US Department of Labor announces nearly $12 million in grants to states to improve quality of workforce data

WASHINGTON – Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis today announced approximately $12 million in grants awarded through the second round of funding under the Workforce Data Quality Initiative. The funds will enable 12 additional states to build or expand longitudinal databases of workforce data and link them to education data to help improve the overall performance of workforce development programs.

"The states awarded in this second round of funding now will be able to develop high-quality, long-term data that will provide consumers, practitioners and policymakers with comprehensive information about the relationship between education and workforce development programs," said Secretary Solis.

This grant opportunity stems from the administration's focus on access to high-quality data and is a sister initiative to the U.S. Department of Education's Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems grants for building longitudinal education databases.

Grantees will be expected to use these longitudinal databases to conduct research and analysis aimed at determining the effectiveness of workforce and education programs to better inform customers of the publicly funded workforce system.

Grantees will be expected to achieve multiple goals during the three-year grant period. These include developing or improving state workforce longitudinal data systems with individual-level information; enabling workforce data to be matched with education data to create longitudinal data systems; improving the quality and breadth of the data in the workforce data systems; using longitudinal data to provide useful information about program operations; analyzing the performance of education and employment training programs; and providing user-friendly information to consumers to help them select the training and education programs that best suit their needs.

The 12 states receiving funds are Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Washington. Thirteen states received funds under the first round of grants: Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. The first round grantees were not eligible to apply for the second round of funding.

For more information on the new grantees, visit http://www.doleta.gov/Performance/workforcedatagrant09.cfm.

Editor's note: A list of new grantees, their locations and award amounts follows this news release.