Introduction

The Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) issued guidance on 4/6/16 regarding PY16-PY17 WIOA negotiations. OCTAE previously determined that for PY16-17 the only Adult Education & Literacy (AEL) measure that states would be held accountable for is “Measureable Skills Gain” (MSG) with the other WIOA measures being reported for baseline purposes, but without performance targets. The guidance directed states to follow a prescribed methodology for target setting and OCTAE staff requested proposals by 4/15/16 and planned to complete negotiations by 5/16/16.

Target Proposals

OCTAE provided information on how each state performance by quartile and then provided guidance about how much higher states should set target based on their relative performance. Texas was in the best quartile in 9 of the 11 measures and was in the 2nd best quartile in the other 2 measures. Because TWC’s performance was already so strong, OCTAE’s guidance called for us to propose targets which would “demonstrate continuous improvement.” TWC has historically rejected the notion that continuous improvement means doing better on every measure every year, no matter how good performance already was and proposed the following targets:

PY16 Targets

1)Set target at PY14 performance level where TWC was in the top half of the top quartile (3 measures)

2)Set the target where TWC was in the bottom half of the top quartile (6 measures), at the lesser of:

  1. 3 points higher than PY14; or
  2. The level it would take to move to the top half of the top quartile.

3)Set target where TWC was in the top half of the 2nd best quartile (2 measures), at the greater of:

  1. 3 point higher than PY14; or
  2. The level it would take to reach the bottom of the top quartile.

PY17 Targets

Set each 1 point higher than PY16.

Although OCTAE required states to propose targets for each of the 11 sub-measures, the state will actually be held responsible for a single blended MSG target based on the weighted average of the sub targets for each year. The detailed data following the above-outlined process are on page 2.

Staff submitted the target proposals on 4/14/16. OCTAE staff indicated that the proposals met the requirements and would be forwarded for formal approval by Department of Education leadership. On 7/1/16, TWC received the AEL Notice of Grant Award, which OCTAE staff later explained served as OCTAE’s approval of TWC’s targets. Thus, the targets submitted by TWC staff on 4/14/16 were now considered to be the “negotiated levels of performance” to be entered in the state plan.

Commission Request

Staff request Commission approval of the targets agreed up by OCTAE and TWC staff and listed on page 2.

Note that the Commission previously approved using the sub-targets that staff submitted to OCTAE as the basis of PY16 AEL Grantee targets.Thus, the targets presented for approval are consistent with TWC’s expectations for AEL grantees.

Educational Functioning Level / PY14 Denominator / PY14 Numerator / PY14 Performance / PY14 RANK (low is good) / PY14 Quartile (high is good) / PY14 National Median / PY16 Target / PY17 Target
ABE Beginning Literacy / 2,316 / 1,439 / 62% / 7 / Q4 Top / 43% / 62% / 63%
ABE Beginning Basic Education / 11,797 / 6,253 / 53% / 10 / Q4 Bottom / 42% / 55% / 56%
ABE Intermediate Low / 15,202 / 8,169 / 54% / 6 / Q4 Top / 39% / 54% / 55%
ABE Intermediate High / 11,359 / 4,916 / 43% / 11 / Q4 Bottom / 33% / 46% / 47%
ASE Low / 1,800 / 890 / 49% / 13 / Q4 Bottom / 39% / 52% / 53%
ESL Beginning Literacy / 17,909 / 9,224 / 52% / 16 / Q3 Top / 42% / 55% / 56%
ESL Beginning Low / 7,625 / 4,298 / 56% / 20 / Q3 Top / 51% / 61% / 62%
ESL Beginning High / 6,995 / 4,243 / 61% / 12 / Q4 Bottom / 50% / 64% / 65%
ESL Intermediate Low / 3,670 / 2,271 / 62% / 7 / Q4 Top / 44% / 62% / 63%
ESL Intermediate High / 3,672 / 1,803 / 49% / 14 / Q4 Bottom / 41% / 52% / 53%
ESL Advanced / 377 / 184 / 49% / 11 / Q4 Bottom / 24% / 52% / 53%
Total / 83,534 / 43,904 / 53% / NA / NA / 40% / NA / NA
Integrated Levels / PY14 Texas Performance / PY14 National Median / PY16 GPRA Target / PY16 Agreed Upon MSG Target / PY17 GPRA Target / PY17 Agreed Upon MSG Target
Adult Basic Education (ABE + ASEL) / 51% / 43% / 46% / 52% / 47% / 53%
English as a Second Language (ESL) / 55% / 47% / 49% / 58% / 50% / 59%
OVERALL MSG / 53% / 46% / N/A / 55% / N/A / 56%

GPRA is the Government Performance Results Act – basically the national target OCTAE set.