CWPJAC Minutes July 14, 2017

REPORT OF ACTION

California Workforce Pathways Joint Advisory Committee Members Present

State Board of Education Representatives

• Feliza Ortiz-Licon
• Patricia Rucker
• Ting Sun, Chair

Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office Board of Governors Representatives

• Pamela Haynes, Vice Chair

Ex-Officio Members

• Chris Nellum, Young Invincibles participating on behalf of Gustavo Herrera
• David Rattray, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce

California Workforce Pathways Joint Advisory Committee Members Absent

• Joseph Bielanski, Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office Board of Governors
• Valerie Shaw, Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office Board of Governors
• Gustavo Herrera, Young Invincibles

Agenda of the California Workforce Pathways Joint Advisory Committee

1. California Workforce Pathways Joint Advisory

• Call to Order
  Chair Sun called the meeting to order at approximately 10:09 a.m.
• Introductions
  Chair Sun facilitated small introductions of all meeting attendees.
  Van Ton-Quinlivan mentioned the career technical education (CTE) relaunch efforts at the community colleges.
• Housekeeping
  Patricia de Cos covered a few housekeeping items, including that the meeting was audio recorded for internal reference purposes.
• Purpose of Meetings
  Patricia de Cos discussed the history of how the committee was reconvened and the purpose of the California Workforce Pathways Joint Advisory Committee meetings.
• Approval of May 12, 2017 Meeting Minutes
  Chair Sun could not obtain approval of the May 12, 2017 meeting minutes because the quorum was not met, the May minutes, along with the July meeting minutes, will be reviewed for approval at the September meeting.
• Essential Questions
  Chair Sun shared the following essential questions:
  • What policies and/or principles should the joint committee recommend the state agencies to adopt in order to support the improvement or development of high quality college and career pathways?
  • How well are we serving our students with transitions from one system/institution to another, and providing high quality college and career pathways?
  • What longitudinal data sharing infrastructure is needed to support and understand trends within student progress, transitions, and the workforce?

2. Data Across Systems

• Data at the K–12 Level
  Keric Ashley, Deputy Superintendent, Performance, Planning, and Technology Branch, California Department of Education (CDE) presented on the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS).
  • Feedback from committee members:
    • Member Rucker wanted to know if CALPADS still has unassigned fields that could be used.
    • Member Haynes asked how the colleges can align to the work happening in K–12 with CTE, industry sectors, pathways, and career information. The lines between K–12 and the colleges need to blur. Colleges cannot keep thinking that new college students are a blank slate. One of the principles in the new state plan needs to speak to this system alignment issue. We also need to help the locals to speak the same language and build these systems.
    • Chair Sun mentioned that a good place to start is where we have overlap like dual enrollment.
    • Ex-Officio Member Rattray and Member Ortiz-Licon would like to look at models from other states on data sharing.

• Data at the University Level
  Patrick Perry, Chief Information Officer, California State University (CSU) Chancellor’s Office presented on the CSU data system.
• Data at the Community College Level
  Ken Sorey, Senior Executive Vice President, Educational Results Partnership presented on CalPass Plus.
  • Feedback from committee members:
    • Member Ortiz-Licon mentioned that these meetings have been very good about answering the how and what questions, but not the why question. These slides have shown why we need data systems, policies, and practices in place and would like to hear from groups like The Campaign for College Opportunity to keep focusing on the why questions.

Lunch

3. Visit from SBE president, Dr. Michael Kirst
   Michael Kirst welcomed the committee and shared the history of this workgroup.

4. Continue questions from Data Across Systems Presentations
   Feedback from committee members:
   • Board members were interested with the data that Ken Sorey was able to share and would like to see how the state’s K–12 accountability system could incorporate some of the presented data to help answer the “how come” question which is a piece currently missing in the states accountability system.
   • Ex-Officio Member Rattray feels there is a principle to take note of and be aware of. When does data stop being a tool and become a weapon? Governor Brown is concerned about this. Do we say as a group that we think data is important and the data to be on the side of kids and students? We don’t want data to rank and score institutions. Be mindful of future usage and people who might want to use the data in a way that was not intended.
   • Member Rucker shared that one significant outcome of this group could be to define a set of principles of appropriate use of data and data sharing across segments.
   • Member Haynes feels it is extremely important that we continue and expand our use of data so that it is actionable, gets us to ask the right questions so we can come up with the right solutions. We need to work with counselors, faculty at both the K–12 and community college levels to appreciate that data will lead up in the right direction. Can we use the data to help with the alignment of curriculum to help prevent students from repeating course content, to institutionalize these concerns?

5. Alignment, Collection, and Exchange of Career and College Data and Discussion

• Van Ton-Quinlivan led a discussion around the essential questions.
  • What policies and/or principles should the joint committee recommend the state agencies adopt in order to support the improvement or development of high quality college and career pathways?
  • How well are we serving our students with transitions from one system/institution to another, and providing high quality college and career pathways?
  • What longitudinal data sharing infrastructure is needed to support and understand trends within student progress, transitions, and the workforce?
• Van Ton-Quinlivan led an open discussion with committee members and presenters around data collection, expansion, and alignment across systems.
  • Keric Ashley, Deputy Superintendent, Performance, Planning, and Technology Branch, CDE
  • Patrick Perry, Chief Information Officer, CSU Chancellor’s Office
  • Ken Sorey, Senior Executive Vice President, Educational Results Partnership

Feedback from committee members:

• Question 1 - What policies and/or principles should the joint committee recommend the state agencies to adopt in order to support the improvement or development of high quality college and career pathways?
  • Chair Sun as locals collect data, we seem to need to look at how data collection and sharing affects all parties and needs all hands on deck.
  • Vice Chair Haynes felt that there were two areas that will need legislation, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) idea will need legislation with clear roles outlined.
  • Member Ortiz-Licon how do we use data to support school districts and address unequal outcomes between student subgroups. We also need to have a common definition of what postsecondary success looks like.
  • Member Rucker felt part of the data that jumped out for her was that we still have very old ideas of what success looks like. For example, students at the community college taking one or two courses are identified as failures, when they were probably taking those courses for continuing education, to have an impact to further their work situation. First, we need to communicate what ideals are we still hanging on to and using new data analysis to validate. Secondly, how is it that each of the segments can benefit from the data analysis that the other segments have, which is not as well thought out. Thirdly, for universities that have teacher preparation programs there are linkages to the community colleges, since colleges can now offer Bachelor of Arts programs, how are these represented in data systems? The K–12s need to be able to do some backward mapping from other agencies’ data systems.
  • Ken Sorey brought up the issue with the infrastructure, what we have now are work arounds to collect and share data. We need an infrastructure with governance for the state.
  • Patricia de Cos mentioned that the principles should clearly identify the end purpose for the collection of the data. She hopes that the committee would think about how we support districts and programs and what is common across systems to emphasize, as well as take note of the unintended consequences. Be purposeful on why the data is important.
  • Ex-Officio Member Rattray stated that it is not good enough to say what you want to use the data for, it is also important to ask what someone else could do with the data. It is important to be mindful that data collected to be used for good purposes could be used by another party for purposes that are not as good as the intent. Secondly, when we start separating groups for accountability, the groups will pull in because they are worried about the “gotcha.” We want the institutions to win together so they are not competing against another, shared win, call out the collective successes. One disrupters is the Carnegie Units, employers are more interested in competency, and how can we look at competency-based education. Lastly, work-based learning (WBL), we do not honor and value WBL, look at other countries that take WBL as a serious part of the process, we need a better way to account for WBL activities and reward these activities.
  • Ken Sorey said if we do not get better at understanding data and use the data to inform what we do, we are going to become obsolete because it will be more about empowering the learner themselves. We need to get smarter at what we collect and the information needs to be delivered to the end user, students and employers. We need to get the practical information into the hands of practitioners to improve outcomes for students.
  • Member Ortiz-Licon also wants us to be mindful of the data in a socio-political context.
  • Vice Chair Haynes at the community college level there are a number of students who have skill sets from previous experiences like veterans, we need to find a way to quantify a person’s past learning and give them credit for that knowledge. Another issue is that there are students who will receive a portion of coursework in CTE, when that worker wants to move up the ladder they needed a stackable credential. Teachers need to make sure that the credential is viable so that people do not have to repeat content they have already mastered and keep moving forward in a career. We need to work with employers to make sure the outcomes are clear, and the stackable certificates can help students continue to progress in a career pathway.
  • Pam Castleman shared that in her previous position she worked with the Adult Education Consortium in Ventura County with the Adult Education Block Grant (AEBG) and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), the community college district started looking at the credentials for high school students coming into college and looking at industry recognized credentials for high schools kids and young adults as well as helping students with employable skills.
  • Chair Sun we need to make sure the system is responsive to workforce changes.
• Question 2 - How well are we serving our students with transitions from one system/institution to another, and providing high quality college and career pathways?
  • Member Rucker has lived in this space for a long time and recommends that the question should be revised to ask how the data system can inform the decisions we make to improve the way we provide the service and support to students. Is it making a difference and how do we know?
  • Member Ortiz-Licon would like to add that we are looking at all students, “all” being capitalized and bolded.
• Question 3 - What longitudinal data sharing infrastructure is needed to support and understand trends within student progress, transitions, and the workforce?
  • Van Ton-Quinlivan shared work that is happening at a few universities that have mini-masters programs that are geared to in-demand areas and have the blessings of employers. Some colleges have agreements that a mini-masters will give a student one fourth of a full mater degree program, now they are moving to mini-bachelors.
  • Patrick’s wish list from his presentation.
  • Keric Ashley said we have looked at a federated system and would probably work best if we only look at outcomes that cross over the different entities and should not answer questions that only affect one system.
  • Member Haynes said the system needs to be transparent about assumptions that are made and who is left out. For example, the graduation and dropout rates sometimes are not counted the same ninth grade versus tenth grade in graduation rates. The methodology needs to be transparent.
  • Patrick Perry mentioned that you only use this system to answer questions that cross two or more data sets, otherwise you need to go back to the single entity.
  • Ken Sorey shared that we need agreed upon do’s and don’ts for data governance principles and make them broad enough so they are not overly restrictive. The system should be a centralized system, or be able to ping the data instead of having to share all the data with other agencies.
  • Member Ortiz-Licon would like to know what we have done and what did not work. We need to start by saying what has been attempted in the past so we know where to start.
  • Patrick Perry said that we tried the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) and it worked to a certain point but got ground down with politics surrounding the use of the data, and what some people used the data for, sometimes good and other times not so good. And then they ran into other budget/political issues. Then there was an agreement on paper, but when it was time to put the servers up for sharing, the priority was not high and the process fell apart.
  • Member Ortiz-Licon summarized that the two issues that need to be addressed are how we make this a priority, put the resources behind the priority, and encourage the political will.
  • Chair Sun we need to start with our two entities, we need to develop principles to inspire others to adopt the action we can take is to begin here and find the key data points and inform each other.
  • Member Rucker views one of the issues/lessons is about the marketing/merchandising of the data. For example, how the real estate agents use the accountability data. Another example when the LA Times started ranking teachers, which became more important than the data the state held. As we think about the data infrastructure we need to keep in mind the end user, it is difficult to mine the data that is posted through the CDE. If we do not create the tools and reports for the end users, someone else will create something and it may not be valid or accurate and may use or weigh the data to slant the information. How do we merchandise what is being offered by the system?
  • Ex-Officio Member Rattray finds the common sense of Chair Sun’s recommendation compelling. We ought to have a mind for the larger situation. There are things we can do now that can be built upon which will help us make something better later, go with P–14 and the existing structures.
  • Van Ton-Quinlivan highlighted some low hanging fruits including the willing people that are present.
  • Ken Sorey mentioned a few low hanging fruits such as the CALPADS data, K–12 to community college data around workforce issues triangulating around Employment Development Department (EDD) data, get some agreements and clean up some of the barriers of how we aggregate and coordinate the data, we want to see the bright spots in the data and tighten up to find the best practices.
  • Chair Sun feels a sense of urgency because we are creating an accountability system with the new College/Career Indicator (CCI).
  • Keric Ashley feels that one place to start is to find out what we would like to see, what is the outcome? We now can go to the colleges to have some of the questions answered.
  • Member Haynes stated that we are building this system for us to be more holistic in our approach to support students, but also parents. The Scorecard is an example, with concerns about how we view different groups and how the information can be weaponized. We cannot be afraid of the data, we need to go in the right direction and be given the bad news to move toward our outcomes. Where the Scorecard fails is the six-year window, we need relevant data and as much in real-time as possible.
  • Ex-Officio Member Rattray would like to focus on K–12 and community college and EDD, looking at the DMV question earlier and to look at Senate Bill 1166 which makes all the licensed occupations available to undocumented persons, which many fall under CTE, we need this data as well. What are ways students are thriving and not thriving that we need to know about, EDD data has only a portion of the data we need. What about students that went to prison?
• Overall comments
  • Build something for us not to us.
  • Keep CSU in the loop to build an intersegmental data system.
  • Communication is the key, across all segments.
  • Reveal underlying/perceived trends, WBL, dual-enrollment, system alignment, improving career guidance, better programming.
  • Use the California Way, less on accountability more on intrinsic motivation, system coherence and unpack inequities in a constructive way.
  • Stay “woke” means awareness of the impact of ideals or activities with the lens of the impact on communities of color understand that data can help, hurt, or harm communities of color in different ways.
  • Urgency to get this moving in a practical and pragmatic way, and use the right information in the CCI to help inform practitioners help their students.
  • Do we have everyone we need in the room, who needs to be added to this conversation?
  • Vision toward justice including educational, social, financial, economic justice.
  • Sustainability of system that is so integrated that it will supersede us and political changes, as long as it is good.

6. Next Steps

• Schedule Meetings
  Future Meeting Dates for 2017:
  • Friday, September 15, 2017, 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
  • Monday, November 6, 2017, 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
  • Proposed meeting dates for 2018 are yet to be determined.
• Proposed Areas of Focus
  Below are proposed areas of focus, which are inter-related.
  • Career Guidance / Counseling
  • Dual Enrollment
  • Data Sharing
  • Work-based Learning
  • System Alignment
  • Defining and Promoting Quality Career Pathways
• Member Ortiz would like to answer the “why” question.
• Member Rucker suggested that we learn about all the state plans to see where the overlap is, WIOA, Perkins, and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
• Chair Sun would like to explore a draft of principles.
• Vice Chair Haynes would like to share the chancellor’s office’s Strong Workforce plan.

7. Public Comment
   Chair Sun asked for public comment.
   • Mollie Quasebarth – Department of Finance
   • Sheryl Ryder – Placer County Office of Education

The next meeting is scheduled for September 15, 2017 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.