Report by the National Skills Coalition: “A truly inclusive economic recovery means that the workers and businesses who were most impacted by this pandemic, as well as workers who have been held back by structural barriers of discrimination or lack of opportunity, are empowered to equitably participate in and benefit from the economy’s expansion and restructuring.
But we need data on how different workers and businesses are faring in the recovery, so
we can hold policymakers accountable to equitable outcomes. Disparities and inequities in skills training programs can only be eliminated if there is high-quality information on program outcomes available to practitioners and policymakers to assess and address equity gaps. Once we have the data – we can use it to drive the change we need!
Data for an Inclusive Economic Recovery provides recommendations on how to measure and report on what really matters to help diminish structural inequities and to shape implementation of federal recovery investments as well as new state and federal workforce investments…
Recommendations Include:
- Requiring that all education and skills training programs include collection of self-reported demographic characteristics of workers and learners so outcomes can be disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender, English language proficiency, income, and geography ;
- Ensuring participants of skills training programs know what demographic characteristics are being collected about them, who will have access to personally identifiable information, and how their data will be used;
- Establishing common outcomes metrics across federal skills training programs;
- Expanding outcomes to include those that allow policymakers to assess the quality of skills training programs and measure economic mobility along a career pathway;
- Ensuring equitable access to administrative data;
- Mandating public reporting on skills training and workforce investment outcomes; and
Providing sufficient funding for linked education and workforce data systems…(More)”.