Good Jobs Economy

America Achieves’ public-private strategy for better connecting education and workforce systems with the hiring needs of high-growth industries. Also, short-term training for Tulsa’s drone industry boom and an essay by RAND researchers on planning for advanced manufacturing job growth. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Subscribe here.)

State Strategies, Backed by Foundations

Helping more Americans move into good jobs is complex work. Moving the needle takes policy support and money—increasingly from philanthropies—as well as meaningful participation by employers, educators, and intermediary groups with local chops.

The newly launched Good Jobs Economy from the nonprofit America Achieves hits all those bases. The bipartisan push for high-quality workforce training across growth industries will begin with state-level partnerships in Oklahoma and Maryland.

By tapping a mix of public and private funding, the project’s initial goal is to train and help place 10K Americans into middle class–sustaining occupations by 2030. But the plan is to expand to other states, connecting hundreds of thousands of people to good jobs over a decade.

“I am challenging every governor to build strong bridges between millions of Americans seeking good jobs and the employers eager to hire them,” says Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma’s Republican governor.

Stitt was just elected chair of the National Governors Association, with Maryland governor Wes Moore elected as the vice chair. The Good Jobs Economy will be part of Stitt’s focus in the new role at NGA. Both states pledged financial support for the work, mostly through existing grant programs.

The Funding: Oklahoma is creating a related fund with $4.5M from the Oklahoma Workforce Commission for statewide work, with at least $15M from the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) to expand on Tulsa-based projects, which have been centered on manufacturing, advanced air mobility, and healthcare. (See below for reporting from Work Shift on workforce education in Tulsa.)

Moore’s announcement said Maryland would invest $25M in public funds, through grant programs for registered apprenticeships and industry-led workforce development. The state also will tap $15M in philanthropic support for the project, with a focus on low-cost nursing pathways, high school career counseling, and underrepresented tech talent.

Both states say they hope to generate more public and private money for the two funds.

Blue Meridian Partners, Strada Education Foundation, MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving, and the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth joined GKFF in backing the planning and early stages of the work.

Partnerships with philanthropies could lead to more government support, says Jon Schnur, CEO of America Achieves. “There is a big opportunity for philanthropy to leverage large-scale public funds,” he says.

Modernizing Talent Systems: America Achieves has had success in workforce education and regional economic strategies.

The nonprofit launched Merit America, a prominent sectoral training provider. It also played a substantial role in championing and designing large-scale bipartisan federal economic and workforce programs, including the $500M Regional Tech Hubs. (The Trump administration recently halted six Tech Hubs grants, saying it would revamp the program, but also endorsed the concept.)

Schnur says the new state-level partnership push is about expanding the middle class and ensuring that more people can achieve the dignity and security of a good job.

“The challenge we are helping states and local regions to address is that millions of Americans struggle to find good jobs, while employers can’t fill millions of open positions,” he says.

Meanwhile, he says workforce and education systems were built for a slower-moving, industrial-era economy. And AI’s emerging impacts on the labor market only add urgency. To update state systems and policies, Schnur says the project will focus on five key areas:

• Generating and using labor market analyses on demand, supply, and gaps.

• Setting and tracking outcome goals like placing people in good jobs.

• Aligning funding to those goals and employer hiring needs.

• Supporting industry partnerships and workforce intermediaries.

• Establishing strong, adequately resourced state governance structures.

The work will start with a few state-selected high-growth industries and occupations, with a goal of delivering results at scale.

Maximizing the effectiveness of short-term Pell Grants will be part of the focus in Oklahoma and Maryland, Schnur says. The legislation behind that new federal money, which should begin flowing in the next two years, gives governors latitude to determine which education and training programs in their states will qualify for the funding.

Intermediary groups play crucial convening roles in several of the most promising economic mobility strategies Work Shift has covered, including the Tulsa Innovation Labs. Schnur says the group’s work is a great example of the sort of coalition-building that gets results, and one that could benefit from the Good Jobs Economy. 

Foundations can work with the project nationally or in certain states, Schnur says. They also could specifically back efforts to modernize talent systems and policies, tap Workforce Pell effectively, or support strong in-state programs and intermediaries.

The Kicker: “The full realization of our work in these and other states will depend on the outcomes of our current and additional conversations with philanthropic individuals and organizations,” Schnur says.

Building a Workforce Fit for the ‘Drone Capital’

In the last century, Oklahoma has built a reputation as an aviation hub, from manufacturing World War II bombers to repairing Boeing 737s at the world’s largest commercial aircraft maintenance base in Tulsa. More than 200K Oklahomans work in the $44B industry—most in manufacturing and repair—making it one of the top industries in the state.

The Big Idea: Now Oklahoma—Tulsa specifically—is setting its sights on the frontier of aviation: autonomous drones. With the help of federal Build Back Better and Tech Hub grants, Tulsa Innovation Labs are working with community and technical colleges, employers, and the Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance to get more workers into aerospace roles quickly and provide them with pathways to advance in their careers. As the city aims to become the “Drone Capital of the World,” the grant money is allowing them to create new short-term certificate programs aligned with employers’ current and future needs. 

In May, the Trump administration announced it was rescinding six Tech Hubs awards, but Tulsa Innovation Labs was spared. Lawrence Ganti, head of the workforce intermediary at Tulsa Innovation Labs, says aviation is one of three main industries in transition that the organization is focusing on, alongside energy and advanced manufacturing. 

“Today’s aerospace industry, especially in the Tulsa region, is all about repairing and maintaining these massive aircraft—everything from an F-35 to commercial aircraft,” Ganti says. 

“Now what’s moving into that space is significant miniaturization, and that’s where drones and autonomous systems come into play. Typically people think of them as little toys that fly around, but as their utility gets bigger and bigger, the skill sets needed for them are very different.”

Future Tech, Future Jobs: Tulsa Tech, the largest technology center in the state’s CareerTech system, has taken a leading role in educating the next generation of drone operators and manufacturers—at the same time as it works to produce more airframe and power-plant mechanics for the traditional aerospace industry. 

Through the partnership with Tulsa Innovation Labs, Tulsa Tech offers nine industry-recognized certificates in advanced mobility and a pathway to apprenticeships through the Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance. The tech center has had to be creative in designing the courses: While the drone industry is expected to grow exponentially in the area, most of those jobs are not yet here. 

Matt Litterell, executive director of workforce and economic development at Tulsa Tech, says the program prepares students to work in a range of advanced manufacturing roles, including but not limited to drone operation. 

“It’s a new, budding industry for us, so you can’t just train several hundred people and just hope jobs come,” Litterell says.

Courses in electrical systems, hydraulics and pneumatics, motor control, coding, and more provide students with skills to work in other industries, like food manufacturing. While seemingly very different from drones, Litterell says, the core concepts apply to all.

Funding from Tech Hubs and Build Back Better made tuition free for students—and also reduced the time they need to spend in training. Due to U.S. Department of Education rules, Tulsa Tech’s programs would normally be longer so students could qualify for financial aid. 

“What we were able to do is kind of cut the fat out of that curriculum and really just focus on the skills they need to go to work,” Litterell says. “So from the day they start until the day they are employable is just a few months.” 

A Boon for Diversity: The Tulsa-based aerospace parts manufacturer Nordam was one of the first to take on new graduates from Tulsa Tech’s advanced mobility program. In addition to the new hires, the company is also planning to send existing employees to the program. 

Bailey Siegfried, vice president of culture, communication, and human resources at the company, says the partnership with Tulsa Innovation Labs has helped the company try new things to develop talent—including taking a chance on workers with less experience.

The company, Siegfried says, can hire people based on “character and initiative,” knowing it can immediately send them to a two-week training program at Tulsa Tech. Focusing less on existing aerospace experience has allowed Nordam to not only grow, but also diversify its workforce, since most Tulsans with previous experience are white men. 

“Working with [Tulsa Innovation Labs] allows for more creativity, flexibility, and also understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish, because it ultimately doesn’t hurt their feelings if we don’t go in a certain direction,” Siegfried says. “They’ll just find another way. They’re trying to solve the problem with us.” —By Colleen Connolly

Open Tabs

Economy Building
Federal policy innovation and local civic innovation have yielded a new, more ambitious form of economy building, write two researchers at Brookings Metro. Their report describes regional economic transformation strategies underway in Central New York, which were spurred by the CHIPS and Science Act, as well as Greater Tulsa’s “civic performance infrastructure.” A through line in the cited projects is the critical role of philanthropy as a catalyst and connector.

Released Funds
The Trump administration is releasing roughly $715M in congressionally appropriated adult basic education and workforce training funding it froze earlier this month, according to an Education Department document obtained by Mark Lieberman of Education Week. The department was reviewing the grants and more than $5B in K-12 funds, which it also is releasing. Community colleges had been facing cuts due to the paused grants.

Entry-Level Jobs
The job security advantage traditionally offered by earning a four-year degree has eroded dramatically in recent years, with the steepest effects concentrated across tech, business operations, and finance, finds a report from the Burning Glass Institute. AI is accelerating this trend, as the decline in entry-level job postings is concentrated in roles that are highly exposed to the technology. These structural challenges for recent graduates are likely to worsen, the report predicts.

Workforce Pell
The Education Department announced a negotiated rule-making committee to address implementation of the Workforce Pell provision as well as “institutional and programmatic accountability” and other issues related to the recently passed Republican domestic policy bill. The committee will hold the five-day session in December and January. The Education Design Lab’s Lisa Larson wrote for Community College Daily about how to make the short-term Pell Grant policy work.

AI and Community Colleges
Artificial intelligence offers transformative opportunities for community colleges to rapidly transition to educational models that reflect the future students will inhabit, says a report from a 13-member AI task force convened by Achieving the Dream. The report identifies core principles for creating an AI-enabled community college, including strategic deployment of the technology across marketing, student enrollment and retention, and for better alignment with the workforce.

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