The Institute for Workforce Competitiveness is a designated National Technical Assistance Provider for the National STW Initiative and is authorized to offer services in the following areas.  We also provide services to other local, state and national clients. Contact us at xiwc@fiu.edu.

Areas of Expertise
Accomplishments and Achievements
Methodology, Strategies and Approaches
Publications, Products and Services
Selected Previous and Current Clients

Areas of Expertise:

Evaluation/Continuous Quality Improvement

The Institute for Workforce Competitiveness helps partnerships improve their programs through evaluation and continuous quality improvement efforts.  We offer complete on-site third-party program evaluation services.  If you have more limited needs, we can also assist with any individual component of evaluation, such as evaluation planning, customized instrumentation, data collection and analysis, and reporting.   In addition, we provide workshops for developing your partnership's evaluation leadership, technical skills, and ability to use data for informed decision-making.  As always, we provide practitioners' tools such as evaluation design guides, custom templates and checklists.

Partnership Development

The Institute for Workforce Competitiveness strengthens partnerships through board development, strategic planning and team-building activities.  We can provide customized "how-to" workshops, or facilitate working sessions with your partnership personnel.  We strongly believe in providing tools such as planning guides and worksheets that will move your partnership forward.  We have developed assessment instruments such as STW Readiness, Leadership Team Effectiveness and the STW Sustainability Self-Assessment.  Depending on your needs, we can also assist you with customized instruments, data collection and data analysis.

Professional Development

The Institute for Workforce Competitiveness offers a range of services to assist partnerships in providing quality professional development for members.  We develop needs assessment instruments, conduct assessments, and make recommendations.  We also provide customized professional development seminars and self-study learning modules (print or electronic), and custom evaluation of your professional development activities.

Products and Services in Spanish

The Institute for Workforce Competitiveness has bilingual staff who can provide any of the above products and services in Spanish.

Accomplishments and Achievements:

The personnel at the Institute for Workforce Competitiveness (IWC) have served as third-party evaluators and consultants for School-to-Work and/or Tech Prep to states/territories, agencies, and local Florida partnerships.   Past clients include the States of Florida, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Louisiana, Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky, New York, and the Territory of Puerto Rico; and agencies such as Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., National Center for Research in Vocational Education, U. S. Department of Education, U. S. Department of Labor, National Association of Partners in Education, National Alliance of Business, MPR Associates Inc. and others.

The IWC has developed and operated statewide evaluation systems for career academies, Tech Prep consortia, and STW partnerships. Over seventy tech-prep and school-to-work site visits have been conducted by IWC staff.  The continuous quality improvement evaluation model and procedures developed by Institute staff have been adopted by the state of Florida.

The IWC serves Florida as the coordinator/provider of statewide professional development services.  In the past two years (1996--1998), professional development activities were provided for over 1,300 Florida School-to-Work stakeholders.

Other completed projects include baseline data collection, analysis and reporting; professional development activities; development and analysis of state and local self-study and self-reporting documents; development and analysis of evaluation instruments; STW sustainability Report on Selected States; STW sustainability Self-Assessment Template.

Methodology, Strategies, and Approach:

The Institute for Workforce Competitiveness (IWC) believes that technical assistance, professional development, and evaluation practices should be based on the client's needs, research and theory, and proven best practices. All training materials and assessment tools developed have a strong conceptual base and focus on practical applications.   Recognizing that clients often have limited time and resources, the IWC's technical assistance services often include user-friendly tools such as guides, worksheets, and instruments that practitioners can put to immediate use.  Research methodologies include case study, survey, interview/observational studies, on-site consultation, evaluation studies, and information analyses.

The IWC believes in a collaborative technical assistance process.  Practitioners, state-level Departments of Education, local and regional governing school boards, and business-industry are equal partners in long-lasting relationships that develop solutions to pressing educational issues and questions. The Institute is committed to using a continuous quality improvement (CQI) model for evaluation of STW, Tech Prep, and career academies. A CQI focus ensures the development of benchmarks, quality indicators, and a process that leads to increasingly better programs and systems.

Publications, Products, and Services:

The Institute for Workforce Competitiveness has developed numerous guidebooks, manuals, and assessment forms. A partial list includes products such as:

• Sustaining STW Systems:  A Report on Selected States
• STW Sustainability Self-Assessment Template
• Comprehensive STW Readiness Questionnaire
• Continuous Quality Improvement Evaluation Model, Matrix, and Training Manual
• Site Visit Procedures and Self-Study Protocol
• Statewide STW Professional Development Needs Assessment and Regional Analysis
• STW Quarterly Narrative Reports
• Tech Prep Evaluation Model
• Team Leadership Effectiveness Survey
• En Español:  (1) Guía Para la Planificación Estratégica, y (2) Guía Para la Planificación de la Evaluación

Professional development activities for STW stakeholders have been designed based on needs assessment surveys. The Institute for Workforce Competitiveness has developed customized workshops in the following areas:

• Evaluation/Continuous Quality Improvement for School-to-Work
• Building Partnerships/Liaisons among Business, Education and the Community
• Site Visit Protocol
• Work-based Learning Strategies
• Evaluation Management Using Project Management Software

Because of the expertise of our staff, additional products or services are available for tailored development such as:

• In-service education products (print or electronic formats) on workplace mentor training, evaluation of work-based learning, and continuous quality improvement
• In-service activities on board development and operation, team-building, worksite development, career academies, High Schools That Work assessment, school-based enterprises, Jobs For America's Graduates reporting system
• STW partnership internal evaluation, board development, team-building strategies, and strategic plan development
• Research on STW issues
• Statewide STW Evaluation capability
• Data collection and report generation for STW Progress Measures
• Spanish translation and development of materials

Selected Previous and Current Clients:

Institute personnel have served as third-party evaluators and consultants for School-to-Work and/or Tech Prep to states/territories, agencies, and local partnerships.

Current and recent clients include groups such as:

• Florida Department of Education
• Hawaii School-to-Work Initiative
• National Alliance of Business
• Puerto Rico School-to-Work Initiative
• Training and Employment Council of South Florida (Cordis/Johnson & Johnson "Bridge to Employment" program)

Contact Information

Florida International University
University Park, EAS-2614
Miami, FL 33199

Phone: 305-348-6529
Fax: 305-348-6524
E-mail: xiwc@fiu.edu