Peevey CaAAL Budget Attachment
Word Document PDF Document

COM/MP1/paj/acb DRAFT Agenda ID 6729

CALIFORNIA ASPIRE ACHIEVE LEAD

PIPELINE PROJECT

(CaAAL)

Presented by

Peter Arth, Jr.

Chief of Staff to

Michael R. Peevey

President of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)

Ruthe Ashley

Diversity Officer for External Affairs

California Public Employment Retirement System (CalPERS)

Sarah E. Redfield

Visiting Professor

University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law

INTRODUCTION

Recognizing that California's labor market demands an increasing population of highly-educated workers and that diversity in that workforce is good for business, good for our communities, and enhances the confidence and credibility of what we do for our customers, clients, and partners, there is an urgent need for both immediate and long term strategic approaches to provide for educational opportunities leading to successful careers in the legal, investment/finance, technological, and public policy arenas.

Traditional approaches to diversity have failed to produce the expected results in our workforce. A paradigm shift in the approach to the lack of diversity is imperative to ensure that future generations are prepared. We cannot expect to employ educated workers who do not exist.

These workers cannot exist so long as diverse students are "leaking" out of the educational pipeline as early as 4th grade. Evidence shows that meaningful relationships, rigorous and engaging curricula, and high expectations are needed to slow these leaks and foster student success in school. Students need an early focus on critical thinking skills - logical/analytical thinking and comprehensive reading and writing skills. Students also need early and sustained interaction with professionals as mentors and role models. Such exposure creates aspirations in students to be all that they can be. High school and college intervention is often too late to create these important tools to success.

California's professional communities, including law, financial services, life sciences, and engineering, have the ideal capacity and responsibility to provide role models and assist in meeting these identified needs. Our professions partnering with the educational system in these arenas will produce the needed collaborative effort to "grow" our future. Other disciplines, particularly medicine, life sciences, and engineering, have been highly successful using the pipeline concept to diversify the pool of otherwise available candidates for their professions.

This pipeline project, the California Aspire Achieve Lead Pipeline Project (CaAAL Pipeline Project), is a creative statewide model that grew out of studies that show students of diverse backgrounds are failing early on to gain the tools that will lead to successful completion of higher education and thus are failing to be successful in a professional career. The pipeline, as conceived, extends from P20 (pre-school through graduate school) to advancement and retention in a chosen career.

CALIFORNIA PIPELINE HISTORY

In 2005, the State Bar of California created the Diversity Pipeline Task Force that focused on creating a resource of "best practices" of pipeline programs from preschool to the profession, P-20. These best practices met the standard of Continuity, Sustainability, Impact and Replicability (CSIR). The Bar's pipeline resources are intended to enable any entity to build and replicate pipeline programs in partnership with others and to assist in the creation of pipeline programs nationwide. Much of the State Bar's work is ready to be implemented. California's county bars and judiciary are involved in pipeline work through high level diversity summits and related projects; and the State's law schools are also active along the pipeline. The rich potential for using involved stakeholders and building on current activities makes the legal model a good first foray for CaAAL.

For the past two years, the CPUC has placed a particular focus on the failure of its major energy and telecommunications utilities to meet goals set by the Commission for procurement of legal and financial services from certified woman, minority, and disabled veteran-owned businesses (WMDVBEs). This focus has led to a strong commitment by the top management of these utilities to address the obstacles to meeting or exceeding the Commission's overall 21.5% goal for procurement from WMDVBEs,1including a commitment to address the "pipeline" problems as strategies are adopted to begin recruiting large numbers of employees to replace the growing wave of retiring Baby Boomers in the workforce.

For the past decade, CalPERS has focused on diversity efforts in its investment partners, managers, and brokers/dealers.  Although there has been an increase in the amount of investment dollars that emerging managers have received, CalPERS recognizes that diversity is a business imperative and is strongly committed to motivating, inspiring, supporting and encouraging its external partners to adopt its core value of diversity. CalPERS strives to ensure that the future of its workforce and leadership reflects the global market in which it is a significant player.  CalPERS is a long-term supporter and partner of the TOIGO Foundation, an organization created to increase diversity in financial services by awarding scholarships and providing mentors to MBA students of color preparing to enter the profession. TOIGO provides a model that is an important piece of the pipeline. Creating a pipeline is in complete harmony with CalPERS commitment to internal and external diversity.

MISSION AND GOALS

The mission of the CaAAL Pipeline Project is to create a collaborative partnership to provide a competent cadre of individuals ready to ensure the success of California's economic and political future. The CaAAL Pipeline Project's goals are to enhance the aspirations and capacity of California's students and to diversify the pool of otherwise available candidates for the workforce and leadership of the State. The vehicle will be the CaAAL Pipeline Project intended to close the achievement gap among California students along the educational pipeline spanning from preschool to the profession (P20).2

The founding partners for the CaAAL Pipeline Project are the:

In addition, these two agencies are seeking endorsements from:

ORGANIZATION

The CaAAL Pipeline Project will be organized as a California non-profit corporation with an arm called the California Pipeline Fund with 501(c)(3) status to focus on the fundraising aspect. Nominations for Board participation will be publicly sought (recommended initial board structure attached). Once organized, the Board will solicit support from other stakeholders, including issuing an RFP to identify a leading California university to serve as its educational partner and as the leading center on pipeline activities and evaluation in the state and nation.

Implementing the legal model in the first year offers the advantage of an already developed and ongoing initiative among various parts of the legal profession and the organizations which support it. Business communities have also begun to utilize successful pipeline model projects. The Robert Toigo Foundation plays a committed role in an existing pipeline program which connects underrepresented MBA students with the financial services community. This model will be used as a starting point for the financial services pipeline. For subsequent career paths, existing pipeline programs within industry sectors will be identified. The CaAAL Pipeline Project will consult the most knowledgeable experts and hold fact-finding sessions with major stakeholders; identify current ongoing programs and develop approaches for meaningful coordination; compile conclusions about best practices from both research and results of pilot projects and demonstration programs; develop matrices and templates that can be implemented by stakeholders and community groups in a variety of settings; and, most significantly, establish a culture of partnership and facilitate collaboration among existing projects and programs to incorporate best practices and achieve synergy to increase effectiveness.

PLAN AND TIMELINE

Collaborative work with teams committed to the effort has a demonstrated record of success in addressing issues along the educational pipeline and in closing the achievement gap.3 Career academies and career-oriented education also have demonstrated success.4 In these contexts, this is a big project that builds on such success in a statewide and mutually reinforcing way among professions; while some approaches will be unique to one field or another, many will have wide application and can offer efficiencies of scale.

As the CaAAL Pipeline Project develops its strategic outreach and support for pipeline programs, its role will be as convenor, capable organizer, recognized information source, educational innovator, valued and respected partner, careful funder, and credible monitor/evaluator. In these ways the CaAAL Pipeline Project's approach will bring partners together in many disciplines and career pathways statewide, sequentially matching professional teams and resources with educational endeavors in a career sequence, starting with the legal community in 2007. CaAAL's approach will support curricular programming; in an effort to provide structured support for families, CaAAL will also support before- and after-school programming designed to bolster its academic efforts.

With the existing work from the CPUC, CalPERS, the State Bar, and others, the timeline is:

Year 1 Implement pipeline for Legal profession

Year 2 Implement pipeline for Financial Services career path

Year 3 Implement pipeline for Technology profession

Year 4 Additional career sectors as determined by the Board with reference to the California Department of Education Career Technical Education pathways (CDE).5

RESOURCES

The CaAAL Pipeline Project recognizes that much work has already been done to address issues of disparity and achievement gaps along the educational pipeline. What has been missing is a coordinating structure to implement collaborative work. What is also needed is the funding to support this structure and roll out of its work sector by sector. Therefore, the CaAAL Pipeline Fund as our 501(c)(3) entity will focus on meeting the financial needs of the CaAAL Pipeline Project.

Funding will be drawn from the various professions and then built out with additional grants and match funding to support programmatic initiatives. For the first year and model, funding is projected at $1.3 million for the programmatic structure, with additional funding for the pool of matching grants (budget attached). The program amount will fund a CaAAL Executive Director, a Director for the law model, regional coordinators (five are anticipated), a partnership "angel", and supporting administrative staff and consulting services particularly for curriculum and evaluation. Also provided will be necessary office and overhead expenses and funding for professional development and travel for program staff and program participants statewide.

In each model, it is anticipated that the CaAAL Pipeline Fund will offer grant support for programs - based on sound research and proven track records - that demonstrate likelihood of the highest impacts in closing the achievement gap and that can be expanded or taken to scale. The CaAAL Pipeline Fund is projected to grow to $10 million per year with an ultimate goal of perpetual funding from an endowed fund. These amounts include the funds for operating the Pipeline Center. In addition to this proposal, funding will also be sought from foundations and others as appropriate for particular programs. One of the CaAAL Pipeline Fund's first employees will be modeled after the investment "angel" concept, i.e. a person who can identify and match programs with potential donors and supporters.

BRIEF RESEARCH BACKGROUND

Budget

ENDNOTES

Top Of Page