Wow, this was a big summer for No Worker Left Behind, one of the initiatives I created at the Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth. As our nation struggles economically, eyes have turned toward Michigan to learn about our signature workforce effort and Michigan’s cutting edge programs to build a green economy. This summer, national media outlets including the New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, NPR, Huffington Post, CNBC, CNN and MSNBC all inquired about No Worker Left Behind (NWLB).
The biggest moment came when President Obama chose Michigan and Macomb Community College, to announce his proposal to make the largest investment in community colleges in 60 years. The President gave his seal of approval for NWLB and he told the rest of the nation to take notice.
“I want to applaud Governor Granholm for the No Worker Left Behind program,” said President Obama. “It’s providing up to two years’ worth of free tuition at community colleges and universities across the state. The rest of the country should learn from this effort.”
There can be no bigger compliment than the President of the United States calling No Worker Left Behind a model for the nation. It was even more special that he did it after being introduced by Joe Iezzi, a former autoworker who found a great new career as a climate control specialist at Henry Ford hospital in West Bloomfield after retraining at Macomb Community College.
Why is everyone so excited about NWLB? As we start the third year of the program, nearly 90,000 people have enrolled into training through NWLB - that puts us on pace to obliterate Governor Granholm’s original goal of putting 100,000 people into training over three years.
NWLB creates a more strategic, demand driven workforce system capable of focusing on growing economic sectors and what our employers actually need. Too often, past systems have overlooked the existing needs of employers. NWLB works with these employers to assess their actual workforce needs and aligns our education system to fulfill those needs.
NWLB is built on the proven link between higher education, higher employment and higher wages.
As a result of NWLB, many more Michiganders are engaged in long-term training, rather than short-term training or solely on job search assistance. NWLB moves from workforce maintenance to workforce transformation. It represents a fundamental shift from “quick fixes” that alone cannot address the needs of our dislocated workers, to an investment in increasing educational attainment that carries market-useful credentials. With NWLB, Michigan leads the nation in shifting our focus to where President Obama and Congress are heading – reframing workforce investment policy to focus on people getting the skills they need to prosper in the 21st century economy.
Here are a handful of articles/videos/audio that represent the highlights of the summer:
Here in Michigan, a state ravaged by devastating layoffs in the automotive industry, and where unemployment stood at 14.1 percent in May, a collaboration between the state’s workforce development agencies, its largest employers and local community colleges has pioneered an innovative system that moves workers from automotive jobs into a burgeoning green economy. The Fast Start program is proving that through cooperation and detailed planning, the region can create a stream of “just-in-time workers” who are in great demand in the growing solar industry after four months of intensive, college-level training.
Saginaw’s move to develop employable workers is just part of an ambitious statewide program, called No Worker Left Behind, designed to retool workers and give them the training they require for jobs in biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, health care and other industries.
In the midst of the deep economic slump, thousands of laid-off Michiganders are going back to school to learn new skills in one of the biggest retraining efforts the state has seen.
The surge of unemployed residents flooding into classrooms has been sparked by the 2-year-old No Worker Left Behind program, a state initiative that provides up to two years of free tuition at Michigan community colleges, universities and some trade schools.
President Barack Obama took to a stage in Warren Tuesday afternoon and provided an outline of his plan to overhaul the nation’s community college system — something he described as an “undervalued” resource. At the heart of his plan is the goal for the United States to have the highest percentage of college graduates among all nations.
For almost a decade, Heather Vaughn worked as a spot welder at a factory in Jonesville, Mich., making auto parts for General Motors and others. In February, the plant was sold, and Vaughn, along with 300 other workers, was laid off in a phone call.
I was kinda like, ‘Huh,’” Vaughn told the Huffington Post. “I’d worked there nine years. That was my nine year anniversary.” The plant stayed open and rehired more than 100 workers, but Vaughn wasn’t one them. After joining the ranks of unemployed in Michigan — 12.7 percent of the state’s workforce, the highest rate in the nation — Vaughn is hoping a state program can train her to become an X-ray technician.
Gerald Crouterfield believes in the power of prayer, and good fortune.
Last September, the 40-year-old former automotive parts worker from Standish, Mich., was laid off from his job at auto parts supplier Tubular Metal Systems, where he built turbo pipes for GMC’s hulking Duramax diesel truck. Seeking a new direction, he attended a local job fair and connected with “No Worker Left Behind,” a state program to retrain unemployed workers.
By October, the organization had arranged and paid for Crouterfield to enroll at Delta College, a community college in nearby Saginaw, Mich., in an accelerated five-month program to train for a new career in the chemicals industry. He graduated in February and begins work at Dow Chemical in April.
Millions of Americans are making dramatic career turnabouts in this withering recession as a range of industries — including those involving cars, finance, real estate and construction — are shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs, many of which analysts say likely won’t return for years, if ever. Meanwhile, fields such as health care, clean energy, computer science and the government are expected to grow robustly in coming years.