Shifting Gears
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Initiative Description
Shifting Gears is a state policy initiative launched by the Joyce Foundation to promote regional economic growth by improving the education and skills training of the workforce in the Midwestern states. The initiative aims to help participating states implement systemic changes to institutionalize innovative efforts in adult education, workforce development, and postsecondary education. The Shifting Gears approach to system change focuses on four core activities that represent the foundation for each state’s efforts to improve low-skilled workers’ access and success in the postsecondary, adult basic education, and skills-development systems. The four core activities include: using data to foster improvements in policy and practice; pursuing policy change to leverage improvements in systems and institutional practice; engaging the field to generate ideas and buy-in for systems and institutional change; and strategic communications to cultivate stakeholder support for systems and institutional change. Across these four strategic activities, Shifting Gears encourages collaboration among state agencies and other stakeholders committed to improving opportunities and outcomes for low-skilled workers.
Partners
Implementers
Six states implement the Shifting Gears Initiative. Three states ― Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin ― received implementation grants in February 2007. Minnesota and Ohio initially received planning grants and then received implementation grants in July 2008. Michigan joined the initiative in July 2009 with an implementation grant. Each state has a team comprised of representatives from workforce development, adult education, and community colleges to support local innovation and policy change. In addition, employers, advocates for low-income individuals, and local workforce and education practitioners are part of the effort to advance new policies. These teams support local innovation and policy change within their states, while learning from the experiences of other states in the region.
Partner Organizations
The Joyce Foundation launched Shifting Gears in 2007 as a state policy change initiative to generate a better-educated, skilled and more competitive adult workforce in Midwest states. The Initiative supports the participant states to strengthen their postsecondary, adult basic education, and skills-development systems so that more low-skilled workers gain the education, skills, and credentials needed to advance and succeed in our changing economy. The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) and Workforce Strategy Center (WSC) provide technical assistance to Shifting Gears States.
Initiative Publications
Educating Adult Workers: The Shifting Gears Approach to Systems Change (December 2009).
This report addresses the Shifting Gears approach to systems change with a particular focus on the logic model, policy agenda and action plan – two tools used to guide and support states’ efforts to pursue systemic change throughout the postsecondary, adult basic education, and skills-development systems. It also highlights several lessons that emerged about the challenges and opportunities states face when pursuing systems change efforts after the initiative has been implemented for more than two years.
Policies to Promote Adult Education and Postsecondary Alignment (September 2007).
This paper discusses state and federal policy solutions for helping lower-skilled adults overcome key obstacles to earning the postsecondary credentials that can put them on a prosperous career pathway. It focuses on the lack of alignment between federal and state adult education efforts, job training services, and postsecondary education policies. Shifting Gears is noted in this report as an initiative aimed at promoting adult education and postsecondary alignment.
Transition Tools
No tools are currently available.
For more information about the initiative, please contact:
Marcie W.M. Foster
Project Manager, Center for Law and Social Policy, 202-906-8033 or Info@shifting-gears.org