New joint guidance on WIOA performance reporting from the U.S. Departments of Labor (DOL) and Education demonstrates how eligible training providers (ETPs)—institutions like community colleges that provide education and training to WIOA participants—can connect with wage data to report on WIOA performance measures for employment and earnings.
The guidance makes it clear that a state education authority has the best chance to carry out the data sharing required with workforce agencies or other authorities responsible for wage records, through FERPA’s audit/evaluation exception. This education authority, be it a higher education governing board, state longitudinal data system or other agency, would report de-identified, aggregate wage data back to ETPs. In addition, public ETPs could also receive individual-level wage data, while private institutions would not be able to access individual-level data without establishing a further relationship with a designated authority in the state.
In addition to wage records, final WIOA regulations allow the use of other data sources for performance reporting of employment and earnings. The regulations also encourage states to use a common definition of what it means to “exit” a program, across all WIOA programs. This common exit should eventually become the norm.
The final regulations cleared up a few outstanding questions on what performance measures will be calculated, in addition to those specified in law:
- The rate of entrance into employment for participants who were not employed prior to program entry will be calculated by DOL for informational purposes only
- The rate of employment retention will be calculated by DOL for informational purposes only
- The proposed measure on quality of employment was eliminated as overly burdensome
Further information on performance reporting is available at https://doleta.gov/performance/reporting/eta_default.cfm.
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