AEFLA RFAs in your state?

Hi all, 

I'm in Colorado and our AEFLA RFA was just announced last week by Colorado Department of Education. We are all pretty surprised by some of the restrictions for even meeting the initial eligibility requirements. We believe (just based on the information available to us) very few current programs (maybe six) may meet the initial eligibility requirements. Based on past four years of data, even the state of Colorado as a whole would not meet these requirements. 

We are struggling to get any sense of a data match with work force and higher education to see if we can show our numbers through data match meet the requirements. We do not get access to these data match numbers. 

Do any of you in other states have worries such as this? Ideas about how to go about appealing a decision like this? 

Thanks!

Stephanie

Comments

Thanks, Stephanie, for posting these questions about  WIOA Title II (AEFLA) Requests for Application (RFAs) in other states. I would appreciate some more information. What are some of the (new?) restrictions for meeting the initial eligibility requirements for states and for programs?

You wrote, "We are struggling to get any sense of a data match with work force and higher education to see if we can show our numbers through data match meet the requirements. We do not get access to these data match numbers."

I am told that many states now track high school graduates' workforce and/or higher education outcomes data. However, I only know of one state that is trying to track adult basic skills students' workforce or higher education outcomes. Are you sure that Colorado does this? I would be surprised, because of privacy concerns, that you could get individuals' matching data, but researchers may be able to get aggregate data for their studies, and the state may publish aggregate matching data, at least for high school graduates.

Everyone, since the LINCS Program Management group is a community of practice, and one of the values of a community such as this is that we share our experiences to help each other improve what we are doing, I hope several people here will try to answer Stephanie's two questions. It might also help Stephanie to know how your program handles the requirements for tracking your  students' or graduates' employment data . For example, do you survey your graduates? If so, how do you do that? By telephone? by text message? By telephone? In some other way?  Is it difficult to reach them?

Stephanie's questions:

1. "Do any of you in other states have worries such as this?"

2. "Ideas about how to go about appealing a decision like this?"

David J. Rosen, Moderator

LINCS Program Management groupo