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The Goals and Context for TAACCCT

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Title: The Goals and Context for TAACCCT
Language: English
Authors: McKay, Heather, Van Noy, Michelle
Source: New Directions for Community Colleges. Spr 2021 (193):15-21.
Availability: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 7
Publication Date: 2021
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Two Year Colleges
Descriptors: Community Colleges, Grants, Job Training, Educational Strategies, Outcomes of Education
DOI: 10.1002/cc.20435
ISSN: 0194-3081
Abstract: Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program was an unprecedented investment in community colleges. This chapter describes the history and context for this grant program, as well as its strategies and outcomes.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2020
Accession Number: EJ1278658
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0147809156;0yg01mar.21;2020Dec30.02:22;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0147809156-1">The Goals and Context for TAACCCT </title> <p>Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program was an unprecedented investment in community colleges. This chapter describes the history and context for this grant program, as well as its strategies and outcomes.</p> <p>The Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program was launched by the United States Department of Labor following the height of the Great Recession, 2008–2010. The principal goal of this nationwide $2 billion grant program was to expand the capacity of community colleges to train unemployed, incumbent, and new workers for high‐demand industries and occupations (U.S. Department of Labor, 2020). This volume examines specific grants, educational reforms, and innovations funded by TAACCCT and explores some of the lessons learned from the grants. We also examine the impact of this unprecedented federal investment on community colleges. As such, the volume provides critical insights to help inform future educational and workforce development efforts at community colleges, as well as to showcase the important role community colleges play during economic downturns and recessions.</p> <p>In this first chapter we look at the establishment of TAACCCT and its goals and priorities within the context of other community college reform efforts occurring at about the same time. We also situate the grant goals and activities within the larger arena of community college reform and organizational change in colleges and universities nationwide. As we discussed in the editors' notes, the implications of these projects for the recovery from the pandemic and its accompanying economic disaster provides one lens through which to view these chapters.</p> <hd id="AN0147809156-2">Looking Back: Lessons From the Great Recession</hd> <p>The Great Recession presented the United States with an unprecedented economic challenge, and community colleges were identified by the federal government as part of the solution (Lothian, 2009). The unparalleled federal support to community colleges through the TAACCCT grants gave these institutions a tremendous opportunity to influence the trajectory of the country's economy during the recession, as well as to address national workforce development and educational attainment concerns (Burns, 2010).</p> <p>Frequently, during his presidential campaign and after the election, President Obama spoke about the important role that community colleges play in keeping the United States economically and educationally competitive (Chen, 2018; Jacobs & Worth, 2019). Rahm Emanuel, Obama's White House Chief of Staff echoed the president when he said, "What's been forgotten is how important our community college system is to the economy. As a competitive advantage for the United States, the community college system is essential" (Johnson, 2009, p. 169). In the summer of 2009, Obama's first year in office, he put those words into action through the launch of the American Graduation Initiative (AGI). Obama sought to use the AGI to broadly invest in and strengthen the nation's community colleges with the goal of improving postsecondary completion rates in the United States and providing a better infrastructure for workforce education.</p> <p>To situate the AGI in the historical context, the president pointed to historic examples of how education has been used throughout the nation's history as a tool for transforming the economy during difficult economic times (Brandon, 2009). He remarked on Lincoln's creation of Land Grant Universities and Roosevelt's GI Bill as game‐changing policies impacting higher education, indicating that the AGI was his answer to the call of duty for higher education for the twenty‐first century. Obama viewed education, and particularly community colleges, both as an important way to prepare the workforce for the changing economy and as a path to help lead the country out of the recession and toward "prosperity" (Brandon, 2009, para. 1). Initially, Obama set a lofty funding goal for the AGI, seeking $12 billion to help achieve these goals, but he was unable to secure these funds during his first years in office. Ultimately, the funding totaled $2 billion.</p> <p>During the Great Recession of 2008–2010, the American economy lost over 8.7 million jobs. Unemployed workers knocked on the doors of the nation's community colleges for both traditional education and workforce programs (Chart Book, 2019; Jacobs & Worth, 2019). In fact, between 2008 and 2010, college‐credit enrollment in community colleges surged by 17% (Mullin & Phillippe, 2009). The 1,200 community colleges in the United States were thought to be especially well suited to helping workers adapt to changing labor market needs (Fitzpatrick‐Austin, 2009). At the time, four‐year universities were seen as slow‐moving, whereas community colleges were thought to be more nimble and adept at changing with the shifting economic winds.</p> <p>Community colleges have a reputation of being embedded in their communities, enabling them to partner with local businesses for training and getting students to work (Fitzpatrick‐Austin, 2009). They also serve a diverse student body through their "open door" policies, including students of different ages; diverse racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender identities; and with varied disability status (American Association of Community Colleges, 2018). They also enroll students who have varied college preparedness levels as well as differing prior educational and labor market experiences. Also importantly, community colleges are well known in their communities as a logical training provider for students with immediate employment needs such as those emerging during the Great Recession.</p> <p>In essence, the Great Recession provided Obama with the "perfect storm" to move the AGI forward and further the nation's community college agenda while simultaneously responding to the needs of American workers, employers, and community colleges (Boggs, 2010).</p> <hd id="AN0147809156-3">The TAACCCT Grants</hd> <p>The TAACCCT program sought to help community colleges increase their capacity to provide education and training for in‐demand jobs. The TAACCCT grant program was authorized by Congress as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and funded through the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. The seven‐year grant program was funded in four rounds of four‐year grants, with new grants awarded starting in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014. TAACCCT was administered by the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) in partnership with the U.S. Department of Education, and the grants funded both individual colleges and consortia comprising multiple colleges. Public, proprietary, and other nonprofit institutions of higher education that offered programs that could be completed in 2 years or less were eligible for grant funding. Over the life of the grant program, 256 grants were awarded involving nearly 60% of the nation's community colleges (Mikelson, Eyster, Durham, & Cohen, 2017).</p> <p>The TAACCCT grant program had two primary overarching goals. The first was to develop the community college infrastructure for workforce programs for in‐demand jobs. To do this, colleges were to review and redesign curriculum to better align with industry needs and develop new modes of instructional delivery, including the creation of hybrid and online courses and programs. These strategies were designed to address industry's changing needs, as well as to increase the attainment of academic‐ and industry‐recognized credentials. The second goal was to prepare Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA)‐eligible and other adult workers for high‐wage, high‐skill jobs in growth industry sectors. Akin to the AGI goals, colleges were to do this by increasing the attainment of postsecondary credentials commonly sought out by employers, including degrees, certificates, and diplomas. These grant activities were expected to lead to improved employment outcomes for participants.</p> <p>To achieve these overarching goals, grantees could use the monies for a variety of activities including hiring instructors or staff; developing facilities and infrastructure; conducting needs assessments of students; developing curricula and making it available as an open educational resource; providing student supports and services; emphasizing transferability and articulation; and leveraging other resources. Grant activities were to serve workers eligible for TAA and other adult learners.</p> <p>The four Solicitations for Grant Applications (SGAs) varied slightly, the first SGA in 2011 varying the most from the other three in that it included a wider range of activities and had no required evaluation. The commonalities in grant activities across all four rounds included the use of evidence‐based design and focused on both improving and expanding the use of online and technology‐enabled learning as well as on developing career pathways and collaborations with employer in industry partners. All four rounds also called for partnerships and strategic alignments with community‐based organizations, the public workforce system, sector strategies, and/or state policy agendas.</p> <p>In the first round, a third‐party evaluation was encouraged, and in the final three rounds, rigorous third‐party evaluations were required. These evaluations included analysis of program implementation, documenting how the grant activities were carried out in the colleges, and identifying both successes and challenges. They also included a rigorous outcomes analysis designed to examine the impact of the grant activities on student outcomes using experimental or quasi‐experimental approaches. This edited volume draws from the findings generated from the numerous third‐party evaluations of TAACCCT grants across the country that continue to be summarized by researchers at the Urban Institute and Abt Associates (Mikelson et al., 2017).</p> <p>Table 1.1 details each program round and showcases the differences and commonalities in activities.</p> <p>1.1 TableStrategies, by Solicitations for Grant Application Round (SGA)</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr valign="bottom"><th>Strategies</th><th>SGA 1 2011</th><th>SGA 2 2012</th><th>SGA 3 2013</th><th>SGA 4 2014</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Redesigned basic skills and developmental education, including pre‐ and post‐ assessments</td><td>X</td><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>Student services, including career counseling, tutoring, and job placement</td><td>X</td><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>Strategies to reduce outcomes disparities by race/ethnicity, gender, or disability</td><td>X</td><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>Curricular and instructional innovations including contextualized learning, learning communities, earn‐and‐learn models, use of modules, and self‐paced learning</td><td>X</td><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>Scheduling innovations</td><td>X</td><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>Career pathways and stacked and latticed credentials to meet industry needs</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td></tr><tr><td>Entrepreneurship training</td><td>X</td><td /><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>Online and technology‐enabled learning</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td></tr><tr><td>Sustainability</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td /><td /></tr><tr><td>Evidence‐based‐designed program strategies</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td></tr><tr><td>Transferability and articulation of credit (including credit for prior learning)</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td></tr><tr><td>Strategic alignment with workforce system, state workforce plans, and other stakeholders</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td></tr><tr><td>Employers and industry engagement (including sector strategies)</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td></tr><tr><td>Alignment with previously funded TAACCCT projects</td><td /><td /><td>X</td><td>X</td></tr><tr><td>Third‐party evaluation</td><td>Not required, but part of many grants</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0147809156-4">TAACCCT Grant Strategies and Outcomes</hd> <p>As evident from the listed strategies in Table 1.1, the TAACCCT grant program sought to simultaneously achieve the goals of short‐term increases in student outcomes and long‐term institutional change. To that end, grantees were required to use performance measures that would capture immediate impacts on student outcomes in terms of completion and employment rates. Many colleges also reported their efforts to make substantial changes in college infrastructure, policy, or practices, with most designed to result in long‐term organizational changes.</p> <p>To support the TAACCCT‐stimulated change process, the Transformative Change Initiative (TCI) was established in 2012 as a joint effort of the Office of Community College Research and Leadership (OCCRL) and the Collaboratory (Bragg et al., 2014). TCI was "dedicated to assisting community colleges to scale‐up innovation in the form of guided pathways, programs of study, and evidence‐based strategies to improve student outcomes and program, organization, and system performance" (Bragg et al., 2014, p. 1). This effort sought to promote a process for learning about change and making plans for scale and sustainability. TCI gathered TAACCCT grantees as a community of learners, both virtually and in person, throughout the entire grant period to inform grantees about the change process and share stories. The goal of these gatherings was to promote effective implementation and wide‐scale adoption or scaling of the grants' efforts.</p> <p>In‐person TCI convenings brought college representatives involved in the grants together to create communities of practice and promote learning. TCI also worked with third‐party evaluators to help them understand the role that data could play in the scale and spread of change. In addition, drawing on the organizational change literature (Eddy, 2010; Kezar, 2014; Kotter, 1996), TCI also developed the TCI Framework, which stated the rationale and guiding principles for scaling innovation in the community college context (See Chapter 11 for a discussion of the TCI framework).</p> <p>Despite the best efforts of the community colleges, TCI and other funded strategies and supports to address the TAACCCT goals and meet student outcomes and institutional changes did not always align well with the time frame of the grant‐funded programs. Four years was too little time for many recipients to design and implement their programs and meet their targets for student outcomes (Kotter, 1996). Further, whereas the grant dollars served as a driver for change, simply having money did not eliminate some of the capacity challenges typical of the kinds of policy‐and‐practice changes that community colleges attempted to accomplish. Change is complex, requiring transformative leadership, organizational learning, trust and open communication, information sharing, acknowledgement of different values and interests, and efforts toward co‐creation and open dialogue (Kezar, 2014).</p> <ref id="AN0147809156-5"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> American Association of Community Colleges. (2018). Fast facts 2018. Washington, DC : Author.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Boggs, G. (2010). Community colleges in a perfect storm. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 36 (6), 6 – 11.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib3" type="bt">3</bibl> <bibtext> Bragg, D. D., Kirby, C., Witt, M. A., Richie, D., Mix, S., Feldbaum, M., ... Mason, M. (2014). Transformative change initiative. Champaign, IL : Office of Community College Research and Leadership, University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib4" type="bt">4</bibl> <bibtext> Brandon, K. (2009, July 14). Investing in education: The American graduation initiative. Retrieved from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2009/07/14/investing-education-american-graduation-initiative</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib5" type="bt">5</bibl> <bibtext> Burns, K. (2010). Community college student success variables: A review of the literature. The Community College Enterprise, 16 (2), 33 – 61.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib6" type="bt">6</bibl> <bibtext> Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. (2019). Chart book: The legacy of the great recession. Retrieved from https://<ulink href="http://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/chart-book-the-legacy-of-the-great-recession">www.cbpp.org/research/economy/chart-book-the-legacy-of-the-great-recession</ulink></bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib7" type="bt">7</bibl> <bibtext> Chen, G. (2018, August 7). Why Obama is hailed as the "community college president." Retrieved from https://<ulink href="http://www.communitycollegereview.com/blog/why-obama-is-hailed-as-the-community-college-president">www.communitycollegereview.com/blog/why-obama-is-hailed-as-the-community-college-president</ulink></bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib8" type="bt">8</bibl> <bibtext> Eddy, P. L. (2010). Community college leadership: A multidimensional model for leading change. Sterling, VA : Stylus Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib9" type="bt">9</bibl> <bibtext> Fitzpatrick‐Austin, L. (2009, July 20). Can community colleges save the U.S. economy? Time. Retrieved from <ulink href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1909623,00.html">http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1909623,00.html</ulink></bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Jacobs, J., & Worth, J. (2019). The evolving mission of workforce development in the community college. New York : Community College Research Center. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED594218.pdf</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Johnson, W. G. (2009). President Obama and the community college. Community & Junior College Libraries, 15 (4), 169 – 170. https://doi.org/10.1080/02763910903253113</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Kezar, A. (2014). How colleges change: Understanding, leading, and enacting change. New York : Routledge.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Kotter, J. (1996). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Boston, MA : Harvard Business School Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Lothian, D. (2009). Obama: community colleges can help booth ailing economy. CNN. Retrieved from: https://<ulink href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/14/obama.community.colleges/index.html">www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/14/obama.community.colleges/index.html</ulink></bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Mikelson, K., Eyster, L., Durham, C., & Cohen, E. (2017). TAACCCT goals, design, and evaluation. Washington, DC : Urban Institute. Retrieved from https://<ulink href="http://www.urban.org/research/publication/taaccct-goals-design-and-evaluation">www.urban.org/research/publication/taaccct-goals-design-and-evaluation</ulink></bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Mullin, C. M., & Phillippe, K. (2009). Community college enrollment surge: An analysis of estimated fall 2009 headcount enrollments at community colleges (Policy Brief 2009‐01PBL). Washington, DC : American Association of Community Colleges.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> U.S. Department of Labor. (2020). Trade adjustment assistance community college and career training. Retrieved from https://<ulink href="http://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/tradeact/community-colleges">www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/tradeact/community-colleges</ulink></bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Heather McKay and Michelle Van Noy</p> <p>Reported by Author; Author</p> <p></p> <p>H eather M cKay is director of the Education and Employment Research Center at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.</p> <p>M ichelle V an N oy is associate director of the Education and Employment Research Center at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.</p> </aug>
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