Data Systems to Help California Adult Education Programs Improve Student Success
Since 2017, we have provided data collection, accountability systems, and technical assistance for the California Adult Education Program (CAEP) under joint leadership of the California Community College Chancellor’s Office and California Department of Education.
The Challenge
Historically, adult education in California was delivered through multiple institutions. K–12-based adult schools, community college noncredit programs, and community partners with federal workforce funding all worked separately to serve similar learners.
In 2015, California created CAEP to bring these institutions together into organized regional partnerships. Community colleges and adult schools got funding to convene workforce boards and form other partnerships and to create education pathways that meet adult learners’ needs in their region. This approach meant combining different ways of running programs, measuring accountability, and making decisions.
How We’re Taking Action
In 2017, the Community College Chancellor’s Office asked WestEd’s Center for Economic Mobility to bring together state agencies, adult educators, and community college staff to design data and accountability systems for CAEP.
To do so, we leveraged our decades of experience in adult education theory and practice, including program development, integrated education and training, Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Title II implementation, and career pathway development and design. This has allowed us to accomplish the following:
- develop and host a statewide dashboard with hundreds of metrics on CAEP participants, pathways, progress, postsecondary transition, completion, and employment
- provide ongoing assistance to California’s K–12 and community college agencies to administer CAEP
- provide technical assistance to the state’s 71 consortia on topics such as data usage in program design and improvement, pathway development, postsecondary transition, apprenticeship, and pre-apprenticeship
- lead training on legislatively required 3-year planning processes
- create the annual CAEP legislative report
- conduct adult education research and data projects, such as a statewide study of postsecondary education and the creation of an intersegmental CAEP career education dashboard
We are helping to connect state policy with what actually happens in classrooms by working with both state agencies and local partnerships to create accountability systems that help programs get better, not just fill out required reports.
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