Basic Foundational Skills

Employment Program Strategy: Basic Foundational Skills

Goal: Provide underprepared adults in the region with the basic foundational skills needed to be successful in 21st century work and technical training.

Theory of Change: Rigorous evaluation, supportive federal and state policies, and capacity building are needed to take promising basic foundational skills strategies to scale.

The Joyce Approach

Evaluate Promising Adult Education Practices

• Support efforts to improve government data collection in order to be able to regularly evaluate various programmatic interventions.
• Co-fund rigorous evaluation of “bridge programs” (e.g. Accelerating Opportunity; federal Innovative Strategies for Increasing Self-Sufficiency career pathways effort).
• Fund behavioral research to understand adult worker decision-making and identify effective incentives to increase skill building among low-income adult workers.

Build Field Capacity to Scale Promising Practices

• Reform public policies to support scaling of promising practice.
• Consider support for a national Career Pathways Alliance to establish voluntary standards of accountability.
• Support learning networks and deployment of information tools.

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