one of the things that we do do. Mike, this is Mary. Can you hear me? We can, we got you. The Youth Apprenticeship Model in Kentucky is very focused around career and technical education. And so we feed, you know, all of the high demand sectors and so we do a lot of work with locally, regionally and the state level with our advisory and steering committees. And then also we work very closely with the Kentucky Workforce Investment Board and then we do feel like the Work Ready Scholarship is going to bring some more attention to the high demand sectors. Great. Mary Selleke, thanks so much. So we've got two more questions from the audience, but let's move on to our third guest. Just to make sure that we have time, we'll get back to those two questions towards the end here. So we'll turn the podium over to Elizabeth Standeper. Elizabeth is the Youth Apprenticeship Board in the North Carolina Community College System. It serves as the state's apprenticeship agency. As I mentioned earlier, North Carolina's got a really impressive example of an apprenticeship tuition waiver.  They've almost doubled their total number of apprentices, correct me if I'm wrong there, Elizabeth. This incentive's also really well connected to their statewide college promise program, basically kicking in once students stop being eligible for the college promise dollars. So again, it's a really interesting way of linking workforce and higher education efforts. So Elizabeth, if you're with us, thanks for joining us and you can take it away. Thank you. Can you hear me? Are you able to hear me? Yep, we got you. Okay, all right, great. So I wanna talk a little bit about policy and legislation in North Carolina and how that leads to dollars to support apprenticeship. The state of North Carolina supports a apprenticeship agency as an intermediary for apprenticeship sponsors with roughly $850,000. So with a small budget and staff, we rely on our partnership with other state agencies through their grant funding and policies in order to scale apprenticeship. And those three partnerships are the Community College, the K-12 system and the North Carolina Department of Commerce. So I'm gonna go through a timeline very quickly of how we came together as a state with these state agencies to create an infrastructure that supports apprenticeship. So in 2011, the first thing that happened was we discontinued fees required for sponsors to register apprenticeship programs. That was the issue that our industry partners brought to us. So we have eradicated that. And during the same year, our Community College system began their career in college promise operating guidelines. And this is our dual enrollment program. And we really put a lot of money into that. Just for example, we have about 45,000 students in North Carolina currently duly enrolled and many of those are apprentices. So we focused on college transfer and CCT curriculum pathways. And that is our foundation for youth apprenticeships in North Carolina. We focused on eligibility requirements through CCT and associates degree attainment through early college completion as well. And again, a great statistic. We have 26,000 students enrolled in our early colleges or our innovative high schools. 4,500 graduated last year and 3,000 of those attained an associates degree. And again, that is an infrastructure for our apprenticeship program and many of those students are apprentices. Next slide. And then in 2012, North Carolina sent a multi-agency team to Harvard to study pathway models. This was led by the North Carolina Department of Commerce attended also by Community Colleges, K-12 partners and industry partners. As a result of that, we have some policy around prosperity grants. So the first prosperity grant that we used to start to fund these K-12 partnerships that moved students seamlessly into the community college happened to that year with two more partners at least one of them being a community college and two LEAs. And we had never done that before. We had never had that type of interaction. The participants got $3,000 per agency and then they had to focus on 9-3-14 with credentialing and certification. And again, that's in yellow because that is a big part of our apprenticeship program that we did not have to invent because we were already doing it in 2012. Next slide. 2013, this multi-agency team published the North Carolina Business Engagement Guide and that is the way that we engage with business around apprenticeship. So I gave you the link there and you can see what we came back with and that is how we bring all agencies together to convene in a local area. So not only talk about pathways but to talk about how apprenticeship fits in as part of that pathway. So we had some more policy that came about around community college and see works, career pathways, money. This was spread over two years. It was awarded to community colleges. They led the effort to create a fast track program to focus on career pathways and move students through into work-based learning opportunities. So then 2014, next slide. Again, we have to really create resources here. So our North Carolina Department of Commerce led a grant application to implement NC Work Certified Career Pathways of which work-based learning is one of their certification criteria. There was a resurgence of youth apprenticeship programs through industry sector and public private partnerships that year in the manufacturing sector. People began to meet across the state as a grassroots effort to talk about apprenticeship and then the apprenticeship bureau that was held in the Department of Labor officially moved over to the Department of Commerce and rebranded as NC Work Apprenticeship. So now the funding has now moved over there to a new agency and it's a great partnership here for this certified career pathway effort. Next slide. Then in 2015, we were awarded the NC Work Certified Career Pathways grant. We started working with middle school students through dislocated workers with a certification criteria that involved eight different items or areas that these groups needed to focus on. The partners that were required by policy to be part of the certified career pathways were the Workforce Development Boards, the Community Colleges, and K-12. The Workforce Development Boards, the policy in North Carolina said that Workforce Development Boards will require to certify two pathways by 2017. Also prosperity zones reforms that realigned economic regions. Next slide. And this certified career pathway policy created a roadmap that connected youth, adults, and dislocated workers to credentialing, including work-based learning. And it was a really great setup for us to be able to make apprenticeship easily applicable to each local area in our state. We did not have to overcome these barriers of partnership. Next slide. So these were the eight prosperity zones that were created. And this says relate to funding because in each one of these prosperity zones, the North Carolina Department of Commerce houses someone that works with career pathways with the Workforce Development Boards. The Community College system provides through our $850,000 funding, someone to be an intermediary in each one of these prosperity zones. Additionally, the Department of Public Instruction aligns their curriculum zones with these prosperity zones. So they have career technical education representation at the state level in each of these zones. Next slide. So I just wanted to just see quickly the eight criteria for certification because I think that you will agree that all of the eight criteria that were developed in policy here for North Carolina speak to what it takes to create a apprenticeship program that is high quality and work-based learning there being in yellow and apprenticeship being the pinnacle of that part of a pathway. Next slide. These are just some best practice examples for our career pathways that we give to our apprentices and our potential sponsors so that we can gain interest and we can just flip through these real quickly. These are some brochures that just show different information. We had monies from grants that went toward developing these. Another best practice example bringing different agencies together to recruit students and talk to them about training in their local areas. And all of these examples are the result of all of our state agencies that are operating in local areas working together. Next slide. Some more ways that we market and we get students excited about careers and apprenticeships through marketing and outreach. Next slide. And this is just one last one and we can flip on through that so we can go quickly. But these are just some of the things that we've done to bring apprenticeship and workforce development to the forefront. Okay, we can keep going. Okay, so then in 2016, this is what we alluded to earlier. There was a community college tuition waiver that was created and it said that a high school student who is registered as a pre-apprentice or apprentice before their high school graduation date or receive a community college tuition waiver if they were enrolled within 120 days after graduation. And these are the numbers that we were talking about. He talked about doubling. We actually more than doubled our apprenticeship numbers based on this piece of legislation. We had 850 youth apprentices in North Carolina around the time that this legislation passed and then if we go over to 2017, we moved from the Department of Commerce to the community college system and were rebranded again, apprenticeship NC. So this gave us inroads into industry and now a force funding again is moved over to community college system to support our program. A position focused on youth apprenticeship which is me was created and the general assembly voted to fund this full time. Originally it was a grant through the USCOL an accelerator grant to pay for this position. So now today because of these funding streams through the general assembly and grants and just the collaboration between all of our state agencies. There are around 1487 youth apprentices registered in North Carolina by 2017. So now let's go to 2018. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction extended its work-based learning insurance policy to include pre-apprentices and apprentices because that was a barrier that we had in North Carolina with some of our industry partners. This year also the legislator granted a four county consortium and its apprenticeship partners over $3 million to create a proof of concept for creating high quality youth apprenticeship programs. Our industry sector partnerships grew to include participation in many sectors like healthcare, skilled trades, IT, transportation. And at the end of this year we had almost 2,500 youth apprentices. Oh, can you go right back? We had almost 2,500 youth apprentices in North Carolina by the end of that year and that year the governor unveiled a navigator system that is created to connect industry and education to work-based learning opportunities. And now we're up to 2019 this year. Apprenticeship... Policy regarding tuition assistance grant for related education courses in community college are starting to extend to continuing education coursework that if a credential is earned in that con-ed course that we can assist those students with some tuition. Also the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction started to push policy to allow dual enrollment credits for high school students in these con-ed courses, particularly in the skilled trades. And then over 20 industry sector and public private partnerships have been established with more on the horizon. So early on in this work we had about 5,400 across the state. Now we have 20 with, probably 27 more in the forming stage. Next, that's about it. I think that's about it. Elizabeth, thanks so much. So yeah, I had some doubts that you could get through that entire history, but you did. That's an amazing set of accomplishments and congratulations on that growth. So we had one question from Danny Marshall a little bit earlier in the presentation that I wanted to put to you first, Elizabeth. Danny asks if you're able to talk a little bit about how youth in high school coordinate their K-12 and how K-12 systems coordinate funding with apprenticeship and those connections between K-12 and higher ed or something that I know you've done a lot of work on. You focus a lot on in North Carolina. So maybe if you can draw that out for us a bit. Sure. So our college career promised dual enrollment programs covers pre-apprentices and apprentices while they're in high school. And they get free tuition. Of course, that's how the state is paying for that. When the student leaves, if they are under the tuition waiver, then we continue as a state to cover their tuition throughout the duration of that. So the way that I guess it happens is is that the community college is, their funding sources through the General Assembly are covering the high school tuition. And we also helped them market these types of opportunities to their students. Does that answer the question? That does. And maybe if you could also speak to, speak to, you know, do youth apprentices also receive high school credit for their coursework? I think that's part of the question as well. They do. So college career promises dual enrollment. They are receiving high school and college credit while they're in their pre-apprenticeship or apprenticeship. And as I said to them, we are trying now to get them to be able to get dual enrollment for some of our continuing education courses, which has not happened in the past. We're also trying to get tuition assistance for those con ed classes. Because if we can get an HVAC credential or an automotive credential, that is vital to our economy. We wanna be able to fund that and give students credit at the same time. We have students right now who are in pathway for apprenticeship that are in con ed and they're not getting high school credit. So that is a thrust here for 2019 to see if we can get that passed. Excellent, thanks so much. And do any of our other presenters have, would anybody else like to chip in on that point? So relating to connections between K-12 and post-secondary and the sort of credit conundrum for youth apprenticeship specifically? Well, what I can say in Texas and what we do here, we have a difference between dual credit and dual enrollment. And dual credit is automatically college credit and high school credit. Dual enrollment would be the part where we do, the high school gets credit, but they're also in our non-credit programs. And for that, they get certain certifications, but the high schools recognize it. And then we can take it into linked classes or crosswalks within our credit for prior learning process later on. Got it. Thanks, Ellie. Do you have anything you'd like to chip in on that one? Well, I just stated earlier that in Kentucky, our youth apprenticeship model is very focused on career and technical education and that being the catalyst for our dual credit and that connection with the K-12. So it's working very well because students can also get credit for the related technical instruction for what they take in their CTE courses. Excellent, thanks very much. So we've got one other question from Sarah Boisbert. I'm hoping I'm not affecting a French pronunciation there, but my experience, Sarah says, my experience in the past as a manufacturing employer with registered apprenticeships is that the paperwork and requirements for employers was hard to understand and implement. So we'll put this to each of our three presenters. What are you doing to make it easier for employers to adopt apprenticeships from a logistical standpoint? That's a big question for our apprenticeship nowadays. I'm happy to take that. Go ahead. From North Carolina, that is the thrust that I talked about earlier when I showed the Prosperity Zone map. Our state dollars go toward intermediaries that assist our companies with that. Not only do they help them to navigate the paperwork, they actually do the paperwork for them to the point that our companies just sign a piece of paper. Now prior to that, there is a lot of planning that goes on and there are items that companies have to provide to our consultants. What do you want your related education to be? And the consultant then works with the community college if that is the case to bring that together and works with them on that task list. So once they provide the information, we have a system here called NC-RAN that stands for the North Carolina Registered Apprenticeship Network. Our consultants actually input all of the information that I just described into the database, sends it up to Raleigh, where our apprenticeship NC director is and she approved our programs that way. So we've really made a concerted effort to back down the amount of paperwork that is required for the company to actually physically do. Got it, sounds like everybody can agree with that. And anybody else wanna jump in on that sort of the logistical question about engaging with employers? Mary or Sally Kay, you got that one? Nope. So we've got one more question from Patrick Mitchell and we can, if anybody else has questions again, please you can either raise your hand and we'll actually turn you on while I mute you. Otherwise you can send us the questions through the chat. So Patrick asks, are all the consultant intermediaries following a standard process? And I think that's, Sally Kay, if you're actually able to take that one, I know that the administrative manual for state of Texas was really pretty impressive. And actually, this is addressed to Elizabeth as well. Can you just tell us about any sort of standard processes that intermediaries use to engage with these supports for apprenticeship? Maybe we can start with Sally Kay? Okay, go ahead, Sally Kay. Okay, well, the best thing I can say is that we work very closely with our Texas Workforce Commission offices in each area. And in the Houston area, it's called the Houston Galveston Area Council, HGAC. And then we also work closely with our Department of Labor offices in terms of helping those companies work together. And like I said, on May 3rd, we had an event and we actually were able to pair them up so that they could see how the paperwork doesn't take as long as it used to, how it can be done. And then we also encourage them to work with the RAC, for example, at San Jack, if we have a company come in, part of being the RAC and them working with us is the fact that we take care of all of that for them. I also wanna mention that every September, our Texas Workforce Commission has a conference focused on apprenticeships. And it's a lot of networking and new companies learn how from others to work together. And it's very, very beneficial. So in North Carolina, as far as our consultants operating as intermediaries, how do we streamline that and ensure that we're all doing the same thing, all of our apprenticeship consultants are registered apprentices or have created, completed their journey workers or tip kits. So we have our training program that is just like what any of our other sponsors would have that goes across the board and they have to complete a certain number of hours on the job and we have a task list. So our training program is internal and we registered it and now we implement it with our people. Thanks very much everyone. Again, let's see. So it looks like that's all the questions we've got in the queue for the moment. If anybody else has one, of course, you can enter them in the chat there. You can see we've got all of our contact information up on the screen. As we said, the NGA Solutions, New America and then all of our presenters look forward to continuing to engage with states on this topic. So if there's anything that you'd be interested in discussing further on the point of whether it's apprenticeship subsidies or incentives or just the sort of nuts and bolts that we were able to address to our presenters today, you can contact us all. We look forward to speaking more with you. And if we don't have any further questions, I think we'll take back our time and wrap up. Again, thank you to our panelists, Mary Taylor of Kentucky, Elizabeth Standifer of North Carolina, Sally K. Jaynes of Texas as well as Desi Holmes and Tara Cole. As we mentioned, this webinar has been recorded. So we will be putting it up online and we'll send around a link with that information so that you can access the presentation. We do hope you'll share it around if you know anybody else who might be interested. And we'll also be in touch again with our upcoming report with New America's upcoming report early next month. But thank you again all of you in attendance and again to our presenters. We really look forward to continuing this discussion.


From VOA Learning English, this is the Education Report. UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, has reported some good news about education in two areas of Somalia. Puntland and Somaliland are now relatively peaceful and secure, at least compared to Central and Southern Somalia. A study found that in Puntland, the share of students in primary education increased from 26% to 43% over the last five years. A smaller increase was reported in Somaliland. In both cases, the gains in school attendance were greater among boys than among girls. Girls leaving school is a problem across Somalia. For example, only one-third of Somali girls who had completed first grade took the Form IV exam in the 2011-2012 school year. And girls represent only 28% of students in Somali secondary schools. The communications chief for UNICEF in Somalia, Susanna Price, says more schools are being built. She says the agency is developing projects in several fields of education. She also says UNICEF has been working on training teachers and developing non-traditional forms of education. Some of these programs are for children of families that heard livestock and move from place to place. Susanna Price says education is very important to the future of Somalia. But there are problems in getting parents to send girls to school. The spokeswoman says UNICEF encourages equality between males and females in education. More universal education could help Puntland and Somaliland also improve other areas of development such as healthcare. For VOA Learning English, I'm Laurel Bowman.