Alabama has issued more than 12,200 CRC's to date.

The state CRC web site is www.careerreadyalabama.com

Marcia Olsen in Alaska has provided the following update.

The first round of piloting the Alaska Career Ready program has resulted in issuance of 162 CRCs in a few school districts. There are now two trained WK profilers in the state. They are having trouble with the WK internet testing and ACT's reporting system. They would like feedback from any other state that is using these systems on a large scale. About 50 high schools have been set up as testing sites, and 250 are scheduled to go on-line next year.

Beginning with the 2009-2010 school year, 6th & 8th graders must take benchmark assessments in Applied Math, Reading for Information, and Locating Information by using WIN courseware placement tests, and 11th graders must take the ACT WorkKeys® assessments in Applied Math, Reading for Information, and Locating Information.
The initiative is a partnership between two state agencies--the Department of Education & Early Development in K-12 public schools; and the Department of Labor & Workforce Development at the Job Centers.The first year is being funded through Department of Labor money but it is hoped that over the next few years state money will be used.

They are making the rounds of employers to get support for the CRC. BP (British Petroleum) has used WorkKeys for several years already in hiring some of their process technicians on the North Slope oil fields. Dorothy Hanson at the University of Alaska does the testing for them.

NANA Management, which is a large Alaska Native Corporation is getting ready to use WorkKeys. Several other large employers have expressed their support. The State of Alaska is looking into using WorkKeys in their hiring process for a few state government jobs. Also, they issued their first 3 CRCs last week! They were presented to 3 adult job-seekers at a public ceremony by the Commissioner of the Department of Labor and the "First Dude" (Governor Sarah Palin's husband, Todd Palin).

The state web site is www.eed.state.ak.us/tls/CTE/workready.html

As WorkKeys assessment and certification practices continue throughout the state, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) is coordinating an effort to develop a statewide career readiness certificate. With support from the Colorado Workforce Development Council, four pilot projects have been selected to begin implementation as soon as state-level endorsement for the certificate is obtained. Sue Klebold is coordinating CRC implementation and may be reached at sue.klebold@state.co.us. Local CRC activities continue throughout Colorado.

Peggy Severson reports from the Office of Economic Development, Division of Workforce Development (OED/DWD) in Denver that 115 CRCs have been issued and the word is getting out to Denver's major stakeholders. They are using the CRC as a hiring assessment tool for one of Denver's largest healthcare providers and partnering with business customers at Denver's International Airport. OED/DWD is also working with Denver Public Schools (via the WIRED Grant) in preparing to administer the WorkKeys CRC tests to graduating seniors.
Also, OED/DWD has been selected as one of four pilot sites to begin CRC implementation once state endorsement is obtained.

Peggy.Severson@ci.denver.co.us

Marsha Harmon of Aims Community College in Greeley, CO has been using WorkKeys assessments and issuing CRC's with great success to students at an alternative high school. Marsha may be reached at mharmon@aims.edu. To date, approximately 650 high school students have received the CRC, and this year, Aims Community College will begin issuing the CRC to graduates in the welding and automotive programs that include about 50 students.

Full state implementation is now underway. Colleen Englert reports that the state has 500+ Assessment Center locations statewide, 73,000+ students/jobseekers enrolled in the program and they have issued 16,000+ Credentials. The Florida Ready to Work Courseware, Assessments, Credential are FREE to all Florida students/jobseekers and employers.

Colleen may be reached at cenglert@floridareadytowork.com. The state web site is www.floridareadytowork.com.

Chicago Public Schools recently distributed "Work Ready Certificates, College Career Proficiency Awards" to about 26% of approximately 17,000 taking the 2005 PSAE exam. These 4,438 students were certified as being at Level 5 or higher on the RFI and AM WorkKeys® assessments.

McHenry Community College in McHenry County is enthusiastically using WorkKeys to assess the skills of students, and they are working with leaders in economic and workforce development with a view to issuing CRCs. Contact Regina Monday (RMONDAY@mchenry.edu) or Nancy Leger-Bollman (NLEGER@mchenry.edu)

The regional effort headed by Kirkwood Community College is going well with more than 1200 Certificates issued so far. The governor recently set aside $500,000 to take the CRC statewide.

In 2006, 12 employers committed to using the CRC in the hiring process. Now that number has grown to 93!

The Council for Labor and Economic Growth unanimously approved the MI NCRC Implementation Plan in their June 9th meeting. The MI NCRC will be delivered through the Michigan Works! system in partnership with the K-12 educational system, community colleges, economic development agencies, employers, business associations, and other local partners.

School Aid Senate Bill 1107 passed the Senate on March 26th and the House on June 11th. This bill adds the third WorkKeys test, Locating Information, to the Michigan Merit Exam beginning March 2009. Review item #26 in the Summary. Every high school student in Michigan will have the opportunity to earn an NCRC next year. Michigan is the first state to provide all students with two tickets to the future: a set of ACT college readiness scores, and a National Career Readiness Certificate. Michigan has leaped ahead of other states by being the first state to have a common skills credential in use in both the public school system and the workforce development system. This is an unprecedented level of alignment between high schools and workforce development agencies.

Leadership contacts for Michigan are:

Cindy Leyrer, Chair of the Michigan NCRC Advocates, cleyrer@inghamisd.org, 517.244.1338

Rachael Jungblut, Executive Director, Michigan NCRC Advocates, rjungblu@grcc.edu, 616.234.3623

Bill Guest, NCRC WorkKeys Innovation Champion, WIRED West Michigan, bill.guest@metricsreporting.com, 616.430.0828

Irma Zuckerberg, Mid-Michigan Innovation Team, i.zuckerberg@primacivitas.org, 517.999.3382

Visit www.michigancrc.org for more information.

Michigan has n0w issued 34, 377 Certificates (8018 Bronze, 17,786 Silver, and 8573 Gold).

Bill Guest and his team also produce the comparative graphics for states' issuance of the CRC. These are shown in NOCC Newsletters.

 

Minnesota

There is significant interest in a statewide career readiness credential and the CRC is being discussed.

 

Missouri

As of February 2007, members of the Missouri Workforce earned:
2016 Bronze Certificates, 2825 Silver, and 851 Gold for a total of 5692.

Marcos Martinez heads state initiatives in NM, and this includes the CRC project. He reports that the state has issued 5000 CRCs so far and that they are adding to this number by about 500 per month!

University College of Syracuse University is continuing to issue the Syracuse University Certificate of Workplace Competency on a regional basis. Last year, more than 400 were issued, and it is expected that another 500 will be issued this year. (workkeys@syr.edu).

Tracy Check , Manager of Assessment Services at the RochesterWorks Career Center in Rochester, reports that her local WIB has issued 126 CRCs (22 Bronze, 72 Silver , and 33 Gold).The goal for the coming year is to increase employer awareness and support for the CRC, and to look into taking a regional approach to deployment.

Tracy may be reached at tcheck@rochesterworks.org

Look under "Resources" on the NOCC web site for a summary (written as one-liners!) of the evolution and use of the CRC in NC. It's an impressive document and it may help others to expand their work.

The state has now issued approximately 37,000 CRCs.

The goal in Oklahoma was to break the 20,000 mark by the end of June, 2008. They met AND exceeded this goal with a total of 20,011. Well done to all concerned! The numbers now stand at 20,152 with 5281 Bronze, 10,741 Silver, and 4130 Gold.

The Midwest Economic & Workforce Development Conference is scheduled for October 27-28, 2008 in Oklahoma City. Check out the details at http://www.okchamber.com/email/oedc.html

Norma Noble, 405-815-5278, Norma_Noble@okcommerce.gov
Susan Kuzmic, 405-815-5204, Susan_Kuzmic@okcommerce.gov

http://www.okcommerce.gov/workkeys

Pennsylvania

South Carolina has launched its statewide CRC initiative. Contact Melinda Eagle Peterson at mpeterson@commerce.state.sc.us

When SC initiated its statewide CRC effort, they worked with ACT to identify ALL South Carolinians who were eligible to receive the certificate. While not all of these CRCs have been awarded (people are sometimes hard to find!), the result is that the numbers from SC have taken a dramatic jump. Below is information from Melinda Eagle Peterson who leads the statewide effort in SC:
Status as of February 5, 2008
62,000 Certificates have been earned (identified) from 2002 through October 2007. Over half have been requested by partner sites, printed, and mailed.
The number of Certificates earned in 2007 was 73% greater than Certificates earned in 2006.
1,000 (WorkKeys) Profiles have been completed, involving at least 250 employers.
The number of Profilers has increased from 36 to 54.
Progress has been made with ACT on employing simpler and less-expensive methods to obtain Certificate data and build a statewide database of scores.
Return on Investment
If WorkReady SC reduced turnover costs by only 15% for the current employers that use WorkKeys, their collective annual savings would be $2.92 million, a 177% return on the SWIB’s investment ($1.65M). When using inputs exclusively for the manufacturing sector, the results show a turnover savings of $3.2 million and a return on investment of 195%.

 

The state is deploying the CRC through it's career centers as it is being funded by WIA and Wagner-Peyser. The focus will be on the job seeker.

They reset the counter when the pilots were concluded and statewide deployment was initiated in October 2007, and they have issued 1805 CRCs since then. This makes a grand total of 6196 from the beginning of the pilot period during the preceding year.

The state contact for the CRC initiative is Wil Hammond at the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, 615-741-7808, Wil.Hammond@state.tn.us

After using WorkKeys for many years, the Houston Community College System has begun issuing CRC's.

Northeast Lakeview College, one of the Alamo Community Colleges in San Antonio, has received a sub-grant award from the local workforce board, Alamo WorkSource, to implement a CRC pilot project during 2008.

Rick Graham from Salt Lake Community College reports a partnership between the college and the Jordan School District Applied technology Center in Sandy, UT to assess students and awrd CRC's through the college. To date, 135 CRC's have been issued (11 bronze, 62 Silver, 47 Gold) in just 6 months.

Rick may be contacted at rickj.graham@slcc.edu and at 801-957-5215

Virginia is forging ahead with extensions to the CRC. At a presentation at the ACTE conference in Atlanta, Gloria shared information on the CRC+ initiative that includes:

Hospitality, Health care, Manufacturing, and Apprenticeships.

Presentation slides are available on request but the gist of the initiative is as follows:

Certified Manufacturing Specialist--CRC any level + Applied Technology level 3

Hospitality--Bronze CRC + Customer Service skills (in development)

Apprenticeship (pilot)--CRC any level

Healthcare Clinical Technician (pilot)--Silver CRC with the healthcare context. The CAEL healthcare apprenticeship model is also being used.

• Northop-Grumman and Morningstar Foods are using the CRC in their hiring process.
  
• Participants in the Governor’s Middle College Program, a drop-out recovery program are required to have a CRC to graduate from the program.
  
• Participants in the Race To GED program are also being tested for the CRC. Most now graduate with the two credentials.

• Career Readiness Certificates are issued in 3 areas of Washington state – Southwest Washington, Spokane area and Puget Sound area. Certificates are issued through partnerships with area chambers, economic development councils, worksource, dshs, and local colleges.
  
• An exact count of CRC’s issued is not available but is estimated to be several hundred. They have case studies of individuals who were hired based on the certificate, and those with gold level reported earning at least $1 more per hour than those earning the lower level certificate.
  
• Two school districts, Castle Rock and Longview, are testing juniors and seniors and issuing certificates as part of career exploration. Additionally, Longview is using WorkKeys® assessments to measure skills of 9th graders.
  
• ESD 112, which covers most of Southwest Washington, is using the certificate with young adults through a project with the local WIB.
  
• Goodwill Industries of Inland Northwest is working with area manufacturing businesses, as well as Coeur d’Alene Tribal TANF clients, and Coeur d’Alene Tribal School-to-Work kids that will be entering 9th grade.
  

Robin Morgan, Business Services Manager at Region 1 WorkForce West Virginia reports that since May 2007, 1820 CRC's have been issued to clients at the Center, CTE Centers, Adult Education centers and at Community & Technical Colleges. The CRC's were at the following levels: Bronze 323, Silver 1166, Gold 331.

This is tremendous progress and once again demonstrates that local WIB's can have a dramatic effect on their local economies while providing great benefits to individuals.

Robin may be contacted at ramorgan@r1workforcewv.org