Community Colleges Set Green Workforce Training Mission

The article features an interview with Los Angeles Community College District Vice Chancellor for Economic and Workforce Development Marvin Martinez:

"[the city of Los Angeles] received their portion of the stimulus dollars for workforce development-about $22 million-which they plan to release through a number of RFPs. In most of those RFPs, community colleges will be a mandatory partner so that we can work with the city's workforce centers and other organizations. We will partner with them to prepare the workforce. A lot of those dollars are being dedicated to the green sector."

"I am pleased that in the federal stimulus legislation colleges are seen as a mandatory partner-education and training is a requirement. Under the old Workforce Investment Act it was a "work first" policy, meaning that the goal is always to place students, place anyone who is unemployed, in a job. The problem with that approach today is, number one, there are not as many jobs. There are not a lot of jobs for people to go into. Secondly, there is a need for training. A lot of jobs require that you have a certain knowledge base and technical skills."