AI Rec 9 Alignment

States should align education, workforce and economic development strategies to support AI skill readiness.

To ensure that state systems effectively prepare students and workers for an AI-driven economy, states should align their efforts across K-12 education, postsecondary institutions, workforce training systems and economic development agencies. This alignment is particularly critical as states administer programs authorized under key federal laws, including The Every Student Succeeds Act, Perkins V and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Coordination across these systems ensures investments are leveraged efficiently and collectively advance a cohesive AI readiness strategy. 

Establish a Cross-Agency State Leadership Team 

States should convene the cross-agency leadership team responsible for aligning workforce-related goals, data systems and training strategies across education and workforce sectors. At a minimum, this team should include representatives from the state education agency, the career and technical education office, the Higher Education Coordinating Board, the workforce development agency and the economic development agency. Its charge should include: 

• Defining a statewide workforce strategy aligned with priority industry sectors and regional labor market needs. 
• Ensuring common language and goals across ESSA, Perkins V and WIOA plans to support coordinated investment and implementation. 
• Identifying in-demand occupations and AI-related use cases through shared labor market data and employer engagement.
• Embedding the SREB AI Skill Framework — including success skills, industry baseline skills and technical skills — into state-level career pathways and credential strategies.

Align Training Programs to Skill Demands Informed by AI Use Cases 

Using feedback from industry partners, the state leadership team should guide the integration of AI-related competencies into career pathways and training programs at all levels.  

Definition: An AI use case refers to a specific way in which AI tools or systems are applied to solve a problem or perform a function within a particular industry or job role (for example, using AI for logistics forecasting, medical diagnostics or customer service automation). 

This includes:

• Convening state-level sector advisory groups (such as in health care, logistics or manufacturing) to examine how AI is transforming roles in each sector and to identify priority skills.
• Using employer feedback to define critical tasks, emerging tools and related AI-enhanced skill sets. 
• Cross-walking these skills with the SREB AI Skills Framework to identify gaps and inform revisions to education, workforce and credential programs. 
• Supporting K-12, postsecondary and workforce partners in updating curricula and professional learning based on these insights.

Strengthen Local Advisory Committees to Gather Granular Input  

Local Program Advisory Committees — especially those organized under the Perkins V Act — play a vital role in validating training content and ensuring its relevance to regional workforce needs. States should support these local bodies through the following steps. 

• Use the six components of the Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment as the foundation for your agenda. 
• Incorporate an added review component focused on AI and emerging technologies, asking local employers to reflect on how these changes affect in-demand skills and job roles. 
• Guide program design and revision by identifying local AI use cases, necessary credentials and employer-valued competencies for specific career pathways. 

Use Data Systems to Drive Planning and Program Improvement 

States should leverage integrated data systems to support continuous evaluation of AI-related education and workforce programs. These systems should: 

• Track outcomes for students and workers who have completed AI-enhanced training programs — monitoring employment, wage gains and skill attainment aligned to the descriptors in the SREB AI Skills Framework. 
• Compare credential data and labor market trends with the specific AI-related competencies embedded in new or revised programs to validate that training efforts are producing workforce-aligned results. 
• Identify areas where additional support or refinement is needed, including programs not yet yielding measurable results or where new AI developments are impacting job expectations.

Align Work under WIOA, Perkins and ESSA Plans 

Recently added federal flexibility now allows states to create unified plans for ESSA, WIOA, and Perkins if they choose. Unified planning can provide several benefits. First, unified planning allows states to align their strategies across the three federal laws. Second, this process helps align workforce development and education strategies, ensuring that programs and services are designed to support each other. Third, creating a unified plan reduces the administrative burdens for states and simplifies the submission process. Finally, aligning these efforts helps states create more effective pathways for students to transition into the workforce and for workers to acquire new skills, leading to better outcomes for individuals and the economy.  

Three SREB states currently have unified plans: Alabama, Delaware and Virginia. Georgia is currently working on their plan. 

Why This Matters 

Education and workforce systems must operate in concert to ensure learners are prepared for rapidly evolving job markets. By leveraging existing state-level coordination efforts and grounding their strategy in real-time labor market insights: 

• States can align programming with the workplace realities shaped by AI, ensuring that learners gain not just general knowledge but practical, in-demand competencies. 
• Employers provide critical input that helps shape the design of workforce-aligned training, making education and credentialing systems more responsive to technological change and more valuable to both learners and the industries they support. 

References 

Cushing, E. English, D. Susan Therriault, S. and Lavinson, R. (2019). Developing a College- and Career-Ready Workforce: An Analysis of ESSA, Perkins V, and WIOA. American Institutes for Research.  

Southern Regional Education Board, 2019. Three Federal Statutes, One State Plan Coordinating ESSA, Perkins V and WIOA to address rapidly evolving education and workforce needs. This policy brief examines strategies to align state plans for three federal statutes, the  Every Student Succeeds Act, Perkins V and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, to address rapidly evolving education and workforce needs and the steps states can take to streamline their K-12, CTE and workforce development systems.  

The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 is the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. 

The Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) is the federal law that provides funding and guidance for career and technical education (CTE) programs across the nation. Perkins brings changes to the $1.2 billion annual federal investment in career and technical education. Perkins provides new opportunities to improve CTE and enables more flexibility for states to meet the unique needs of their learners, educators, and employers. 

WIOA Regulations Deeper Dive: Combined State Plans (2015). The Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE). 

WIOA — The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act is the first federal legislative reform of the public workforce system since 1998 – signed into law on July 22, 2014. WIOA is designed to help job seekers access employment, education, training, and support services to succeed in the labor market and to match employers with the skilled workers they need to compete in the global economy.