Florida Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability Evaluates Statutory Responsibility for Workforce Education Shared by State’s School Districts, College System
Dec 29, 2010
The Florida Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (“OPPAGA”) has issued three December 2010 reports relating to the statutory responsibility for workforce education shared by Florida’s school districts and college system institutions.
Report summaries are below, inclusive of hyperlinks to each, respectively.
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Colleges Perform Slightly Better Than School Districts in Career Education; Neither Clearly Outperforms in Adult Education (OPPAGA Report No. 10-63, December 2010)
To access the full report, click here.
Florida law authorizes school districts and the Florida College System to offer similar types of workforce education programs. These include post-secondary career education programs that prepare individuals to work in specific jobs or occupations, as well as adult education programs that provide training to improve literacy, basic education or English language skills.
According to OPPAGA, colleges achieved slightly better outcomes than school districts in post-secondary career education programs. College students were more likely to complete their programs, transition to full-time employment and earn higher earnings after completing programs.
Performance was mixed for adult education programs. Although teenage students were more likely to stay in school or graduate after leaving school district adult education programs, adult students had similar employment-related outcomes regardless of whether they attended adult education programs offered by school districts or colleges.
Consolidating Workforce Education Would Bring More Uniformity; Mixed Results on Whether Evidence Supports Other Stakeholder Arguments (Report No. 10-62, December 2010)
To access the full report, click here.
Currently, school districts and Florida colleges share responsibility for workforce and adult education programs. In recent years there have been proposals to give responsibility to colleges for all post-secondary career education programs and school districts responsibility for all adult education programs.
As outlined by OPPAGA, such a re-organization could have advantages and disadvantages. While it could produce more uniform policies and practices, provide better alignment and articulation of post-secondary career education programs, as well as increase students’ access to financial aid, it could also limit availability of open entry and open exit training programs and reduce resource sharing between districts’ secondary and post-secondary career education programs. Consolidating adult education programs under school districts could help school districts’ efforts to address dropout prevention and recovery.
School Districts and Colleges Share Responsibility for Workforce Education; Duplication Is Minimal (Report No. 10-61, December 2010)
To access the full report, click here.
As previously explained, Florida’s school districts and its college system institutions share responsibility for delivering workforce education programs using state, federal and local funds. The State of Florida distributes these funds using different allocation methods for the two systems.
School districts and colleges make local decisions on how to divide workforce education responsibilities, which results in variations in service delivery throughout the state. While the two systems are authorized to offer similar programs, districts and colleges typically avoid duplicating local training programs.