1. Minnesota Adult Basic Education: ABE to Postsecondary Transitions Efforts
Dr. Barry Shaffer
MN State Director of Adult Education
Minnesota Department of Education

2. Minnesota ABE System Overview
Key Features
State ABE Office: Minnesota Department of Education
>75,000 adult students enrolled annually (45,000 participants)
$50 M annually: $6 m federal + $44M state
47consortia: individual and combinations of school districts, nonprofit organization(s) and/or the Dept. of Corrections
Common Client
Low-wage, low-skilled adult for whom literacy basic skills are barriers to family sustaining employment

3. Context and Scope of the Issue The BIG Picture The Innovations in Program Design and Delivery Emphasis on Braided Funding

4. Minnesota’s state-level approach
Three Key Efforts
Vision and Leadership
Program and Policy Reform
Sustained Collaborations
and Funding

5. Leadership
Leadership started with developing a vision using research and data.

7. Minnesota’s Skills Gap
Here’s a snapshot of our near future – the skills gap continues to widen.

8. CHANGE IN JOB BY EDUCATION LEVEL: 2008 and 2018
Minnesota
CHANGE IN JOB BY EDUCATION LEVEL: and 2018
Education level
2008 Jobs
2018 Jobs
Difference
High school dropouts
185,000
189,000
4,000
High school graduates
759,000
782,000
24,000
Postsecondary completers
1,987,000
2,139,000
152,000
We will need more people to have more education --
Carnevale, Georgetown Center for Education and the Workforce, 2010

9. Minnesota’s Workforce of Tomorrow is IN the Workforce Today
Current workforce

10. Again, skill level of current workforce – represents a range of experience and educational functioning level. Publically funded career pathway programs seek to build education/training on-ramps for the hardest to serve

11. Leadership Vision Components:
ABE programming at every state community and technical college
Create programming that directly involves ABE, college, and workforce programs in career pathway efforts
Every ABE program incorporates work-readiness and adult career pathways at all levels.

12. Leadership New mission for Minnesota ABE: EVERY ABE STUDENT IS A
TRANSITION STUDENT
GED is not the goal
Learning English is not the goal
Acquiring life skills is not the goal
Becoming a lifelong learner is not the goal

13. Program and Policy Reform

14. Sixteen Ideas to Strengthen Minnesota’s Workforce
The GWDC 2011 Policy Advisory
In addition, the GWDC has developed a number of recommendations to help close the skills gap. These recommendations are detailed in our 2011 policy advisory – All Hands on Deck.
Sixteen Ideas to Strengthen Minnesota’s Workforce