WIOA State Plan Common Elements

During the last two years, the State Board delegated responsibility for the assessment of the effectiveness of the core programs and One–Stop partner programs operated through the WIA, to the forty–eight Local Boards designated to operate in California and to the state agencies with oversight responsibility for each title of WIA (Title I and III to EDD, Title II to the CDE, and Title IV to DOR). Assessment of the effectiveness of the system included:

1. Partnership and participation in building the system – measured by signed MOU, co–location of staff, reduction in stand–alone service centers, service integration, and leveraged resources/shared costs.

• EDD conducted an assessment of the integration of WIA Title I and Title III in the One–Stop system, establishing that California’s 190 AJCCs, 80 sites are comprehensive AJCC with fully executed MOU’s with required partners, 107 sites are affiliate AJCC’s and 3 sites are stand–alone EDD offices.

• The State Board has coordinated an assessment of the core partners, the CCCCO, and CDSS to assess the participation of California’s 58 County Welfare Department’s, 113 community colleges, 84 Department of Rehabilitation district offices and 70 adult education consortiums, finding a high degree of coordination, information sharing, and referral among partners, and an interest in working more collaboratively in the future to serve customers.

• During the state planning process the CWDA conducted an assessment of integration of the CalWORKs (TANF) program in the One–Stop system and found that 59 percent of California’s CalWORKs programs are co–located in the AJCCs, 43 percent participate in cross–training of partner staff, and 20 percent have a virtual connection between the CalWORKs and AJCC staff for referral purposes.

2. Providing excellent customer services to job seekers and employers. The Local Boards have assessed the ability of the local system to implement service strategies to meet the needs of job seekers and employers in a variety of ways, including customer satisfaction surveys, secret shoppers, creation of teams to interview staff, partners and customers, and development of professional development and capacity building programs for staff and partners.

In addition, CCCCO has developed on–line tools to assess the completion rates and average wages of students enrolled in career pathway programs and is making outcome data accessible on attainment of certificates, credentials and degree programs, and CCCO is encouraging adult education consortia to utilize the existing data system to assess the effectiveness of adult education programs.

3. The CDE produces Annual Performance Reports submitted to United States Department of Education.. According to the annual report, California is the largest adult education provider in the United States. The state served approximately 18 percent of the nation’s adultsenrolled in AEFLA programs, according to the 2012−13 NRS data. Because the state is home to one–fourth of the national non–English–speaking population, the ESL program comprised 60 percent of California’s AEFLA programs and 27 percent of the nation’s ESL program that year. California also served more learners in ABE and ASE programs than any other state, comprising 11 percent of total learners enrolled in ABE and ASE nationwide. In 2013–14, 202 local agencies served 463,005 learners in the AEFLA programs.

4. Title IV, In accordance with section 101(a)(15)(E), Evaluation and Reports of Progress, of the Rehabilitation Act, DOR’s State Plan includes the results of an evaluation of the effectiveness of the vocational rehabilitation program, progress made in improving the effectiveness from the preceding two–year period, and submits a joint report with the SRC, to ED’s Rehabilitation Services Administration Commissioner. The evaluation and report include:

• the extent to which DOR’s State Plan goals were achieved;

• the strategies that contributed to achieving the goals;

• the extent to which the goals were not achieved, and a description of the factors that impeded that achievement; and

• an assessment of the performance of the state on the standards and indicators established pursuant to section 106, Evaluation Standards and Performance Indicators, of the Rehabilitation Act.

5. Ability to meet WIA Performance Outcomes and implement continuous improvement – the State Board, CDE, DOR, EDD and the Local Board have assessed the effectiveness of the core programs and One–Stop partners using the WIA performance measures and other locally developed or programmatic performance measures.

In the last two years, over half of the forty–eight Local Areas have conducted an assessment of the effectiveness of their comprehensive and affiliate One–Stop centers. Those who have conducted assessments do so typically on an annual basis in coordination with many of the WIOA mandatory partners. Assessments are conducted for the purposes of local monitoring as well as reporting effectiveness back to Local Boards. While assessments are conducted by local areas themselves, some local areas contract out to consultants to get more objective and expert–driven assessments. Program data, such as expenditures, quarterly enrollment and performance data, measured–against goals, customer satisfaction survey results, site visits and interviews, and contracts executed are utilized in the assessment process.

• All Local Areas create reports on customers served and program outcomes for partners and for their boards.
• Nearly 80 percent of the Local Areas have a process for assessing the needs of the job seeking and employer customers served with services and programs that meet those needs.
• Over 75 percent have a mechanism in place for measuring job seeker and/or employer customer satisfaction.
• Nearly two–thirds of the Local Areas have a process to measure One–Stop partners’ satisfaction with the system.
• Two–thirds of the Local Areas have professional development programs in place for staff and partners.
• Almost all Local Areas provide training for front–line and business services staff on a regular basis.
• Only about 40 percent have a process in place to measure if One–Stop services meet the needs of core partner customers.

The assessment of the effectiveness of the core programs and One–Stop partners has not been coordinated or aligned in the past two years. Based on this history, the State Board is working to enhance and improve communication between the core and other state plan partners.