MEDIA CONTACT: Wendy Leopold at 847-491-4890 or w-leopold@northwestern.edu

May 11, 2004

Report Examines State Workforce Systems

EVANSTON, Ill. --- In a report titled “Flying Blind: Improving the Workforce Development Information Systems in Illinois,” researchers Dan Lewis and Paul Selden conclude that the benchmarks used to evaluate Illinois’ $5.5 billion workforce development system are off the mark and generate misleading results.

“The irony of the current situation is that at a time that we are in the need of real leadership in the area of workforce development, we are saddled with a system that provides fragmentary and narrowly focused information,” said Lewis, professor of education and social policy at Northwestern University and a faculty fellow with the University’s Institute for Policy Research.

The workforce system, which seeks to improve the state’s workforce through education and training, is comprised of community colleges, private sector training programs, state and federal job programs such as adult education and back-to-work programs, and entities such as the State Board of Education.

Lewis and Selden argue that the workforce system on the whole fails to provide sufficient framework for understanding the impact of workforce development on state economy and job creation.

One example of this stands out: In hearings before the House Labor Committee in 2002, it was generally accepted that the public workforce development system encompassed some $800 million in programs. One year later that same estimate rose to $3.6 billion. Another example: In 2002, the state had more than six million workers and 400,000 umemployed, yet the system set up to handle the retraining and placement of those who became unemployed only tracked 5,000 workers.

“There are perfectly reasonable explanations for this discrepancy in program funding, but the point is that there is little wonder that the system level information is hard to come by when so little attention has been paid to what the system is,” they write.

The system is complex -- made up of private and public entities, with more than 31 programs administered by 11 state agencies with overlapping state and federal mandates and funding. Information fed into the system comprises many separate reporting activities that were created independently over the years to either comply with federal mandates or were created by state agencies to monitor programs.

With correct information, lawmakers should be able to determine which programs should be funded and to what extent. Currently, 88 percent of money for job skills training flows through the education system. Accurate systems of measurement would be able to determine whether that is too much or too little.

In the interest of improving data collection and the quality of information available to those who oversee Illinois’ workforce development, the report’s authors makes three key recommendations:

1. They call on the governor of Illinois to support efforts to reform the system and take the lead in establishing the system’s goals and measures of accountability.

2. They recommend requiring that all state departments contribute their data in a timely manner to a central state repository.

3. They recommend the establishment of an independent research center on workforce development to allow lawmakers to assess the real benefits and costs of federal and state investments and prevent mistakes in administering the system.

For a copy of the complete report or for more information, go to the Institute for Policy Research Web site at http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/people/lewis.html.