The Skills-Based Redemption: Upgrading Badges into Real HR Currency

The Skills-Based Redemption: Upgrading Badges into Real HR Currency

by InstructureCast

• Why silos are normal and bridges, not demolition, are the goal.
• The four moving parts of a working system: demand, recognition, gaps, and matching.
• How data built for compliance fails the workers and employers it's supposed to serve.
• Why most digital badges carry only a school name, a program name, and a date.
• Sean's own transcript: three remarkable quarters, recorded as 15 credits each.
• What skills-based hiring got wrong, and why a degree stays legally defensible.
• Skills as a language of learning, employment, and service, not a degree replacement.
• The people the system forgets: everyone between school and unemployment.
• One thing a registrar or CTE program can start on this semester.

• https://bipartisanpolicy.org/hub/ai-and-workforce-navigator/
• https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/a-nation-at-risk-to-a-nation-at-work-the-case-for-a-national-talent-strategy/

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• The Skills-Based Redemption: Upgrading Badges into Real HR Currency
  Welcome to Educast 3,000. It's the most transformative time in the history of education.
  
  So join us as we break down the fourth wall and reflect on what's happening. The good, the bad, and even the chaotic. Here's your hosts, Melissa Lobel and Ryan Lufkin.
  
  Hello and welcome to Educast three thousand. I'm your co host, Ryan Lufkin. I'm joined this week by a very special co host from our running strategy team.
  
  Thank you, Ryan. I'm this week's co host, Tracy Weeks. Ryan and I are excited to chat with our guest today, Sean Murphy.
  
  Sean is the director of workforce and post secondary pathways at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Super excited about that.
  
  And there he works on policy connecting education to employment.
  
  He came to that role from Walmart and before that from the public workforce system and Capitol Hill. Sean, welcome to the show.
  
  Yeah. Thank you both. I'm excited to to be joining here today.
  
  Absolutely.
  
  Well, Sean, before we get into today's conversation, can you tell our audience a little more about yourself and your current role?
  
  Yeah. So you said it well and kinda where I've come from, but having joined, bipartisan policy now a little over two months ago. It's been exciting. You know, I I always joke with people.
  
  I I found the restroom, and I'm starting to figure out where where everyone sits and learn some names. But, we've been diving in. I mean, I think as an organization, we just have this ability to be able to, you know, really convene the kind of conversations, complete the kind of research, and ultimately provide kind of the the education necessary to pull the folks together that really need to be a part of a solution that I know we're gonna dive into more today as it relates to workforce. And, you know, I recently said this on a post where I think we spend so much time trying to break down silos when really what we need to be doing is building better bridges between them.
  
  That silos are a natural occurrence of all systems. And that's just reality of people. Right? And that's okay.
  
  We just need to figure out how we build better bridges. And that's what I really see our opportunity here as we move forward is really building off the work the leaders have been doing for the last couple of years, building off our commission report we relaunched in March, and really building the bridges between the the pieces of the puzzle.
  
  Yeah. I love that analogy. Shav, one thing before we dive into all the questions. One thing we always like to ask our guests is for a favorite learning moment, and this can be a moment where you were a teacher or a learner, but one of those that stands out from your past.
  
  I have seen... Having been in workforce and education for so long now. I I feel like I have a lot just as I think anybody does even if you're not in workforce. But, you know, one of them that sticks out, and I've told this story a number of times to folks, is not long out of college.
  
  I had gone back to the town where my college was and saw some of my friends that still lived in the area. And and one of my friends who I'll leave nameless, he didn't finish college. And he was really struggling to figure out what's next And kind of bounced around, did some bartending, did some construction, did some oil change work. Right? He was bouncing around. You know? But this is a guy who came from a small town, had two parents who were both attorneys, and it was expected he go to college.
  
  And, you know, I'll never forget one of the moments where he...
  
  We were in the car driving and he said, you know, I'm just not as smart as the rest of you guys. Right? We had a good group of friends, most of which completed college. And he said, I'm just not as smart as you all.
  
  And I looked at him and I was actually kind of annoyed. And I looked at him and I said, it's not about you being smart or not. It's not about us being smarter. It's about the fact you're a different kind of learner.
  
  And I gave the example in that moment. I said, look, if I gave you my car stereo without any directions and said, please go put it in my car, you would have it in my car in a couple hours tops, and it would work well. It would work great, and I would have no concerns. You gave me that same stereo without directions.
  
  I would have the dash taken apart. It never would have been put in. And I said, we're just different learners. We're different styles.
  
  And although I would argue I'm more of a hands on learner than not, we show it differently. And he ultimately was the first of our friend group, I'm fairly certain to be making 6 figures in a role where he's a diesel mechanic, right? And he does really well for himself in where he's at today. And although we've lost touch in the last number of years, I give that example of the fact that we've got to do a better job of how we connect people to what the opportunities are, how we connect them to their own interests and kind of aptitude and how they learn.
  
  And, you know, his story is really kind of solidified for me some of what we've done or what I've been able to do in some of my career over the last number of years.
  
  Well, and his story is... So I have a friend who is a very, very similar story. Different name, very similar story. I've heard Tracy does as well. It's funny how we all have those people who went kind of the divergent path and because they learned differently or they had different skills, they may not have... They they didn't think they were successful, right, in... Initially. And and many of them found their path to doing much more, you know, impactful things.
  
  Yeah. And it's part of my concern. Know we're gonna talk about this, but it's part of my concern in that we have over indexed to things like you gotta go to college. Right?
  
  And now you're starting to see it kind of turn back to, well, the trades and all these other things. We've just...
  
  We've gotta do a better job of communicating what opportunities look like for people. And so they don't feel like that scenario of I'm dumb. I didn't do well in high school, so I'm dumb. Or I'm...
  
  When it's farthest from the truth. Yeah. Absolutely. So anyway.
  
  Right. And you know, that really...
  
  That makes me think, Sean, as a former educator too, and former high school educator that, you know, one of the reasons we over indexed on that college is that it really did become, we were determining if kids should go to the college or the trades route. And we were, as a profession, tying that to ability and intelligence and such, rather than to intelligence in the way that you're describing it. Right? And their ability, skill level, and frankly, Right?
  
  Yep. You know, so a 100%. Well, Sean, let's dig into some things. Like you've worked this same problem from four different seats as we've talked about.
  
  You know, local workforce board placing veterans and justice involved youth, into jobs. Staff work for a senator and a governor. Pretty good. Corporate philanthropy at Walmart and now policy at BPC.
  
  Which seat of those gave you the clearest view of why the system doesn't work?
  
  See, I can't give the, like... I can't pick one. As much as I love my current role, and maybe I should say it's this seat, it's the combo of all of them. I really... I think one of the words I often use in my journey is privilege.
  
  And I say that from a lens of I've had such the privilege to work in these different types of roles that all tie back to the work that I'm doing today that gives me a perspective and gives me a a view into the world that I think just inherently becomes more holistic than many people are able to bring. Not because, again, I'm smarter than them or have some sort of inside knowledge that people don't have, but I've been able to see it from lots of different angles. And I think that's the part that becomes so impactful. Right?
  
  Being in the weeds, sitting across from students who have made mistakes and are trying to figure out what to do next to working with transitioning military. And so being able to be on the ground and see it from those perspectives, but then to raise up and be in philanthropy where you can really see, right, this opportunity to really work on system level change, right? And thinking about it from that perspective where not only am I able to be in rooms with all of these amazing organizations doing really good work, but I get to see it from an angle of building a strategy that ultimately allows us to fund those organizations in the first place.
  
  And then, you know, to be in these rooms from a policy lens where philanthropy can allow you to really test innovative ideas and to take it a certain way, but at the same time, as challenge to scale. And so now to be back in this seat where I get to be in rooms that can really be thinking about how policy can help scale and incentivize promising and exciting ideas that can really transform our system. So it's really all of them and that blend that I get excited about and that I'm so excited to be back in this kind of policy world that can take all that learning and hopefully feed it into impact in a new way.
  
  Yeah. That that holistic perspective is amazing. And one of the cool things about your new role is that it puts workforce and postsecondary pathways together. Right? Those used to be kind of separate worlds with separate funding streams, separate data, separate vocabulary. What does it tell us that they're now one job? They've merged.
  
  When you think of the system overall, and when I say the system, I'm meaning all components of the system, not just the public workforce system or not just education, not just employers. I think of four key elements of the system, and that is we need to understand what the job demand is. We need to recognize what people skills, what skills they have. We need to be able to clearly articulate where they can fill their gaps, and we need to match them to opportunity.
  
  Now there's an underlying element of data, and I know we're gonna talk more about that. But, you know, those are the four pieces, and no one partner can solve for all four of them. You need to be able to have education at the table. You need to be able to have employers being transparent about not only the skills they need today, and some of that means reimagining job descriptions in a way that clearly articulate the kind of task and skills that they need, but also hopefully having them either collectively in industry associations or within individual employers, they'll articulate what do they need in three to five years, not just what do they need today.
  
  And then you get into the training providers. Right? I I think, you know, this is one of the things that I've joked about with all of my kind of post secondary friends is that I had the great privilege of being able to go get my four year degree. It was something that I will say I had to push to get through in the end, because I was really ready to kind of move on.
  
  It wasn't always the kind of learning format that was best for me. And at the same time, I then went on later and spent a lot of money on an MBA program. And I'm so glad I did that. But now what do I get is I get all the requests for alumni money.
  
  Right? And what I've joked is like, what if we reimagine and really what if those institutions that I'm so privileged to have been a part of, what if they're a part of my journey for my entire career, right? And how do we rethink that? And so I think that's where, as I...
  
  You know, as we talked about in the last question of how this ability to kinda see the overall system, now get to sit in this role where I get to blend these things in a way that says, let's break down those silos in a way that we have real bridges between them, and let's make sure we understand that all of us have a role in making that system work, not just for today, but for tomorrow. And and I'll add something to that is that, you know, there's so much going on right now with AI, AI, AI. Right? And in no way do I wanna be tone deaf to the changes that AI is bringing.
  
  I also want to be a part of thinking how AI can be a part of this solution, not just kind of the the question on disruption. But the reality is innovation and disruption have been a part of our economic system forever, it will always be a part of our system. And so what we have to make sure we're doing is building a system that has those four things I mentioned that really work across all innovation and disruption because whether it's disruption or innovation at a national level, whether it's disruption in a new plant or a closing plant at a local level, or you're talking about an individual, those four things have demand, recognition of skills, upskilling to meet the gap, and to be able to match the talent are true among all four of those.
  
  And and that's where we've gotta make sure all those partners are at the table helping to bring that together. And I'm hoping we can do that not only for myself and my role, but across our team.
  
  Yeah. Love that.
  
  Alright. Sean, you mentioned earlier the publication that VPC put out in March, A Nation at Risk to a Nation at Work. And Margaret Spellings, who many may remember as a former US Secretary of Education, summed it up as America does not lack talent, it lacks strategy. Now you were part of the work behind it. What's an argument you had to win to get something into that blueprint?
  
  So I'll be selfish in this and only that, you know, I, of course, was a part of that work when I was still with Walmart. And one of our senior executives sat on the full commission. And then I sat within the...
  
  One of the work groups. And one of the work groups I focused on was around data. I think what is really key is that the understanding and the need for data goes all the way at the top of our organization. Margaret, you mentioned her past work, which goes well beyond just sitting in that seat, but she has a real understanding of the need for data and how important that is.
  
  And so it was baked into one of the work groups. And at the same time, having been in all those work group meetings and talking about data, it's amazing as you think about that on how the different perspectives play out in data and what did that mean to really build that in? And I would say today, in that report, I'm proud of kind of the focus that was put in the report around data, and we have more work to do, right? And that's understood here and that we need to take what was talked about in data and there and go even deeper and richer in that in a way that really puts at the center of the data work, the actual people we're trying to impact, right?
  
  Workers and employers. We've got to center our data work on them. I think a lot of the work historically around data has been about compliance. And while that's important, that fuels research, that fuels government decision making, we've got to center this work on individuals.
  
  And I think you started seeing that shine through in the commission report is a need to focus on these customers, these individuals, right? These employers in a way that says, let's really center on them. Let's think about how we can better articulate using data, what people know, what they can do, connect their dots, right? As we was just having a conversation about the public workforce system, having been a part of that system in my past, I saw some of the most amazing counselors working with individuals, but they didn't always have the tools they needed to not only help people at scale, but also to personalize the kind of efforts they need to do.
  
  And so I would say data is for sure, for me, the part that I was most excited about to be a part of, but also to see it in the report and to start to really see the focus on serving individuals and employers, not just the compliance.
  
  I love that. I love that. For our listeners, we'll actually post a link to the the report, a nation at risk to a nation at work. We'll repost that in the show notes as well. But building a little bit on the data that you're talking about, the report actually calls for a a talent data system that tracks how workers progress plus support for portable credentials. We see universities are sitting on transcripts, grade books, badge records, all sorts of those, you know, stackable credentials that have emerged and kind of expanded greatly post COVID. What has to be true, you know, before we get a system that... In place, you know, the political challenges, the technical challenges that we've got to overcome to get there?
  
  Yes. It's a really good question. You know, I know a lot of your audience is gonna be the postsecondary community, though I know it's much wider than that. Look.
  
  They're busy. I got a lot going on. They've got challenges. They've got, you know, enrollment needs.
  
  They've got all the things that play out in their world that is not lost on us. Right? And at the same time, I think there has to be this conversation around the fact that all of them are providing such a value proposition for our overall workforce system. And I'm not always certain that's clearly understood once it's translated outside of the systems.
  
  And I'll never forget this. I was in a meeting, and now it's been probably four years ago, and we were talking about the postsecondary community. I was talking to somebody in the postsecondary world who was starting to really engage in data as it relates to the talent data system as we're talking about here. And she just said something real simple.
  
  Was like, oh my gosh, no kidding. It's about communicating value. Yeah. Right? And how do we help institutions who are busy?
  
  How do we help training providers better communicate the value they're providing to students? I'll give this example and that, I often joke that my senior year of college was my dream senior year.
  
  And that I spent a quarter in DC interning for a US senator and then had an opportunity to intern for the next quarter in Olympia for the state legislature and then had a chance to go abroad for my final quarter. What an amazing senior year.
  
  Does sound amazing.
  
  At the same time, if you look at my transcript, I had 15 credits a quarter. It doesn't talk about really those internships. It doesn't really talk about what I learned in being abroad for a quarter. Right?
  
  It doesn't tell an accurate story. And so it was left to me to ultimately articulate all of that I learned. Right? When in all reality, that institution gave me such an amazing opportunity to get a hands on experience, not only in The US, but globally, that it really rounded out my education in a way that launched my career.
  
  And I would say I wouldn't be where I'm at today without those kind of opportunities. And so that's where I think as we think about a talent data system, we not only, as I said in my last answer, have to center on who we're focused on, but we also have to recognize those that are a part of being in that system need to also see value as well. And so, you know, that grounds us. I think the other part of this is we then have to kind of get into the brass tacks.
  
  Data is not always sexy to most people. I get excited by it, but it's just not. Right? Yeah.
  
  It's the boring stuff behind the cool AI. It's the boring stuff behind big policy decisions. Right? And at the same time, there's a lot of dialogues that I'm in where everyone just says, well, we need more data.
  
  For what? Like what is it used for? So I think what's key about all of this in kind of turning the tide to where we need to go is we need to be really clear about who we're serving, what data is needed to serve them, what tools are available to be able to procure that in a way that makes sense within our current systems while continuing to modify. Because you don't get to like flip off the lights and put on a new system tomorrow per se, right?
  
  You know, maybe you build a new platform, but it's still, you can't just flip off the lights and start something new. And so if we can be clear on those things, then you can actually use policy. You can use incentives to scale it and then really double down on ensuring quality of the data is there, right? Because it's, you know, I've often talked about a digital badge, which is a part of the overall solution from an LER standpoint, has lots of capabilities.
  
  But for the most part, the only information in most of those digital badges out there is the name of the school, the name of the program, and when you finished. When in all reality, there's so much data that could have gone into that that can help feed and inform future efforts in learning or in your career. Right?
  
  And telling that story. Values, like, derived from the reputation of the school as opposed to what was actually learned. Right?
  
  Yeah. Which I have nothing against. You know? I got a a couple of high level schools on my record that I'd love to be able to talk about. But at the same time, just because I went there doesn't mean I know more than somebody else, and we're not we're not positioning people to be able to to articulate that, let alone the fact that whether you got a degree at 22, you get one later in life, or you never get one. We're always learning, and so much of that learning is really left to us as individuals to be able to communicate versus really thinking about the system change that allows us to tell a much stronger story that often will shift back to the institutions that help us learn in the first place.
  
  Yeah. Exactly. Love that.
  
  So, Sean, at Walmart, you funded work on learner and employment records and skills infrastructure. Right? Yeah. So this is the philanthropy versus policy kind of seat.
  
  So philanthropy can fund a pilot and tolerate a failure, but policy doesn't do that so well.
  
  So what did you learn as a funder that you're now trying to get in the statute?
  
  Yeah. So, you know, I joined Walmart in 2019.
  
  The American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, I think that's what it was called at the time, commission, anyway, board commission, whatever it was called, was well underway. We had senior leaders involved in that work. Right? If you remember right, that was the last... That was the first Trump administration, and it was really starting to ask questions of what was possible. One of the things started focusing on within one of the sub work groups was around the idea of learning and employment records. And while that work had really been going on for years, right? I mean, badging has been around for what, don't know, twelve, fifteen years, something like that, that it started to put some attention on some of that work in a way that you hadn't seen employers and and major organizations like IBM and and WGU and and others that were involved in that work.
  
  That really allowed me within my role, which was trying to answer the question of how do we better support workers in communicating what they know? And so in trying to answer that, saw the LERs could be a part of that solution, right? Because as I remind people, I'll say, ask people what the program that are, I'm doing this badging program. I'm like, okay, first of all, it's not a badging program.
  
  A badge is merely the format of which you share the information. It's not the actual program. Right? You can have a credential without a badge.
  
  You cannot have a badge without a credential. Right? And so, you know, ultimately, though, in this work, it was said, how do we create a system that allows people to communicate what they can do and what they know and they can do in a way that can be scaled? And so had an opportunity to fund a number of amazing organizations, everyone from the US Chamber Foundation to OneAdTech to CredentialEngine to Comptonite Based Education Network, CBEN, the listing go on.
  
  DCC, the Digital Credentials Consortium. Right? So many amazing organizations, many of which I just left off doing work in this space. And so I was able to, Tracy, as you mentioned, really fund innovation in a way that you're not gonna do with, you know, traditional government funding.
  
  Right? And fund ideas, fund things. And so one of the things we really learned through that effort is you've got to center on what the value creation is. Right?
  
  A digital badge, if you can't do anything with the badge as a form of sharing that information, then it's really no different than the credential that you printed off and they put on your mom's fridge. Right?
  
  You've really...
  
  If a digital badge is gonna have real value, if an LER is gonna have real value, you need to be able to connect it into systems that can use that data that gives you value. And whether that is into HRIS systems for a job application, whether that's into SIS systems to be able to apply to future programming, whether that's into a career navigation platform, like some of the work you're seeing in states with the talent marketplaces, You've gotta be able to do that. And so now in my current role, I think we've seen a lot of promising models. We've seen real momentum.
  
  We've seen a lot of those organizations I mentioned off earlier who kind of had their head down, getting their piece of the puzzle done. Now where everyone's raising up kinda going, oh, wait. We can actually bring this together, and we can start to solve for that. And so one example of that is, for example, the match act that was put together by representative Owens, which is a piece of legislation that really starts to bring together the idea of what LERs, what talent marketplaces, what these things could do if they were brought together collectively, and you start to see them at scale.
  
  And so that's where we're really be focusing on whether it's a match act or other pieces of legislation that can help to scale this type of work at a level that really drives impact.
  
  Well, and we actually started to see some great headlines around skill based hiring. So we saw major employers pulling the degree off of their job requirements.
  
  The reality though is the skills based hiring didn't quite match the momentum those deadlines implied. How do we do... Where do we go from here? How do we actually start driving more of this?
  
  I think it's fascinating as we think back on skill...
  
  As we think about where we're at with today on skills, where we've been, I often say that the idea of skills is not new. We have always been about skills. Right? When you hire somebody, you're thinking about what skills they have in the hiring process.
  
  We've always thought about that. But, you know, I think a couple of things that has played out in a way that one, you know, as we think about the proxies that we most often use, you named one of them, Ryan, right, is that a degree is a proxy for skills, is that's legally defensible. And some of the folks over at SHRM have often talked about the fact that, if I go to hire somebody and I hire somebody with a degree and they don't work out, nobody's gonna blame me. If I hire somebody without a degree and kind of using all of their skills and they don't work out, then I took some sort of path that is different and maybe it's my fault.
  
  Right? And so I think this is where it's key as we think about this work, we've got to realize that everyone's been skills based forever, but now what we're talking about is validated skills. We're talking about expanding the number of proxies out that we're using everything from short term credentials to a degree. Degrees will always be a key part of our work, but we also have to recognize that people are learning in lots of different ways, lots of modalities.
  
  People are learning or being self taught in new innovative ways that go beyond kind of the world of the past. People are learning on the job in ways that are new and different. And because of innovations, we're also needing to learn new skills more often at a more rapid pace. And so this is where as we move forward, we've got to recognize that skills also is not some sort of thing that you can talk about generically across all of the hiring elements.
  
  Right? The folks in workforce planning need to talk about skills differently than those that are hiring, yet there still needs to be an overlap. And so this is where I think it's gonna be key for us to recognize skills as a language of learning. It's not a replacement for degrees.
  
  It's a language of learning employment and service, right? It's a way to communicate our learnings in a way that can be transcended to others. It's a way that ultimately allows us to tell our story in a much more complete way that will require real practice change, real change management across all of our systems and not some sort of just rinse and repeat or we're gonna replace the old system with a new system type of model.
  
  Yeah, I think a lot of people go there. It's a great way to articulate it.
  
  So, alright, speaking into the skills piece there, so BPC, your work sets the goal as every adult getting the skills and credentials they need. So every adult is very different than every 18 year old, even though 18 year olds are adults.
  
  But what, you know, when we think about traditional higher education, what breaks in higher ed when you take that adult version very seriously?
  
  Yeah. So, I mean, what I will communicate from a BPC standpoint, we're thinking about the full continuum, right? I've got a colleague focused on the K-twelve side. We're starting to talk about the bridges between those things, right?
  
  I'm focused on the more of the adult population, though I would suggest that goes to 18. It's just we have some overlap there. We've got another colleague really focused on kind of more of the, like the family type of benefits that become important childcare, leave, those kinds of things. So we're thinking about it holistically.
  
  But to your question, I am focused on the adults. And what I often talk about is the fact that we spend a lot of money on preparing people to learn on how to learn, right? That's where most of our money, whether it's K-twelve, whether it's post secondary, that's where most of our money goes is in preparing people to learn how to learn. We throw a decent amount of money at people and programs that help people when they're out of work, but we don't do a great job of everyone in between, right?
  
  We leave it up to chance for everybody in the middle. We leave it up to the three of us to go explain for ourselves what we can do or what we have done in the past or what we think we can do in the future. And while there'll always be an element of that needing to be there, we lose a lot of opportunity because of the fact that there's a lot lost in translation. There's a lot lost in not being able to connect people at the right time to the right jobs or to the right training.
  
  And so I think it's really important as we think about a future is that it's got a little bit where I was talking about in the last question, right, is that we've gotta think about how we reimagine how we show up in the post secondary world to serve people throughout their careers. And some of that may be direct teaching, right, in programs, whether it's online, whether it's in the classroom, but some of it might just be validating the skills people are learning elsewhere. Right? Some of that might be that third party documentation of that program that somebody did that was maybe a a volunteer project, right, that they could bring to an institution to help provide that validation, that ability to turn that into a proxy that now all of a sudden becomes a legally defensible type of tool to say, hey, I hired them because they showed in this project that they did as a volunteer that then was validated by the local institution.
  
  That seriously changed the game. Right? And it also, what I would throw at to post secondary world is it opens you up to a whole new set of dollars. Right?
  
  It opens you up to thinking about how you're serving people. So maybe instead of begging me for alumni money after I already gave you a whole lot of money, maybe what you're doing is rethinking that I'm gonna have maybe a subscription model that I can continue to learn from you or have you validate my skills. Right? I'm just throwing out ideas, but, like, what are those ways we can reimagine learning throughout your lifetime recognizing that we can't stop learning just because we finished a degree or we got a credential?
  
  Well, and Tracy and I talk about it a lot. You know, our kids are both of the of the YouTube generation. And the thing... I mean, they're microlearning on YouTube. The... My son took apart his... The steering column on his '2 thousand four Runner the other day, and he taught himself how to do it online. So those, how he build that into that process.
  
  Yeah. And, you know, the thing is if he was to go...
  
  If he decides I wanna work on cars. Right? That's what I'm gonna do in my life. Guess what?
  
  In the current models, he's gonna have to go take the class to learn how to do that even though he's actually already taught himself to do that instead of seeing validation of that learning in a way that could say, hey. You already get that credit for that. Or at the very least, you don't have to show up to class that day because you've already learned this. Right?
  
  I mean, I think that's where we also have to be thinking about credit for prior learning and all these other kind of aspects that can help us evolve our systems.
  
  So I don't wanna get too political, but bipartisan is in the title. Right? Yep. On workforce specifically, where is that bipartisan engagement real, and where is it more of a a hopeful future state?
  
  Yeah. You know, here's the thing. I genuinely believe, even though we're not gonna get political in this, and I'm not gonna say my political leanings in this, I genuinely believe everyone that is in positions of leadership wants to see people successful. Right?
  
  Now that can show in a lot of different ways. Right? And ultimately, what you have between political challenges in the parties or between rural and urban or east and west or north and south, whatever. Right?
  
  Because it's much more than just a party difference. Right? Is you get into some of the weeds. Right?
  
  You get into some of the elements that all of a sudden now it's not about party differences. It is about those other factors, that play out. And I get excited in sitting on our seat here because we are focused on where is those bipartisan solutions? Where does that show up?
  
  And I think workforce is a space that you see the most consistency and alignment. Now you saw some differences in in short term Pell, right, before that passed. Right? You saw some differences in how, for example, at a party level, you saw kind of the belief in how that should be carried out.
  
  But, ultimately, they got to a place that that was able to pass and move forward. Right? You see in the match act that although that started as a as piece of legislation that was done by representative Owens who happens to be a republican, you now see that passed out of committee in a way that had overwhelming support from both sides of the party. So there's some of the the view on whether that was partisan or not sometimes just comes down to the process more than anything.
  
  It's not because you didn't have bipartisan support. And so I genuinely think that part of this is getting for us to continue helping to bring folks together across the different communities to be able to have some shared definition that allows you to really move forward in a way that you can see impact. And data was a good example as we were talking about that earlier. If all you do is run around the hill and say, we need more data, but you're not specific about what that means and what you're solving, it's not gonna be a priority per se.
  
  Right? You might have a piece of legislation here or there, but it's not gonna be a priority versus how do you bring a cohesive message that is truly articulating what you're solving, back it up with proven models where possible or at least promising models, and present a path to scale. I just lose my concern on whether it's a partisan supported thing because I just think you break down those silos pretty quickly in a way that, you know, allows people to really see across the aisle or see across the community in a way that they can support it.
  
  That's great.
  
  Shawn, you and I both know that federal legislation does not move at a swift pace. Right?
  
  And some of our listeners out there, you know, maybe working in a registrar's office or, you know, a single CTE program. What's one thing they could go ahead and do this semester that'll put them in a better position if the blueprint does get picked up?
  
  Yeah.
  
  So what's important to think about as far as our blueprint is the way the recommendations were put together is with a recognition that there's not a silver bullet. Right? There's not just one thing that's gonna be done. And I think it's why I love your question so much.
  
  Right? And so we're gonna continue supporting across our organization, across our partners on different elements of the blueprint in a way that some will be federal legislation, some will be, you know, working with agencies to think about how they implement it, and others will be to kind of the...
  
  To where your question gets to, working with partners in the community to say, what can you do to make some of this a reality? And so as I think about the question, I think about it from a standpoint of engage the partners that are doing the work, right? You've got some exciting leadership out of ACRO with the registrar's offices around topics, around data, around LERs and the work there, you're seeing their ability to bring partners together who are working on credit for prior learning, right? You have multiple organizations working in that space and yet there's not necessarily shared definitions.
  
  So if I'm an institution, how do I really embed that? And so I think engaging with organizations, whether it be organizations like ACE that are really diving deep into, and how they serve communities with credit for prior learning, or with ACRO who are bringing partners together and doing that in real key ways, credential engine and their focus on building out the credential registries. They can build all the technology they want. They can build all the registries they want.
  
  If nobody puts data in there, it doesn't matter. Right? You know? And then you...
  
  What I would say is you've got all the talent marketplace work that's happening. Right? You've got 10 states funded by the federal government to to move forward on building out talent marketplaces. You've got other states that were not selected or didn't apply that were also doing it.
  
  States like California is doing some really exciting stuff in that space. And so, you know, I think this is where...
  
  Look. Nobody's behind yet. It's not like people are left behind. Now in a couple of years, I think many of them will be left behind if they're not careful.
  
  And so I think this is where I...
  
  If I'm any of the institutions, I'm really starting to look external to the partners that are doing the work and saying, what do we need to start looking at internally? What do we need to start building into our strategies moving forward? Who are the stakeholders within our institution? Because it's not just one stakeholder.
  
  Right? This is not just a job of the registrar's office. Right? This is across the institution.
  
  How do we start building in to our strategies moving forward the kind of responses it needs to be? Whether that be issuing digital records that actually provide a deeper, richer set of information on the students. How do we make sure we're doing that in a way that is actually interoperable across systems and using the right data standards? Some of the stuff that's not that sexy to a lot of people needs to be a focus.
  
  Right? And and so that's where I think it's...
  
  My biggest thing is just start. Just start. Start where where it makes the most sense, engage in it, and start building it into your internal strategies within the institutional level.
  
  Amazing. Well, Sean, we are out of time. This has been an incredible conversations. I can't believe you're only two months in. We will be reaching out to reconnect with you in the not too distant future to see how it's going. I have no doubt.
  
  I would love to, and I really appreciate this conversation. I'm just so sorry. I I had to miss the InstructureCon here a couple months ago where, travel messed it up. But I'm really glad I was able to join you all today for this dialogue and and welcome anybody reaching out to me if they've got thoughts, whether it's to push back or whether it's to provide new ideas, welcome them. Awesome. Thank you.
  
  And we'll post a link to the BPC so they can get to all of your great work. And we just really appreciate you joining us, Sean.
  
  Likewise. Thank you all.
  
  Alright. And thanks for our listeners. We'll see you on the next episode of Educast 3,000.
  
  Thanks for listening to this episode of Educast 3,000. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and drop us a review on your favorite podcast player so you don't miss an episode. If you have a topic you'd like us to explore more, please email us at InstructureCastInstructure dot com, or you can drop us a line on any of the socials. You can find more contact info in the show notes. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you on the next episode of Educast 3,000.