Photos past Alison Yin for EdSource

Photos by Alison Yin for EdSource

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg

Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento

The leader of the California State Senate says the fashion to encourage more and stronger bonds between industry and education is through, well, bonds.

With California facing a shortage of qualified workers for 21st century jobs, Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg wants to entice businesses to become more involved in job training by asking them to invest in a new type of school bail that would fund programs that infuse career education into traditional academic courses. Businesses that invest would see a guaranteed return on their investment, Steinberg said.

Steinberg, D-Sacramento, has introduced Senate Bill 594, which would allow California to upshot workforce development bonds to pay for these programs in high schools and customs colleges. Businesses – especially those in high-growth chore areas – would buy the bonds, and the charge per unit of repayment would be tied to specific student outcomes, such every bit graduation rates, apprenticeships or jobs for students.

"The state volition not just return your chief on the bail, but we will give you a rate of return higher than what yous could earn if you lot invested that aforementioned million dollars or $v meg in a traditional Wall Street instrument," Steinberg said during an interview in his Capitol role.

The bill, which comes up for a hearing before the Senate education committee Wednesday, would represent a new management in California'southward efforts to build school-business partnerships. Still, significant questions remain about the proposal, such as specifics on how the plan would work and how businesses would recoup their money. Supporters of SB 594 await the pecker will get through some major revisions earlier it's final.

The bill also creates a revolving account called the Career Pathways Investment Trust Fund that would launch with $250 meg, primarily paid for out of state money, possibly as part of Suggestion 98, the school funding guarantee. Industry and school partners would utilise through a competitive process for grants and loans to starting time or proceed programs already underway.

Businesses would have to pony up more than just money to be eligible. There has to be "peel in the game," said Steinberg, who believes that meeting the needs of the changing workforce will crave more intensive involvement of business and industry to connect what students larn in school with hands-on professional person feel. In this new model of collaboration, employers would help train their next generation of employees by working with schools to develop curriculum and provide internships, mentorships and projection-based learning opportunities that combine bookish rigor and career relevance.

Source: National Skills Coalition, State Middle-Skill Fact Sheet. (click to enlarge)

Source: National Skills Coalition, State Heart-Skill Fact Canvas. (click to enlarge)

"In that location is non a systemic industry or business commitment to investing in California loftier schools," Steinberg said. "There are industries that practice so, but it'south largely philanthropic every bit opposed to a key part of their business model."

Steinberg described the program as similar to social affect bonds, with more muscle, but the procedure is still vague. A consultant who follows education bills for industry said none of his clients are clear about how the financing slice would piece of work. Steinberg suggested ane possibility is using some of the $750 meg that would get available if Gov. Jerry Brown'southward proposal to eliminate enterprise zones is canonical. The enterprise zone program, which gives tax credits to businesses to invest in economically depressed regions, hasn't been successful.

It's likewise not clear how many businesses are likely to invest $100,000 or more, equally Steinberg suggested the cost might exist, to purchase a bond.

"His staff is nonetheless working with business leaders around the state to decide how this bill would work in do," said Jennifer Ortega, California State Director for America's Edge, a nonprofit arrangement of business organisation leaders focused on building a stronger workforce. "We really believe that information technology's a step in the correct direction in terms of developing an incentive to create better private-public partnerships, simply I think how information technology's going to piece of work is nevertheless a topic of chat on which he is soliciting feedback."

The skills gap

Business leaders are worried that since the pass up of career technical education – formerly known as vocational educational activity – in schools, students are graduating with only a partial instruction. Even though the state's high school graduation rate is inching up – 78.5 percent past the latest country figures – that diploma is no longer a ticket to a well-paying job.

Past 2018, some forty percent of job openings in California, more than 2.ii million, will exist what's known as "middle-skill" jobs, requiring more than than a high schoolhouse education only less than a iv-twelvemonth college caste. But if current statistics concur, not even 40 percent of Californians seeking jobs volition have enough grooming, according toCan California Compete?, a 2022 study by America'south Border.

"The skills gap is something that'due south very existent to our business members," Ortega said. She said employers are seeing job applicants missing both what they call hard and soft skills. "They're finding applicants are lacking not merely technical skills in any given manufacture, but it'south a lot of 21st century skills that are lacking, information technology's communication, collaboration and critical thinking."

Source: Can California Compete? Reducing the Skills Gap and Creating a Skilled Workforce through Linked Learning, America's Edge, 2011. (Click to enlarge)

Source: Tin California Compete? Reducing the Skills Gap and Creating a Skilled Workforce through Linked Learning, America'southward Border, 2011. (Click to enlarge)

For the past x years, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group has conducted a business climate survey of its members. In the 2013 survey, when asked what changes local and land government could make to amend the business climate for their companies, the top answer for 177 Silicon Valley CEOs was to "improve K-12 education."

For far too long, teaching "has not then much been about relevancy, simply rather it's been near getting students through a system," said leadership group senior vice president Dennis Cima at a Sacramento news briefing last month when Steinberg introduced his beak. SB 594, he said, would aid foster more partnerships between the private sector and public schools that are disquisitional to developing the talented, innovative people who volition be necessary to drive the economy of Silicon Valley.

Stable funding source

Another intent of the bill is to provide anticipated funding for model industry and didactics partnerships that show some degree of success, but operate in a country of ongoing fiscal doubt. One such program, California Partnership Academies, has been around for nearly 30 years, just routinely faces the loss of funding. The multi-year, career-themed programs within comprehensive high schools gear up students at hazard for dropping out for both college and career in a range of industries, including health, engineering science, business, structure and the arts.

This year, the state is providing almost $30 million in matching funds for 481 academies in 279 schools, with partners in business contributing about 42 pct of remaining costs primarily through in-kind support, including everything from lab equipment to pedagogy.

"It'due south get our loftier school reform strategy," said Sacramento Unified School District Superintendent Jonathan Raymond, whose district has 28 academies. "Why? Because we've looked at the data."

At terminal calendar month's news conference, Raymond said university students have improve attendance and are more likely to nourish higher than like students not enrolled in academies. Studies by the College and Career Academy Support Network at the University of California, Berkeley support those findings, although a national study past KDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education research organization, institute the greatest bear on on earnings later on graduation.

Statewide, about 170 academies may lose their funding in a little over a year if ane of the funding streams set to sunset isn't reauthorized, and funding expires at the end of this academic twelvemonth for the sixty green tech academies started nether AB 519.

Linked Learning, a broader design for developing academies and partnerships that started in California receives no state aid, despite its growing toehold in the state. Earlier this year, the California Department of Education selected 20 districts to constitute Linked Learning pilot programs under Associates Nib 790, past sometime Assembly member Warren Furutani, D-Gardena. Funding was stripped from the bill.

Labor organizations seeastward Steinberg'south pecker as a path to restoring career technical education in high school with a stronger academic component. Speaking at Steinberg's news briefing, Cesar Diaz, legislative managing director for the State Building and Construction Trades Quango, said ever since schools began cutting vocational programs, the average age of apprentices has increased past x years. He said students aren't aware of the programs, which train tens of thousands of skilled workers each twelvemonth.

"What nosotros find is that apprenticeship is the best kept hush-hush in California," Diaz said.

The price of the bonds suggested by Steinberg may exist prohibitive for union locals, merely they would definitely be interested in the grants, said Jon Fowkes, coordinator for automotive and machinist apprenticeships in California.

"At least in my industry, there aren't a lot of businesses with a healthy cash reserve to utilize as an investment," he said. The way funding currently works, their 4-year apprenticeships are simply funded for ii years at a time by industry and and then they accept to promise the collective bargaining understanding will cover the final 2 years. He said having guaranteed funding for 4 years is critical to meeting the increasing need to fill up new jobs and those left vacant by an aging workforce.

"I used to be a union laborer and I went through an amateur program; that'south how I learned my craft," said Andrew Giacomini, with the Bay Area Quango. "I've seen kids who come to work for my company, their eyes light up, 'Oh this is what information technology's all about,' they empathize ameliorate. They get dorsum to their educational environment with a better idea of why they're there and more burn for what they're doing."

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