Three-year Initiative: Fiscal Years 2011-2013
The Minnesota Adult Basic Education (ABE) delivery system of the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) provides opportunities statewide for adults to acquire basic academic skills. The ABE system ultimately fulfills its mission by preparing individuals for jobs or, in many cases, for further education or training.
It is uniformly agreed that the majority of in-demand and sustainable-living jobs require education or training beyond the basic academic skills. To address this need, ABE developed a three year initiative (2007-2010) to transition learners to post-secondary and training programs. The successful work completed during this initiative has shown a need to continue financial support to expand the development of transitions programming. Therefore, the transitions Next STEP initiative will include two major activities:
1. The MDE-ABE Office will provide categorical funding to support the development of regional delivery models for occupational programming. Seven ABE Regions, as well as the Department of Corrections, Saint Paul, and Minneapolis will each receive funding to carry out the following activities:
- Expand, integrate, and align occupational programming at all educational levels across all consortia/programs in the region.
- Establish regionally coordinated programming to support credential-bearing post-secondary pathways. This may include efforts to efficiently and collaboratively develop referral networks, career-specialized programs, shared curriculum and resources, etc.
- Develop regional capacity and expertise to support FastTRAC programming in key regional industry sectors.
2. In partnership with DEED, MnSCU, The Joyce Foundation, and other organizations, the MDE-ABE Office will provide funding to support and expand FastTRAC programming through:
- Competitive grants that develop local FastTRAC career pathway programs, which provide contextualized instruction, career development, and individualized support services.
- Intensive and ongoing professional development activities to increase program quality, develop cross-program collaboration, and assist all partners involved in FastTRAC programming.
