High Skills, High Wages. Washington's Comprehensive Plan for Workforce Training and Education.

Overview & Synopsis

This document is the 1996 update to a 1994 Comprehensive Plan for Workforce Training and Education in Washington State. The plan focuses on collective actions that public and private sector partners need to take to have the best work force development system in the nation. The plan details how jobs are increasingly demanding higher-level skills, how workers entering the work force (who are often minorities or women) may lack those needed skills and how the education system must change in order to meet the challenge. Topics covered include the following: education reform and school-to-work transition; a customer-focused training and employment system; systemwide accountability; and public and private partnerships; and funding. The plan addresses seven overarching goals: (1) competencies--workforce possesses the skills and abilities required in the workplace; (2) employment--workforce finds employment opportunities; (3) earnings--workforce achieves a family-wage standard of living from earned income; (4) productivity--workforce is productive; (5) reduced poverty--workforce lives above poverty; (6) customer satisfaction--workforce development participants and their employers are satisfied with workforce development services and results; and (7) return on investment--workforce development programs provide returns that exceed program costs. It then suggests seven most urgently needed actions: implementation of performance management for continuous improvement throughout the workforce development system; increase the capacity of the training and education system; continue to implement school-to-work systems; vertically integrate all elements of the workforce training and education system; increase public awareness of the importance of workforce training and education issues; focus workforce training to make welfare reform work; and connect workforce training and education with economic development. (KC)