If you want to engage the high-tech industry to help improve job readiness for the nation\u2019s 36 million low-skilled adults, a good place to start is Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n
That is just what the Wadhwani Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education did. In January, Wadhwani staff, led by Chief Executive Officer Ajay Kela, were joined by ED\u2019s Brenda Dann-Messier, assistant secretary for career, technical, and adult education; Johan Uvin, deputy assistant secretary for policy and strategic initiatives; and Cheryl Keenan, director of the Adult Education and Literacy Division, for a listening-and-working session at Ca\u00f1ada College, in Redwood City, Calif.<\/p>\n
Dann-Messier
\nAssistant Secretary Brenda Dann-Messier (seated, second from left) and Wadhwani Foundation\u2019s Gayatri Agnew (standing, left) are joined by colleagues viewing new learning technology presented by Leslie Redd of LearnBIG (seated, third from left) at the adult reskilling session in Redwood City, Calif. (ED photo credit: Joe Barison)
\nThis engagement event, \u201cTime for the U.S. to Reskill,\u201d brought more than 50 San Francisco Bay Area adult-education stakeholders together, with representation from local workforce, community, and advocacy organizations. The welcome by Wadhwani\u2019s Kela, ED\u2019s Dann-Messier, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services\u2019 Regional Administrator Robert Garcia described the magnitude of the low-skilled-adults challenge. The speakers emphasized how a worker\u2019s low skill level directly affects life beyond employment, starting with a person\u2019s health.<\/p>\n
The format was \u201cto put people in a room who may not typically come into a room together and convene unlikely stakeholders,\u201d said Gayatri Agnew, Wadhwani\u2019s program director for Race to a Job \u2013 USA.<\/p>\n
The immediate goal, Dann-Messier said, \u201cis a national plan to improve the foundation skills of the 36 million low-skilled adults in this country.\u201d She explained her imperative to travel to California and to be in the room. \u201cI need to hear what the folks are saying regionally, what the challenges are, what the solutions are, and it\u2019s very important for me to hear all of that first-hand, and not have it filtered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Agnew moderated a panel comprised of adult-education stakeholders, followed by general discussion. The participants then dispersed to a half-dozen small rooms for a working lunch and creating the start of solutions. Later, during a break, participants talked about their reasons for attending the session and assessed how things were going.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to serve an issue here of equality, access issues, in both the field of Latinos moving up in the corporate world and in social equity,\u201d said Luis Chavez, chairman of the board, Latino Institute on Corporate Inclusion, and a senior director for the Career Ladders Project.<\/p>\n
Silicon Valley employers gave their perspectives as well. Kris Stadelman, director of the Nova Workforce Investment Board, said, \u201cIn education \u2013 I hear this from employers \u2013 your product is supposed to be a trained, ready, educated, prepared workforce.\u201d In this light, she said, the day\u2019s program was on the right track. \u201cIt was really good to start out with evidence, with the data, to really quantify what it is we\u2019re talking about. I think the questions were all the right ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
This engagement session was one of five ED nationwide sessions, with others held in Philadelphia, Chicago, rural Cleveland, Miss., and the greater Boston, Mass. area. While each session is unique, Dann-Messier sees the Silicon Valley session as different from the rest. \u201cIf you\u2019ve got 36 million folks \u2013 and federally we\u2019re only serving two million \u2013 traditional means aren\u2019t going to work,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have to really make sure that we utilize technology-enabled solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joe Barison is the director of communications and outreach for ED\u2019s San Francisco Regional Office.<\/p>\n
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