The subcommittee on higher education workforce development will come to order. I know that a quorum is present. Without objections, the chair is authorized to call recess at any time. In today's workforce, the hiring process is costly and extremely diff inefficient. This is especially the case with employers who are searching for workers with needed specialized skills. Workers attempting to navigate the job market is now more complicated than ever, translating skills gained through education, training, and life experience into terms that employers understand is daunting. In this present era of innovation, which now includes the power of AI, we need
smarter ways to connect job seeker skills with employers' needs. Our and our economy is changing dramatically, and the way potential employees enter and engage with it must change too. Education preparation and workforce placement innovation through the use of learning employment records is our future. With that, I'm gonna start up a little video. Cut is one of the most important accomplishments of this Congress and possibly for generations. It puts money back in the pockets of hardworking Americans and remind us who we serve, families.
But we cannot stop there. We must build a momentum with a new data paradigm, a partnership of education, industry, and community designed to assure that every learner and worker has the opportunity to succeed. For students and life long learners, this changes everything. Course work, certifications, apprenticeships, and real world experiences are all captured in secure digital records. Each skill and competency is verified and portable. No one is reduced to a line on a resume. Every accomplishment is seen, valued, and ready to open doors.
For employers, it means clarity and confidence. Real time labor market data reveals where talent is growing, what wages are trending, and which skills are in demand. Career pathways come into focus, making it easier to recruit, train, and retain the people who drive our economy. Learning employment records, LERs, are the bridge. They connect the learner's proven abilities with the real needs of the workforce. Private, secure, and portable, LERs are powered by technology. Think of it as a transport interstate, an interoperable data highway, where information from states,
schools, industries, and even federal programs all fall together. The job market becomes more transparent, unlocking opportunities that were once out of reach. For decades, education and workforce data were fragmented and outdated. That was the old paradigm. The new data paradigm replaces it with a universally trusted public private system that connects learners, workers, and employers in real time. Opportunity now flows faster, more fairly, and more securely. In Utah, programs like Admit Utah capture this spirit of innovation. Think of an LER like a digital thumb drive you carry in your pocket, except
it's captured safely in the cloud. Instead of photos or files, it stores every class you've taken, every certification you've earned, and every skill you've proven. When you apply for a job, you can instantly share that complete verified record with employer. No paperwork, no test work, just proof of what you can do, ready to plug directly into opportunity. Opportunity that will grow with the potential integration of AI, allowing custom tailored services for individuals and real time data for the labor market. The new data paradigm, empowering every American to turn learning into earning.
As we shift away from the college for all mentality toward a skills first approach, short term credentials, work based learning, and apprenticeships are on the rise. Key legislations like the the enactment of the workforce Pell Grants and the Republicans' recent working families tax cuts will further, will further the growth of these alternative pathways. With over 1,000,000 unique credentials available, pathways options are for for learners are can be very confusing. LERs are help here to help that, to solve that problem. We give learners clear insight into the skills needed for the first job and what's
needed to continue advancement in their careers. LERs will bring greater clarity to both sides of the labor market, helping workers identify opportunities and employers find the right talent. LERs are the future and but we are not there but they are not enough on their own. When paired with transparent credential registry and skill based job descriptions, they can power a talent marketplace where abilities not to for degrees drives opportunity. As we modernize our connection of education work through verifiable credentials, we can build a
labor market that works for everyone, where workers have agency, employees have confidence, and opportunities based on what you know and what you could do day one. With that, I'd like to yield to the ranking member. Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for joining us today. Right now, many of my constituents are facing the reality that the economy is not working for them. Costs are rising. Opportunities are disappearing. Since president Trump returned to office in January, job growth has slowed to a crawl, averaging just 70,000 per month, compared to the 336,000 per month during the Biden administration.
And to make matters worse, the Trump administration continues to fire thousands of public servants without cause, putting them out of work and unable to provide for themselves and their families. As unemployment rises, many job seekers are are looking to advance their skills to open the door to a new kind of of of of work. Today's hearing will focus on learning and employment records or LERs, which the Brookings Institute defines as a as a comprehensive digital record of interconnected data, such as an employment,
such as employment, earnings, skills, and credentials. If LERs would provide each person in the workforce with a portfolio containing digital, verifiable records of their past work experience, accumulated skills, competencies, credentials, college transcripts, and other relevant information that they could send to employers instead of a traditional resume. LERs have the potential to make our economy more efficient, more equitable, and more productive.
Employers are becoming overwhelmed with job applications contain containing limited information about the candidate's skills, all of which can be hard to verify. Far too many employers have fallen into the habit of requiring college degrees for jobs that do not necessarily require them effectively, shutting out talented and qualified individuals who have the skills, but but not the diploma. But employers in our economy are losing out on the roughly two thirds of talented
working age Americans who do not hold a four year degree. Requiring a college degree contributes to economic disparities, particularly for people who face systemic barriers to completing higher education, which were made by student loan caps included in in the big ugly bill. Some employers are increasingly evaluating job applicants based on experience and skills assessments rather than formal credentials or degrees.
Many major companies such as Google, Apple, IBM have implemented skills based hiring practices to bolster bolster their workforces. These examples show that when implemented well, learning and employment, records have the potential to provide employers with with skilled workers and provide job seekers with the tools to land a good paying job to earn a living for themselves and their families. But while the potential is great, is so are the so the so are the
challenges. First, our current job market lacks the level of technological infrastructure to support widespread adoption of these practices. And while efforts are underway in some states to digitize credentials and develop learning and employment records, these efforts are hampered by low awareness, lack of common data definitions and standards, lack of digital literacy and access, and data privacy concerns. Additionally, learning and employment records must be equitable and provide opportunities for all job seekers
and employers. So we must ensure that a shift to learning and employment record records, does not enable an infringement on worker rights, on increased discrimination, or or widen achievement and income gaps. To avoid this, we should make sure that learning and employment records are are wholly owned and and controlled by workers themselves so that they are the ones making key decisions about what kind of information is inputted into their LERs, what information can be
open to verification, and what information can or cannot be shared without outside entities. These protections will give workers control over important data privacy elements such as demographic information and ensure that unethical employers can upload false or denigrating information about an employee, which could be done as a retaliatory tactic. Additionally, for LERs to be scaled up, we should make sure that the data definitions
and protocols that allow LERs to be dynamically linked with other databases and workforce actors are open sourced. While employers are are leading the way on informing the public about the utility of LERs, we should not become too reliant on proprietary data systems where LERs are incapable of communicating to the wider workforce system. I am encouraged by the bipartisan enthusiasm for LERs today, mister chairman, and I look
forward to discussing how these new techno technologies can expand opportunities for all Americans and how we can best utilize them to connect skilled workers with promising careers. Mister chairman, I look forward to our discussion today. I thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Pursuant to committee rules eight c, all members who wish to insert written statements in the record may do so by submitting them to committee clerk electronically electronically in, Microsoft Word format by 5PM, fourteen days after this hearing.
And without objections, the hearing records will remain open for fourteen days to allow such statements and other materials noted during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record. I'll now turn to the introduction of our four distinguished witnesses. Our first witness is Scott Pultevar, president of Western Governors University in the great state of Utah. Second witness is, mister Greg Donato Donato, the vice president of business development and EBS EBSCO Information Services here in in Washington DC. Third witness is mister Scott Chaney, the Chief Executive Officer for Credential Engine in here
in Washington DC. And the fourth witness is mister Alex Kaplan, an advisor at the American Association of College Registrars and Administrators Administration Officers from Orange County, California. We thank the witnesses for being here today and look forward to your testimony presented to to community rules. I would ask each of each of you to limit your oral presentation to a three minute summary of your written statement. As community members have many questions for you, the clock will count down from three minutes. However, pursuant to Community Rule eight d and community practice community practice, we will not
cut you off from your testimony until you reach your five minute mark. I also like to remind the witnesses of to be aware of the responsibility to provide accurate information to the subcommittee. I will first recognize mister Pulsipher for your testimony. Thank you, Chairman Owens and ranking member Adams. It's a a pleasure to be here. Thank you, members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to share my perspective on the value of learning and employment records. My name is Scott Pulsipher, and I've, nearly for ten years served as the president of Western Governors University. WGU is a private nonprofit institution founded in 1997 by a bipartisan group of 19
governors who saw the opportunity to leverage technology and competency based education to improve access, quality, and outcomes in higher education. Today, we graduate more than 60,000 students annually and have an alumni network of over 410,000 whose lives and careers reflect the promise of opportunity. At WGU, we believe that education must be designed to benefit individuals first, first and foremost, by connecting them with opportunity. After all, when individuals thrive, workforce strength, economic vitality, and innovation follow.
That same belief guides our work on LERs. While LERs create value in many ways, their primary purpose is a tool for empowering individuals. As such, our LER at WGU is designed to give individuals greater control over their educational and career pathways. A comprehensive verified record of skills earned across a lifetime allows people to understand what they can do, where they can go, and what they need to learn next. It lets job seekers apply for roles with skills rich credentials, clearly communicate their strengths,
and share proof of their capabilities down to an atomic level. As AI reshapes roles at an unprecedented speed, the need for real time granular skill signaling mechanisms is greater than ever. LERs meet this need by allowing students to share verified skill data throughout their learning journey, not just at graduation. More than just a tool to connect with employers, WGU's LER platform is designed to be used as soon as students begin their educational journey, helping them to understand their
current their current skill profile, discover career pathways, and follow a personalized road map toward their desired profession. In this way, LERs unlock powerful path finding tools, allowing students to explore without drifting aimlessly and racking up student debt in the process. In short, LERs shift agency to the individual and enable career mobility based on proven ability, not pedigree. When readiness is signaled through verified skill, opportunity expands to include those who might otherwise
have been overlooked, strengthening organizations and communities. Few things are more profoundly human than enabling individuals to pursue a self determined life. LERs, while seemingly abstract, exist for that purpose. They translate what individuals know and can do into real opportunity. Our challenge today is not a deficit of talent, but a failure in how we identify, signal, and engage it. Skills rich LERs contribute to changing that by making talent visible, portable, and actionable. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today, and I look forward to
your questions. Thank you. I'll now recognize mister DiDonato for your testimony. Chairman Owens, ranking member Adams, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. My name is Greg DeDonato, vice president of business development at EBSCO Ed. Our mission is simple, to make all learning count by connecting talented Americans with opportunities and employers through the common denominator of skills. Today, I wanna share what has been achieved with the Alabama Talent Triad, the nation's first fully operational statewide talent marketplace, as well as convey why this model matters for
modernizing our education and workforce system nationally. Alabama launched the talent triad statewide in 2024 as a population level solution to support all students and job seekers, employers and industries, and education training providers. In just fourteen months, Alabama has implemented the infrastructure for a skills based economy that connects the supply and demand sides of the labor market. More than a 132,000 Alabamians now have validated LERs. 19,000 credentials in the state have been translated into competencies and are made more made
transparent through the Alabama credential registry. Over 300 employers have engaged, and up to 10,000 jobs have been available at any given time. LARs give every learner from eighth grade to career changers to veterans a verified portable record of their skills and credentials. The credential registry brings transparency and accountability, documenting and issuing the skills programs teach and the credentials that validate the mastery required by employers. Skills based job descriptions help employers signal their needs more clearly and connect a more qualified talent pool.
Together, these tools create signaling mechanisms and real time feedback loops between the supply and demand sides of our economy. Students see which programs lead to good jobs. Employers see which programs meet industry needs. Policymakers see outcomes in real times. These insights lead to shifts in paradigm design program design, hiring practices, and yield new and innovative approaches for Americans to transform, transcribe, and transact skills in an ever changing labor market. Scaling statewide and regional talent marketplaces supports the implementation of workforce power. Credential quality and transparency processes allow states to evaluate short term credentials and associated programs
for quality, outcomes, and alignment with employer demand. The same process ensures transparency and accountability of learning outcomes, and education training programs can now be documented in terms of competencies that are matched to employers' job descriptions. Talent marketplaces also address workforce shortages and help to increase the labor force participation rate by by assisting 43,000,000 Americans with some college, no degree, veterans, disconnected youth, mid career workers, and all Americans allow all Americans to prepare for technological change and increase their
resilience in the face of ever changing labor market conditions. The bottom line, unified talent marketplaces and LARs work for all Americans, all career paths, and all industries. They create clear pathways to good jobs and help employers find the talent they need. That's why EBSCO Ed has released a free national LER at ler.me to jump start this innovative work across all states. Thank you for your time and your continued bipartisan leadership in strengthening America's workforce. EBSCOAD stands ready to support this work as we strive to ensure every American connect their learning to opportunity.
Thank you so much. I'd now like to recognize the mister Cheney for your testimony. Thank you. Chairman Owens, ranking member Adams, chairman Wahlberg, and ranking member Scott, and members of the subcommittee, I'm pleased to join this distinguished panel today. Just yesterday, we released the latest counting credentials report in which we reveal that there are at least 1,850,000 unique credentials available in The US alone. These include badges, certificates, certifications, licenses, degrees of all types and all levels.
And they're offered by more than 134,000 different providers or entities, including two and four year institutions, licensing and industry certification bodies, and private companies. One of the significant findings in this report is that more and more credentials are being issued in digital formats. When credential and skill information exist digitally, they become searchable, verifiable, and interoperable, including through digital wallets and LERs. A paper certificate can hang on a wall. A digital certificate or credential can populate a job application, unlock a learning pathway, or
be discovered by an employer searching for someone with specific skills. Two takeaways from this report. First, everybody needs help making sense of and navigating this very confusing landscape. And second, we're close to a point where we can both capture all learning through digital credentials, and we can curate all credentials and skills a person has earned in digital records such as LERs. To make this possible, here are four areas that I believe require governmental action. First, ensure that the value of digital credentials, skills, and LERs reach everybody across all
education and income levels and in all communities. You can require that all relevant state and local plans under places like WIOA, Perkins five, ESSA, and the comprehensive economic development plans include planning for supporting, funding, and procuring LERs as well as enforcing data privacy and security. Requiring that LER planning occurs across education, workforce, and economic development will increase their adoption, use, and value. Second, require the use of open and interoperable data standards.
Congress should require that information about all providers, programs, credentials, and skills across all federally funded and authorized programs be made publicly available through open and interoperable data for which the credential transparency description language is the de facto standard. Open data requirements must also extend across employment data as well so that LERs can live up to their name by holding records of an individual's full learning and employment history. And in fact, no federal funding should be used on LERs that do not meet
standards for open and interoperable data. Third, extend existing data privacy and security laws and protections to cover LERs as well. And fourth, the true value of an LER comes from validated records of credential and skill attainment. But validating skills is still a major challenge. Congress should include in both legislation and appropriations targeted to targeted support to improve the ability to validate skills attainment quickly, efficiently, accurately, and at scale.
I look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you. Like, I'd like to lastly, recognize mister Kaplan for your testimony. Thank you, chairman, ranking member, and members of the subcommittee, and thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Alex Kaplan. I'm an independent expert on learning in employer, learning in records, and an adviser to the American Association of Collegiate Registrars artificial intelligence and LERs. Seven years ago, while serving on the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board as part of
the IBM team, I spoke at the White House about a vision for how a secure, verifiable, lifelong digital record of learning can help people connect with good jobs. Today, that vision, learning and employment records or LERs, is within reach. Why this matters is simple. Tens of millions of Americans have built skills through diverse life experiences, but those hard earned skills remain invisible to most employers. Skills earned through alternative routes are often overlooked, impeding job hunts and career prospects. As verified, portable, skills rich credentials, LERs show what a person can actually do regardless
of where they learned it. For workers, this improves job and career options. For employers, LERs expand talent pools to candidates they might otherwise overlook and speed up hiring, making it cheaper and more efficient. Artificial intelligence makes LERs even more in urgent. AI is creating a crisis of trust in hiring. Neither employers nor job seekers trust each other's authenticity. At the same time, AI can enable precise skills matching if it has verified data to work with. And AI is accelerating skill obsolescence, making dynamic records of current capabilities more valuable than
static degrees. LERs provide the verified data infrastructure AI systems need. The momentum behind LERs is real. States like Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, and California are building statewide LER ecosystems as workforce development infrastructure. Employers are beginning to adopt skills based hiring with early success in using verified credentials to speed background checks. LERs are no longer theoretical. They are here. LERs are not without their challenges. Key amongst them are ensuring robust verification to prevent credential fraud and engineering learner control
of LER data into the national system. We are aware of these challenges and understand how to address them. Lastly, due to the hard work of many people and organizations, the technical foundation for a national LER infrastructure has been established and is being tested in multiple states. As federal leadership is essential to scaling a national LER infrastructure, I offer some suggestions on how to proceed. First, lead by example in the use of LERs for federal hiring. Second, convene organizations who have led LER development over the past seven years to advise
on the path forward. Third, invest in a decentralized and interoperable national AR infrastructure. Fourth, enable adoption by removing barriers to the use and issuance of ARs. Fifth, encourage private sector entrepreneurship, innovation, and participation in the LER journey. With your leadership, we can ensure that every American's skills, however and wherever earned, are visible, verified, and valued. Thank you. Thank you. Under Community Rule nine, we will now question witnesses under the five minute rule.
I will recognize myself for five minutes. Miss Pulsipher Pulsipher, WGU has been at the forefront of LERs, and I wanna thank you, by the way, for your participation at the very first Trump term to kind of get this process started. Can you tell us more about why WGU felt the need to lead and and on this? Yeah. Thank you, chairman, for that question. I think it's pretty simple, that WGU believes that education has to be a pathway to opportunity. And so one of the core elements of that is ensuring that the individuals that have now acquired a credential and all the competencies and skills associated with that can
appropriately communicate that into the world of work. Because one of the key challenges is that every individual through that education wants to ensure that they're readied with the knowledge, skill, and ability necessary for the job. In providing now individuals, the graduates and students at WGU with that digital transcript that has the verified skills in it, the employers now or the workforce now, in fact, have a very clear articulation of what our graduates are ready to do. So it better aligns with the skills, the tasks, activities that exist in roles, and so that those employers can actually ensure that our graduates are skilled and and credible.
The other key thing is is that it does increase the ability for those individuals to personally navigate the career options that they have in a geolocated way. Meaning that specifically with our achievement wallet, our LER, it now surfaces to them the roles at which employers in their specific location that they already have the skills that would ready for them for those jobs and even automates the way and mechanisms by which they can apply for those jobs and surface their transcripts, these LERs, to those employers. Okay. Thank you so much. Mister DiDonato, what are the more important lessons learned from the early pilots pilots that
we should understand? Thank you for the question. I would say there's several lessons that we've learned, through this implementation in Alabama, as well as some other pilots that we've been a part of. Number one, messaging. Talent marketplaces can mean a a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So we need to really make sure that we have very specific messaging, clear messaging, easy to understand messaging for each of the user personas, whether it's students, whether it's veterans, education training providers, employers, etcetera, about what this means to them and how this
is supported. Two, partnerships are extremely important. There's a lot of really good work happening at each level, but in siloed work. And so we need to make sure that talent marketplaces and LERs are an amplification of what's happening as opposed to it being a a threatening existence to them. So partnerships are extremely important all the way across the board. Without them, obviously, this work does not exist. Legislation and funding. There's, time is of essence to a lot of folks. Mhmm. The folks who are invested in this, whether it's employers, whether it's education training providers,
whether it's students, whether it's job seekers, need to know that this is going to be a persistent opportunity for them to invest or time that that's needed. So funding legislation, the signals that they know that this opportunity will last for the long haul is is important. It's an evolving conversation. So we need to make sure that the technologies we're utilizing, what we're investing in, also we're evolving and consistently moving at at a rapid speed and have those capabilities. And then lastly, we need big data.
We need a lot of information to make this work. We need a lot of information to make sure we're understanding the cross sectoral partnerships and opportunities that are out there. I would say those are all key, lessons that we've learned throughout this process. Thank thank you. Mister Kaplan, you and other witnesses have highlighted that LER is our tool that fits within the broader framework of a talent marketplace. How could this be how could this kind of tool facilitate better coordination across different systems that we may may not be considering? Thank you for that question.
The thing about learning and employment records is that they represent a common set of data and a common set of protocols around the skills and competency that individuals have accumulated over the course of their lifetime. If we can settle on this common set of standards, which we're well on our way to doing, we'll be able to, enable people to transfer those that information about themselves, to employers, to academic institutions, and for those employers and institutions and others to see that that verifiable data is accurate and correct, enabling them to do things like
offer a job to somebody, admit them to their university. So there are a lot of opportunities here where by bringing LERs to the forefront and establishing them as a common set of data, we'll be able to use them in order to support and make easier, the, a navigation of the talent marketplace. Thank you. I now recognize the ranking member, for a purpose of question of witnesses. Thank you, mister chairman. Thank you, mister chairman. Again, thank you, gentlemen, for being here. From 2021 to 2025, Prudential Engine partnered with the state community colleges in North Carolina
as part of their aligning the workforce education system for manufacturing. This is a project which was funded by the Department of Labor, through a strengthening community colleges training grant. Mister Cheney, could you tell me more about Credentialed Engine's work on on this project, particularly related to competency based digital, bad, bad badging? And given the success of the project, what role can WIOA funded programs play in standardizing, credentials?
Yes. Thank you for that question. So, yeah, Forsyth was a a pretty tremendous leader in this project. They convened a number of regional community colleges, so that they could collectively work on a manufacturing initiative along with, a dozen or more manufacturing companies. And what they recognized was that this was a regional initiative, that there were many players in it. It wasn't just Forsyth. And so what we were doing there is, putting all of the information. You've heard the conversation this morning about open data and interoperable data.
So we are working with Forsyth and the other community colleges to make available information about the credentials that they offer, the programs, the competencies and skills into this open interoperable data format so they could be used both in translating what students had earned and what they knew to the employers that were in the manufacturing sector in that region. And they could use it also to move between the colleges, and and not be locked into just one, program, but they could get this training and skills they needed
more easily across the different colleges. Okay. Thank you, sir. In your testimony, you you mentioned that that worker protection should be included with any effort to increase the use of of LER, specifically, employer surveillance, retaliation, retaliation, as a concern. For example, an employee could refuse, employer could refuse to validate a worker's credentials as a form of retaliation. And so as as these, LEAs become more common, what guardrails can the federal government implement, to prevent employers from using them as a mechanism to retaliate against workers?
So I would say the the most important thing is to ensure that the, information about what an individual has earned is actually in their control. So it's quite likely that, an employer or an employee will earn credentials both through the employer but also outside. So where regardless of where they earn it, that information should be securely, included in an LER so that employer that employee has control over it. Okay. So Uh-huh. No. That's fine. So so in in your testimony, you state that the data rights and privacy must
be foundational in an implementation of LERs and that workers should own and completely control their LERs, including the data and the information that make up make up the LER and what can and cannot be shared with employers. So can you elaborate on the risks of scaling up the use of LERs without ensuring that workers retain ownership or control? I would say that the the risks were are the same if we're talking about, just education data or any personally identifiable information. LERs are just another example of where we're helping to make information about what someone
has earned accessible for their control. So, as I pointed out in my testimony, I think one of the things we need to do is to just extend the existing privacy and data security laws we have on the books so that they cover LERs as well. Okay. Now according to recent surveys, many employers say they struggle to evaluate the return on investments for training programs. So could LERs make, help measure training effectiveness and workforce readiness more accurately? So there's a number of of issues that are at play there.
They can certainly help because we'll have in one place, more secure and more accurate record of what an individual has earned and where they've earned it. Right now, we try and and come up with impact information about short term credentials, which is very, very difficult. We're making some good progress on that of of being able to get better outcome data for short term credentials, but having it all in a secure record would make it easier to evaluate what an individual has earned and and how effective it's been. Thank you very much, mister chairman. I'll yield back my thirteen seconds.
Thank you so much. I'll now like to, recognize the chairman of the full committee. My name is from Michigan, Chairman Wahlberg. Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you as well for that amazing video. Second time I've seen that, but I've as I've told you, I still refuse to believe that you're the graphic artist until till I see the Super Bowl ring on that hand. Okay? Mister Pulsipher, good to see you again. Who are the key, stakeholders in the education space that are the most important partners, when it comes to scaling LERs? Yeah. Thank you for that question, chairman. I think you have to start with institutions, themselves.
I mean, educational institutions, they are key stakeholders because effectively, they're the ones who, in fact, are verifying or validating the skills and competencies that individuals are acquiring, including the credentials that they're awarded as a result of that. If they are not moving towards more of a digital, transcript of those skills and competencies, then, in fact, the talent economy or that talent marketplace fails. You certainly see the employers as key stakeholders as well. They have to be able to ingest this machine readable digital transcript of those skills rather than calling into an institution to validate that they actually graduated from that, have
the degree, etcetera. But you also have technology companies and the, those providers of that data set, whether it's applicant tracking system, h r I s HRIS, meaning human resource information systems, etcetera, they are also key stakeholders. But all of those are there ultimately to support the individual as the primary stakeholder. The individual ultimately has to see the value in its signaling, being a better signal of the capabilities that they have that are relevant to the jobs that they're seeking. And that certainly is key with all of education, isn't it? It is. Yeah. That that individual.
Thank you. Mister De Donato, how do l LERs, and the system they're part of actually use AI, to create the matches between programs, credentials, and job descriptions, that you've described? Thank you, sir, for the question. We make sure that the AI is trained on validated data, verifiable data, and good data. The AI today is there's a chance that AI ultimately is utilizing, data that's just
obscured and ineffective. We're making sure that the validated data that you're getting from students' records, from employers, from the education training providers is is is what's training the AI. So the AI AI works for us instead of us working for the AI. Have that human moral factual thumbprint. Right? Yes. We have a human in the loop to make sure that it is working appropriately. Okay. Thank you. Mister Kaplan, we've heard about some of the LER pilots, that have been adopted around the country.
Could you speak, about the importance of interoperability as tools like LERs, are developed? Yes. Thank you for the question. So interoperability is essential to the functioning of a national a national learning and employment record infrastructure. The reason for that is because people move. They move around, they go from state to state, and they look for jobs all over the country. So we need to enable a credential that's issued in Alabama to be accepted by an academic institution or an employer in California.
Absent interoperability, we're going to see the rise of, I'll call, walled gardens of data, that really impede the ability of individuals to use that data and to make that data essential to their job hunts and their career explorations. Thank you. I appreciate the answers and, I yield back one minute and twelve seconds. Thank you, mister chair. Appreciate it. I'd like to now recognize my friend from Georgia, miss McBeth. Thank you, chairman, and thank you, gentlemen for being here this morning. Really appreciate you, and I'm so glad this is such a bipartisan issue for our
committee. We're excited about that. Mister Pauls, Pulsipher, good to see you again. And, mister Cheney, I know that you are both fully committed to ensuring that every American is able to easily navigate expanding universe of degrees, credentials and competencies. I deeply appreciate your input, as well as the other witnesses, for joining us for today's discussion on learning and employment records, or as we're calling them, LERs. The American people are angry, and that anger is truly justified.
One of the reasons there's so much anger and so much frustration is that it has become too expensive, too confusing, and too slow for everyday people to obtain the skills and to prove that they have knowledge necessary to get a good job and provide a decent life for themselves and for their families. There are millions of Americans who have done everything right. They've done everything right and they have next to nothing to show for it. Despite going to school, paying for a badge or credential of some kind, or learning
directly on the job, so many Americans find themselves no closer to the financial freedom and independence that they put all of their hard earned efforts towards to begin with. With that comes feelings of shame and feelings of resentment towards not only yourself, but the system that you put your faith in that really didn't do anything at all to help you move closer to a decent life. While not all have equal value, and some are certainly better than others, a degree remains the surest path to economic success.
However, it's not the only way to get there. Congress must do more to ensure that workers can effectively show that they have the legitimate skills and credentials needed to do the work. The reality is not everyone can afford to put their entire life on hold, take out a loan, and go back to school for years at a time to land a decent job or make a change in their career. That just isn't how life works for most people. There's no reason why our workforce and education system should be so overly dependent upon
young adults making incredibly expensive, long term, and difficult to reverse decisions when job expensive, long term, and difficult to reverse decisions when job markets really don't work like that at all. The economy is always changing, and we must set our workers up to adapt so that they can keep up. Workers and employers, they need an education and workforce system that is easy to navigate, allows for quick adjustments, and meets them exactly where they are. Just as employers need to know which skills, credentials, and training programs are worthwhile and
truly are passing along the knowledge necessary for their students to do these jobs and safely and effectively do them, but students and workers need to know exactly where to go and how much it is going to cost them to get the skills necessary to provide a decent life for themselves. For learning and employment records to become a common practice, it would require the establishment and maintenance of standardized credential registries or databases so that workers and employers can validate the information that's provided against an approved database of credentials and information.
It's so important that workers, employers, and education providers understand what credentials are available, so that they are better informed of what degrees, skills, and competencies are out there and which ones are really worthwhile. My bill, CREATES Act, which I introduced last Congress with Representative Hayes, would authorize funding for grants to states to help them create these databases. Mr. Cheney, can you please talk about how this bill, since we just talked about it briefly in the back, how this bill would help scale upstate efforts in developing credential
repositories as well as learning and employment records. Yes. Thank you for the question. So the bill was drafted, with a number of organizations to ensure that states would have the resources to develop these registries and to use the open interoperable data standards, all of which are necessary backbone for for the LER infrastructure so that you can have, LERs issued to people, and they can draw information about the credential information from a secure repository of validated data about those credentials and skills.
We've seen this work being done in several states, but it we need to get there quickly and get there at scale so that we can have a national system available. Well, thank you so much. My sister state sister state Alabama has done so, but I look forward to finding a Republican, especially on this committee, to get this bill introduced in a bipartisan way this Congress. And I hope that we can also get the bipartisan reauthorization of WIOA signed into law by president Trump as well, and I yield. Thank you so much. I'd like now to, recognize my friend from Guam, miss Milan. Chairman Owens and Ranking Member Adams, thank you for hosting this important learning hearing about
learning and employment records, LERs. These digital records are essentially digital resumes, allowing employers to quickly verify skills and records for workers to be matched with jobs that fit their skills. And this type of digital innovation, it can help fill in roles in places where staffing is a problem and make career pathways more accessible and streamline hiring process. It's pretty terrific, I think. However, I I hope it's We can get it as well. So let's let's talk about, mister Kaplan, about Guam and the other US territories.
Now we often lag behind in digitalization. Now we'd like to focus today on how we can expand LER usage for employers and workers in the territories in The US territories, in other remote areas to take advantage of their benefits for workforce connection and in understaffed sectors. So, mister cap Kaplan, are there any technological prerequisites for employers to adopt learning and employment records? Thank you. The technological preconditions for employers to adopt learning and employment records are really the ability
to pursue, to consume these digital objects, which learning and employment records are. Fortunately, almost every employer in the world today can do that. So one of the things that we've been working on, with a with a great deal of focus, and I give credit to my colleagues at the U. S. Chamber of Commerce on on some of this work, is really understanding how employers will, consume those records coming into their applicant tracking systems as well as into their human resources information systems. So I think we're on a good path to it, and as long as we
can get aligned with the standard way that in, that employers are, looking at job candidates, I think we can make progress there. From a student's perspective or a learner's perspective, it's similar to what my colleagues have said here. Any academic institution should be able to, take the, skills that students have learned, through the coursework, and turn them into a digital object. Now one of the things that, we are doing at ACRO is to make it basically no cost, low cost for any institution in the country, including in the territories,
to be able to provide us with whatever information they have, about a student. It could be a PDF transcript, and we'll be able to take that and turn it into the digital object that's gonna be required. Finally, I would also say since, you you talk about the territories, the movement towards these kind of records is a global movement. This is not only happening in The United States, but it's basically happening all around the world. So I think we're all on the right path here, and I think it's pretty straightforward to provide the support that you're looking for. I'd like your answer. Thank you. So do you think there's something Congress can do in addition to help the territories,
see through this for the LERs, for the employers? Yeah. Very much. I think there's a lot that Congress can do. So I think some of the keys to this are making sure that, the territories have employment information, that they have modernized employment information that they can provide, that their institutions and employers have the capability to consume those, and that you as a employer in the territories lead by example, not only in using LERs for your own hiring practices, but also being able to accept learning and employment records to meet regulatory requirements
that you might have. On the employer side of it, I think it's really critical to work with the employers in order to understand, the deep skills that are there, and I think Congress can really assist by that by helping us move towards standardization of the protocols, that are going to be required for this to be effective on a national basis. I mean, we're in the very early days of this, and I can't overemphasize the importance of variety of getting a standard, a set of standards and protocols that allow for the interoperability to occur.
This will reduce the cost for everybody, and it will accelerate the adoption of them. So congress can, really assist us in that. And then the final thing I would say is, you know, support the territories, with assistance, to build the kind of, state central systems that we're seeing rising in California and Alabama, Tennessee, and others, that will facilitate the creation of, an LER network within your territories. Thank you so much. Miss mister Cheney, if you can add on, we got about fifteen seconds. Anything you'd like to say for the territories?
I I think, mister Kaplan has it generally right. And it goes back to my comment that we really need to make sure that this isn't being set out as a solution for those that can afford it, for those that are in wealthy districts or wealthy states. We have to have a laser focus on ensuring that the value of LERs reach everybody. And we can start that by making sure that, information is being delivered for your k 12 diplomas and and earnings, but all the way through so that you're building that record from start to finish.
Thank you very much, mister chairman. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like now to to, recognize my my friend from Arizona, miss Grahava. Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you to all the witnesses for being here. I know it's a big sacrifice on your time, and we appreciate it. It's a very exciting opportunity for this subcommittee to move forward something on a bipartisan basis that will really help critical make that critical connection between those seeking jobs and those looking for qualified employees. I do reject the idea that we're shifting away from higher education.
And for all, many people are exposed to opportunities and career paths when through school, through internships, through those first jobs that I think are really exciting. And so my question would be for mister Cheney. You state in your testimony that congress must proactively address the digital divide through digital literacy and access. If we were to scale up the use of LERs, I'm concerned that if LERs were to be commonplace tomorrow, there would be many individuals who already have certain barriers to employment, such as older workers, persons with disability, or individuals that don't have access
to the Internet for a variety of reasons. Some people live in a digital divide area. Those people wouldn't be able to keep up with the digital skills needed to maintain an LER. So can you elaborate on the challenges LERs could create for digital literacy and how we might address those challenges? I am certainly not an expert on the the issues of ensuring that we have digital access across the entire country and and the territories. Right. But I would simply say that, this is another core example of where that digital divide is hurting us.
Yeah. It's hurting people. It's hurting employers. It's hurting our national economy, and our competitiveness. And so this is another, instance where I think we need to have a real focus of attention and resources to make sure that we're extending digital access and and making sure that it is, fully available, not just randomly available and you have to drive to, you know, a Starbucks to get access, but you can get it anytime, anywhere. So this is another example of why we need to address that issue. Yeah. Thank you. Do any of the other witnesses have anything they wanted to add?
Thank you for that opportunity. I would just suggest that, the LER itself is, itself is, is simple as is as simple and intuitive as mobile applications. And given that 95 plus percent of our, you know, Americans and households actually have access to a mobile device, a smartphone, they have access to the LER. I think the digital divide is a challenge with respect to access to the educational and skill development pathways they need because so much of that cannot be done on a mobile device. The LER itself is highly portable and highly accessible because of its mobile nature.
Okay. Great. Thank you. And then I wanted to ask about skills based hiring, which is an underlying approach concept to the LERs. It seems to me that skills based hiring has some potential to increase equitable opportunities for those who lack a four year degree, because it would allow someone who has the skills needed for a job but lacks the former formal credentialing to apply because of the unnecessary requirements of a college diploma. Could you share with us additional ways with skill based hiring could further improve job prospects of those that lack a college degree?
And I'll start with mister Chaney. Yeah. I'll be brief because I know that my my colleagues have input on this as well. So I I think for me, even if you have a college degree, you're earning and learning things throughout your entire career. And being able to remember everything that you were awarded when you were 20 and you're trying to get rehired at 50 is difficult. So having an LER is that way of having that entire record of your education employment that you can digitally share without having to try and remember it, make it up, and, you know, convince an employer that you actually did earn it.
Thank you. One. Oh, yes. Yes, sir. So skills based hiring is is certainly an opportunity for all the things that that have been mentioned and all the opportunities and benefits that have been discussed. One of the things that I think the full talent marketplace and the LAR will do for skills based hiring is it better grounds and put context into the skills if we understand the credentials, we understand the context in which you achieved those skills or validated them? Employers have a hard time, based on all of our work and things that we've
talked to, under just having a removal of degree because you're not truly grounding the skills in which they were earned and learned. And that's really an important part of, I think, this full conversation that we're having, not just about LERs, but really understanding how skills were were achieved by each individual at any level of education. Thank you. Mister Kaplan, I have seventeen whole seconds. Employers agree with you completely. So the reason skills based hiring is happening is because employers face barriers in finding people who have the skills and abilities to fill the jobs that they need.
Absent, skills based approach to hiring, if we just look at, a formal a formal diploma, we're excluding enormous amounts of people in the population. In addition, jobs are changing really rapidly, so the skills that people need need to change. So employers are very much in favor of this for exactly the reason that it's gonna make them easier and cheaper for them to find the people who can be successful in those jobs. Thank you. Thank you, mister chairman. I yield back. Thank you. I'll now like to recognize my friend from Florida, mister Fine. Thank you, mister chairman. You know, back when I went to college a long time ago, I told people
it didn't really matter what you got your degree in because you learned three things. You learned how to read, not just read literally, but how to read hundreds of pages a day. You learned how to write, not just one or two sentences, but how to construct papers over multiple days and very quick periods of time, and you learned how to think critically about things. But a couple things have changed in the very long time since I went to college, and it is the growth of the new form of education. You know, when I was in school, you could go into the pre med track. You could go into the pre law track. Well, now at too many schools, we have the pre Starbucks track, which is where
you get a degree in something fake like gender studies or queer studies, where really you're not qualified to do anything when you get done except perhaps go and work at Starbucks. And so I think that for employers that are looking to hire people, finding the skills that they need in order to employ bill is even more important. That also even if I look back into what my degree was in and my skills thirty years ago in things like computer science, it's a lot different world today. So the fact that I might have a degree in something from thirty years ago does not mean that degree is in of itself all that useful today.
The programming language of thirty years ago are not the programming languages of today. So I think that's why what we're talking about here is so important. President Pulsipher, if if Congress were to support wider adoption of learning and employment records, what one or two measurable outcomes like wage growth, reduced time to hire, or increased completion of short term programs would we expect to see in five years that would tell us that this approach is working? Yeah. Thank you for that, congressman. I do think you've even highlighted some of the things that I would raise, which is, we certainly know that today, the one and done model of college and to
work is not actually what the world we live in already to where the continual upskilling is required. So I do think that what you'd actually see is you'd see a dramatic increase in the number of individuals enrolling in and completing short duration credentials, meaning sub degree. And it's not only for those who don't hold a bachelor's degree. It's also for those who are post degree because of the continual upscaling that's actually required. You'll also see manifest what we even saw in a recent survey of over 3,100 employers, which is employers themselves are already recognizing that both experience and micro credentials are
have significant value in signaling that you're ready to possess the competencies and skills needed for the job, then another metric you would see was what percentage of the individuals that are being hired or promoted into jobs that are not holding a bachelor's degree, but are being actually hired on the basis of experience or an upskilling credential, etcetera. You'd also see that. But most importantly, to your point, I I do think you'd actually see significant, economic mobility among a broader swath of the workforce population rather than only on the top quartile. You'd see it across the whole quartile because you'd see economic mobility across the whole.
Sure. Because we've got an issue. Right? We've got people who need people to fill jobs, and then we've got people who are willing to fill those jobs, but it's hard for the employer to figure out what skills the potential employee had. And simply saying you have a degree in x from y institution doesn't necessarily fill the gap. Plus, frankly, for many people, the economic returns of taking four years off. You know, one of the big, challenges I remember telling people when I went to business school was for the vast majority of people who go and get an MBA, the return is negative.
Because if they took two years off from work and then they paid a fortune for their degree, you're never gonna make up down the road for that loss. There were a few schools where that wasn't the case, but for the vast majority, it wasn't. And so, again, helping people get credentials quickly, easily, and cheaply, and then aligning them with employers helps. Mister Donato, from the employer perspective, have you seen reductions in time to fill positions, lower turnover, or better job performance when hiring through skills based job descriptions powered by the Alabama talent triad? I think the return on ad is is too early, but what we are hearing
from employers is having validated LERs, validated skills does help them to move through the the process quicker. We are still working through opportunities where they are using multiple job boards, using the talent triad, using different scenarios to determine what those those look like. But all employers are very much in favor of getting the understanding the talent pipeline in a more in a more sophisticated way, understanding where those credentials and skills are
coming from and making sure that the programs that are being invested in align with their needs. And that's ultimately, I think, where, this is all moving towards in a very fast and and equitable way. Great. Well, look, I I think what we're talking about to some degree is at Cliff's notes. For the same reason people will go to a Michelin starred restaurant or frankly look for a degree from certain institutions, they're looking for something easy to identify what it is that they're looking for. And when you're an employee looking for a job, you're still a product, and you're looking for ways to identify yourself appropriately to the employer that you may wanna hire
you. So I appreciate all of you and the work that you're doing. And, mister chairman, I yield back. Thank you. I would like to, recognize my my friend from California, mister Desalio. Thank you, mister chairman. I wanna thank all the witnesses for being here. Mr. Cheney, your organization did a report recently that identified 1,800,000 credentials available in The United States. Another organization, reputable organization, did a report and evaluation that said of all those credentials, you only see about 12% increase in actually wage and benefit. So it seems we've got a real disconnect and we have an opportunity in the
Workforce Investment Act reauthorization to close that disconnect. So everything you've talked about increases efficiencies, benefits the American economy by connecting talent to where the need is. Technology, unfortunately, as a representative from the San Francisco Bay Area was told years ago, don't be seduced by the marketing of the environment right now where I hear young people all the time tell me about ghost jobs and how difficult it is, You sit there. It's very impersonal.
You're on a digital platform that could be really beneficial, but it's not connecting humans to humans. And this, I say, from somebody who is an employer in the service industry where if you didn't identify people with inherent people skills, you didn't last very long in the hotel and restaurant industry. So Mr. Cheney, to begin with you, how do we use this opportunity to actually change that? So 1,800,000 credentials, but only a 12% identified benefit for all those people who are spending that money.
There's a lot of waste in the system. And where that waste goes, is just a drain on the American economy. So I, thank you for the question. And and I would agree there is an opportunity with the, we owe a reauthorization to help address this. I would also say that there's an opportunity being, taken right now in the workforce Pell, regulated, regulation negotiation where they're looking at how do we get better data about the outcomes of short term programs. That is where the majority of the growth is happening in the marketplace in these
short term programs, these skill based, training programs. And we don't have enough, effort going into getting the actual outcome data. There is a initiative that's been stood up by the Strada Foundation called CRED Lens, which is targeting this exact challenge of how do we get better records, better information on the outcomes of short term credentials. I I think there's a lot that we can learn from the work that they're doing. But one of the things in WIOA is to really enforce the requirement that if you're gonna be on an ETPL, the eligible training provider list, you have to report
your outcome data. So that we have a better ability to decide what we're funding and what we're not funding through that program. We can extend that to other programs as well. As a follow-up to that, this committee, before I was on it, and in California when I was chair of the labor committee, we were having a lot of problems with, for profit colleges. Where, what we did in California was just say, if this is what your advertising legally required to connect the dots to make sure that you're actually placing these people. And that's worked really well in terms of, saving a lot of, or creating an
efficiency where the people who are applying and the and the employer knows that you're actually getting value out of what they're marketing. Mr. Kaplan, do you have anything to add to that in your experience? I do. I think it's, one of the the the really important to look at the fact that we're really focused on, turning all these credentials into digital objects. I'm gonna sort of take down that path here because I think that one of the challenges that people have in receiving a credential is what do you do with it? My all mine are hanging on my wall.
So I think it's, we we need to make those, more powerful for people by giving them a digital control over it and therefore they can share it more broadly. We also need to encourage employers to move towards skills based hiring so that they can look at the credentials and the skills within those credentials that people have and they can use them as a as a match. Now one final thought I think in this area is also we're also trying to encourage the proliferation of this digital information over time. As we get more information out into the universe, there's we ought to be able
to see how credentials, and skills coming from one place match to people's abilities to get jobs because all that information is going to be out there. And so I think that if we're able to inspect the data more accurately, we have more data available, that can people can be used, we can really tighten up this connection between the skills that people are getting and the jobs that they're getting. That's great. And one other thing, I just think we can look at other economies who do this better. The Germans for instance.
Now I know culturally it's different. But connecting whether it's a craft or it's college degree credential, you're connecting talent with the job opportunities and looking and also measuring where there's going to be changes. Thank you, mister chairman. Thank you. Now I'd like to, recognize my friend from Oregon, miss Bonamici. Thank you very much, mister chairman, ranking member, and and thank you to the witnesses. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this interesting bipartisan issue today. But that being said, if we wanna talk about education and workforce data infrastructure, we
should talk about what's happening with the dismantling of the Department of Education. The Trump administration's fired more than half of the department's workers without cause, and now the secretary is using interagency agreements to illegally transfer essential offices and operations, including the Office of Postsecondary Education, to other agencies. I also submit I think we should be talking about that, but we should also be talking about, the critical issue of, AI in education and the privacy and security and bias issues. We're not doing that today. But but I this is an interesting conversation.
I I I wanna note that I have some questions and concerns about LERs, learning and employment record systems. I'm interested, especially, in what kind of worker protections are incorporated into the design. I I saw the the the there's something about college transcripts, and as as someone who didn't have a traditional college path, as someone who has a constant contact with people in higher education, I'm I'm a little concerned that we're we're putting a lot of of pressure on students. Yeah. I I can tell you there are some people who have not so great college
transcripts, but they have amazing skills, like communication, collaboration, critical thinking, all these things that are harder to measure. So so I I wonder I I I mean, Digital Promise, which is a bipartisan nonprofit organization, dedicated accelerating innovation in education workforce development, which is a good thing. They surveyed a wide range of workers about LERs, and many of them were women of color who had experienced discrimination. They expressed a lot of concern, that the additional amount of available data, including age and gender, that could increase the chances of discrimination.
That's a problem. I wonder how much control someone has. It's like, oh my gosh. What if you got grades that you weren't really crazy about, but that doesn't mean you don't have the skills for or or the not the interpersonal skills as well as mister D'Saulnier was mentioning. So so I'm I'm trying to wrap my mind about how that works. Digital Promise also identified five key design principles. One of those is giving individuals control how over how their information is shared, but what I wanna know is do they control what information is shared? And another is the safety and privacy concerns, which I I mentioned are sort of
surrounding this huge looming AI issue. So so I think I'll ask Mr. Cheney and then if there's time others can weigh in. Why is it important for LERs to be explicit about who has access to individual information and how that information is used? Should individuals have the option to admit any sort of demographic or personally identifiable information? Because I think about what if someone is a victim of a crime or what if they're a dreamer or undocumented, or survivor of domestic violence? There's a lot of categories where people might not want a lot of that information shared.
And and how do we address this this notion that, you know, what what might be shown on paper doesn't really measure whether somebody has this twenty first century job skills, which is this sort of creative critical thinking? So if we wanna start with mister Chaney. Yes. Thank you for the question. So, absolutely, one of the foundational elements of an LER has to be both privacy and security, but self sovereignty. I get to decide what I share, which is basically what happens now. Everyone is gonna draft their resume to meet the needs of that particular job they're applying for.
An LER simply is a way to digitally store all of your experiences. Maybe not the great grades that you had you wanna share, but the fact that your last boss recognized you and gave you a digital badge for great teamwork. You led that project really well. That may not be a certificate, but it may be a digital recognition that you got from your boss that you want in your LER that you can share with that next employer. Well, you could also put that on a resume. You could, but now we have it digitally, and it's just there is a record. So it's simply a different way of sharing this.
But self sovereignty has to be foundational to what we're putting in place. And that's why I think that it's one of the standards that congress can help us make sure is in place for setting up a national LER system with those kind of requirements. Thank you. Anybody else wanna weigh in in the final set? Yes, sir. Can I just, I think this is a really important topic because I think one of the key differences is that in a resume or a LinkedIn profile, this is you actually deciding and declaring that I have these skills, etcetera? That's very different than having verified and validated competencies and particular skills.
And so even in the case of where you have an employer who's, in fact, signaled that this individual has these particular skill sets, that employer is actually verified of being able to write that to your to your actual digital transcript. Now the other thing to your question is, like, the individual also has the right to accept whether or not they want that on their, digital transcript, meaning you don't just automatically have to take everything. You're still the principal. You are the one who's in charge of what's contained within it, what of that information you wanna share with others, etcetera. That's really helpful. And and as I yield back, mister chairman, I do wanna note that I have
a bipartisan No Robot Bosses Act that I recently introduced to address the seriousness of, employers who are using AI to with with no human to to scan resumes coming in or or job applications coming in. I invite my colleagues to take a look at that, and I yield back. Thank you. I would like to, recognize my friend from Missouri, Mr. Honder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all the witnesses to for coming before the subcommittee today. This in this Congress, we've frequently discussed how College for All, has failed our society.
Employers no longer value bachelor's degrees as much as they once did. 80% of employers value experience over education when evaluating job candidates. And recent recent surveys have shown that, nearly half, plan to eliminate, bachelor's degree requirements. Many students graduating from four year colleges and universities are simply not prepared for the workforce as much as they ought to be. Not only have recent college graduates' reading, writing and math skills declined, 78% of employers
reported that having, reported having a candidate with strong technical skills, but, performing poorly because of so lacking so called soft skills such as, such as teamwork and problem solving and work ethic. So in many cases, credentials carry more meaning for employers. Learning and employment records, can provide employers with a much clearer picture of an applicant's, skills and whether they would be a good fit for the company. Mr. Caplan gave a great example of, Maria and and, and, how her LER boosted her
hiring value. Maria's LER showed employers that she was far more qualified for a potential job than what her resume and educational background might have indicated. Her LER shows that she has a vast array of quantifiable competencies gained from her military experience and work experience. And the best part is that Maria owns all the data, in her LER. However, one concern that we need to address that I'm sure has been touched on earlier in this hearing is, the need to make sure that we have robust privacy protections in this system.
Mr. Kaplan, what privacy and data security protections should be in place to ensure that Maria and millions other of Americans, can feel comfortable and that their LER data won't be misused or abused or hacked? This is very similar to other kinds of technologies like this. You can think about medical records, and the issues that have, we've had to work our way through to make sure that that system worked. I think that the core to solving this problem is, one, you have to engineer privacy into the infrastructure itself, and that means that the infrastructure has to ask questions
and challenge and work on these protocols and standards that ensure that digital privacy is protected. People give informed consent when they, when they use that information or when they share that information. Another thing I think that Congress should consider is we should step back and we should take a look at FERPA, and FCRA, both of which have direct relevance to the use and sharing of this kind of information. Both of those those requirements were written in a pre artificial intelligence age, and I
think it's gonna be critical that we take a look at that regulatory framework and we update it to ensure that the kind of privacy and security protections that you're talking about are embedded from a regulatory perspective as well as from a legislative perspective? And of course, to really unleash LER's, potential, we need employer buy in. Right now, many small businesses would be uncertain about how LERs might accommodate their human resource, needs and their current talent acquisition strategy.
They cite any number of technical, regulatory and cultural barriers to the adoption yeah, mister Kaplan, how would you, what would you identify as the top barriers, and how can congress help overcome those? I think the the the top areas, and I think this is particularly important for small and medium sized businesses, is frankly just simplicity of access. So I really support the state initiatives that are focused on overall economic workforce development and the movement of the states in order to create these kind of systems because most people work in small and medium sized businesses.
We need to make this really simple. And the good news is we can make it we can make it incredibly simple. So one is sort of that. Let's make this system simple. Let's have the communities that are are looking at these jobs, really in really engaged in in all of this happening. And then the other side of it is we have to show demonstrable value to employers that taking skills based information through learning and employment record makes it cheaper, easier, and better for them so they can find to get better quality candidates that they
can take a look at. They can get through the employment process quicker, and then when those people are in jobs that they're more successful. So that's gonna take some work, some time, but I think we understand how to go about it. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you. And I'd like to, recognize my my good friend from wis Wisconsin, mister Grothman. Thank you very much. Mister Ditonado, are there technical changes that employers would need to make to upgrade their systems to accept skills based records, you think?
There are certainly some technical changes or or opportunities to upgrade. There's some different standards available like LER, LERRS. But ultimately, when we're talking about talent marketplaces as an opportunity, we also have can bypass a lot of the HRIS or ATS systems because we've built in the opportunity to allow for employers, small businesses, medium sized businesses, and large businesses to understand the talent that's available and to I I think they probably can figure it out, I think, in a lot of cases.
I'm I was a little bit afraid of having the government getting more involved in this. Do you think, there's certain people, including Republican congressmen, who wanna push more credentialism? Even if that credentialism is through a tech school, they want more credentialism. Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing? Or because it credentialism is a little bit different than a skills based, hiring decision, isn't it? Is credentialism good or bad? I think the understanding of what the credentials offer and the skills that they offer is is a good thing. The transparency that LARs and talent marketplaces offer is definitely a positive.
Okay. I didn't exactly get get the answer to your question. We'll we'll ask one of the others to to respond. Credentialism means that, to me, you took a class. Maybe you wouldn't be good at doing this job in the workplace, but you took a class, so you get a credential. And I think, skills based means maybe even the employer himself gives you a test or talks to, references or whatever and says this person can do a good job. Do you think credentialism based on academic achievement is a good or bad thing?
I'll take that, question, congressman. I think if you start from the end and work backwards, and the end being, like, what does the workforce require? I do believe that the workforce and employers are looking for proxies, that signal the competencies in the skills required for the role good example of that is simply how industry certifications across technology sector, across health care, etcetera, those have emerged to be a great proxy. If the holder of that certificate or that credential, if you will, that already is a great signal of the skill that this individual already has demonstrated the competency needed
to do that to do that job. Now that is actually a great market based model of using credentials to signal value. You're certainly right that if we're not careful, you take any course, you get awarded a badge, you take any other class, you didn't get a badge, etcetera. That will propagate the dynamic that you see on Credential Engine today. 1,800,000 things registered on there, but reality is is that the ones that are actually credible and value in the market are a small, small fraction of that, and it's now created noise in the system that's not good for anybody, including the individuals who
are getting the badges. Okay. Mister Kaplan, is there a concern here that as we delve into this, somebody decides what's on that LER, what you have to do to get a good LER or not a good LER? Is that gonna be a difficult thing, or is that something that makes it more difficult than we don't want the government sloshing around and making decisions as to what to do here? Or do we trust government to be able to coach people how to put together a good LER? I think we need to rely on those who are issuing the LERs and issuing
the credentials to make that decision. So in terms of the that person be? Without it would could be an employer. It could be an academic institution. It could be a government agency. I mean, to me, an LER or credential is just it's a container, And that container represents a set of skills and competencies that are there. And I believe that over time, the marketplace can sort out, sort out those that are good, and those that are bad. If we say the marketplace, as opposed the marketplace is almost the opposite of an
LER. And then an LER is somebody, an academic, government agency or whatever, saying you have such and such a competency. And without an LER, the individual himself, the guy in the in the room doing the interviewing, has to make that decision or together with whatever the references tell him or the prospective employee has to tell him. So I guess my fear is that if the government if the government gets involved, the government begins to set standards that, you know, maybe a person who's perfectly capable
of doing their job does not hit those standards. And that's my concern. We better just let to natural evolution as over time more and more employers become aware that particularly college degrees aren't worth worth much. And as one employer told me, a master's degree is almost a negative because it takes you too long to deprogram these people. Well, when I talked about standards earlier in my testimony, I was really talking about technical standards, that can support interoperability, not standards in defining what's a good LER or
not a not a good LER. One thing that I would add is we also envision within this learning and employment record universe self asserted skills. So we're not just looking at formal credentialization, but we're also giving people the opportunity and encouraging them to bring forward skills and competence that they have and put that into the LER as well. The key to all of this is just transparency about the data that's in the LER. So whoever looks at that, whether it's an employer or an academic institution, they know where that information came from.
If it's coming from an employer or an academic institution, you can verify it. If it's coming from an individual, they can state why they think they have those skills and competencies. And so the person reading that LER can make the determination based upon the information that's in it whether or not, they agree with the value that it's bringing. Thank you for giving me the additional time. Thank you. Thank you so much. Now I'd like to recognize my friend from Virginia, a ranking member, member Scott. Thank you, mister chairman. I think we all agree that skills are important, and we're not talking about just,
digitizing a resume. They we can do that today, but creating a record that lists specific, skills that can be recognized nationally. Now that offers many questions, mister Cheney, because it you're looking at what the process is for validating a particular credential, who gets to make the verification, how you evaluate credentials, who gets to regulate all this.
There are a lot of ways to evaluate credentials. I mean, you can get a rec we have the registered apprenticeship program now. Run by the Department of Labor. Program is recognized. If you're a graduate of a registered apprenticeship program, it's high quality because it got registered and it's nationally recognized. You can get that through, I guess, you can get a credential by graduating from a recognized institution or a skill certificate from a recognized institution. You can take a test.
You can be a licensed government agency or evaluated by some credentialed reviewer. We've heard employers writing stuff into the, into the LER, but I'm a little concerned that they may not be qualified to evaluate, particularly when you toss in subjective requirements. What kind of process would there be to get this national recognition so that everybody knows I hate my what you have on your resume?
So thank you for the for the question, mister chairman. I I don't think we're talking about a national recognition. We're talking about a national system that allows information in an LER to be, openly and and securely shared across different, users of that system. So it could be that an individual can share their the information in their LER with an next educator, with the next employer, or whoever else they they choose to. So it's not an a national recognition.
It's a it's a national If there's not a national recognition, this isn't much more than just digitizing your resume. Well, I I'm I'm trying to be careful in using recognition because I don't want that to be, conveyed back to, representative Grafman's question about, you know, is this governmentally approved kind of kind of situation. But we do need a a national system where we have the ability to know that information is being shared securely about the validated skills that you have. Well, mister Kaplan, we have, this thing going we have this panel programs in Utah
and Alabama. Do they recognize each other's work? I can't speak specifically to Utah and Alabama, but I would say that from what I know, it's a challenge to move a credential issued in one state and have it be identical to a credential issued in another state. If you don't have if you don't have a system that does that, what are we talking about? Well, that's what we're encouraging to be created here is that Something akin to the registered apprenticeship program where the Department of Labor would be in control and would designate would set the standards?
We're talking about a decentralized distributed infrastructure that would allow people to move information within the LER about their skills and competencies anywhere they go. Think of it more like ATMs or credit cards. So what we're what we're talking about here is that you have all these different issuers of, let's say, credit cards, call that an LER, and all these different recipients of credit cards, say LERs, and we wanna make it really simple for all that movement to occur.
Well, if you don't know what somebody's credential is, I'm not sure how valuable it would be. We've heard I think a gentleman from Missouri mentioned, a lot of employers are less interested in specific skills and more interested in soft skills like showing up on time, following direct following directions, critical critical thinking, working with others. How does all this convey those kinds of skills?
I think, again, we we want to be able to allow people themselves to assert that they have skills in in those kinds of areas. When you're talking about the soft skills areas, in fact, there are a lot of organizations that provide recognition for having those soft skills. When I worked at IBM, we got recognition for things that we did collaboratively or collectively, that, you know, that we were good at selling. So as an example, I could I have a certificate in selling. Okay. And so that's sort of a soft skill. Right? Congressman. If if I may, congressman, on this point, I think there's a there's there's a
key consideration here, which is I think I understand where you're going with the register nature of things. Degrees out of institutions are registered and they're valid, if you will. But not all of those have credibility and readiness actually attached to them in the marketplace. So I think it's a combination of both the effects of ensuring that there are those that can verify and validate competencies or skills they're awarded, but you also have to have the market's influence there because not all of those credentials are actually valued or credible in the marketplace. They're not relevant to the jobs that are needed. And so I think the notion of a digital learning record and a and skill
record here is to effectively signal that says, for the job that you require, the skills and competencies necessary in that, I can signal to you that I have had those verified. They're not self declared. They've actually been verified by the institution where I demonstrated that competency or I certified it. So then it becomes credible in the marketplace in that way. Thank thank you, mister chairman. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. I'd like now to recognize my friend from North Carolina, mister Harris. Thank you, mister chairman. And, thank all of you on the panel for being a part of this today and your expertise.
And, apologize for being in and out, but other committee meetings required. The most important political issue of today is how to ensure that our economy works for everyday Americans, not against them. We know that Bidenomics doesn't work, and under president Trump, this Republican Congress is working. We're building an economy that unleashes opportunity for everyone. For too long, I'm convinced that Washington has been pushing a one size fits all idea that every young person has gotta follow the same path, chase the same degree,
or travel the same road just to find a job. But that's not the American way, and our nation was built by men and women whose skill, grit, god given talent created the greatest engine of prosperity that the world has ever seen. Reading your testimonies coming in here, today's hearing, obviously, of the learning and employment records or LERs is premised upon the idea that there's a better way to communicate what an ad job applicant is capable of rather than just sharing a resume. It's rooted in the idea that focusing on a person's skills and using technology can
fix a problem that both employees and employers have in today's job market. So, So, mister Kaplan, if if you may, because we have to be able to explain this back to our constituents back home. From an employer's perspective, what problem in the hiring process were LERs actually designed to solve? The primary problem that they were designed to solve is to provide the employer a much more granular information about an individual and the skills that they have that they could verify and have confidence so that they would make a decision on it.
And so this provides efficiency, into the talent marketplace and talent management system. Another important part of it from an employer perspective is to open up the aperture for the kind of candidates who would be qualified for their jobs so that they can look at the entire continuum of people, whether they have a college degree, whether they were in the military, whether they've, collected, experience in their own lives and be able to present that in a way, that an employer can recognize that it amounts to jobs. And finally, it was also meant to encourage employers themselves to understand the skills and
competencies people need to be successful in their jobs and to articulate those skills and competencies to the market and to people so that they know if I wanna try and get this job, here are the skills and competencies that I need. Can can you give a basic example of how a human resources system or hiring platform might read a learning and employment record? Sure. So the way it would work today is not dissimilar to what they're doing with a resume. So, now pretty much an AI algorithm is receiving that resume and they're extracting out
of it skills and they're matching those skills to the employer's job description. So that that's sort of the world of it today, and it's a pretty rough cut when they do that. What we're trying to get through, by moving towards, validated and verified learning and employment records is that rather than trying to extract and understand what's in a resume, an individual can present verified and validated information to the HR manager and recruiter so they can see that direct, they can see that direct match, and they can make decisions
based upon that. Thank you. Mister Pulsipher, your institution has obviously led the way on getting college students set up with LERs. What problem would you say from a new graduate's perspective can an LER actually solve? Yeah. I think the primary thing, and we've seen this in the data of that now more than 60,000 of our students are actually utilizing, is that the number one thing they're using is the career navigation capabilities that now affords them, so that now they know they have a degree or a credential. But what they don't directly know is what are all the jobs for which my
particular credential with all the competencies, which ones am I already able to actually apply for because I can demonstrate the readiness. And so the benefits that they're gaining now is that they get visibility to all the roles at different employers in my specific kind of search area, me and my geolocation. And now I can see, in fact, which are the ones I'm ready for. What they can also see is if I see jobs I do want, but I may not yet have a complete skill match against, it also will surface to them additional learning journeys that they can take to acquire those skills. So that's the number one thing they're seeing.
They're actually getting greater kinda control of their own career navigation. Okay. Would you say that's the most promising early outcome you've seen from WGU students using the digital skills record? I think on the individual side, like, that is very promising because it's giving the individual the confidence that they can now declare their competency into the workforce. Now one of the really other promising thing, it is definitely doing what we've heard here, is employers are now seeing a much broader talent pool than they were seeing seeing previously. This is to your earlier point, which is there are many individuals who possess the
skills and competencies they needed, but it didn't come in the form of a degree. They're seeing a much broader talent pool. Excellent. Well, again, thank all of you for being here as part of that. And, mister chairman, I yield back. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for your testimony. Now I'd like to, move toward our closing remarks. I would like to round record as miss Adams for her closing remarks. Thank you very much, mister chairman. And, again, thank you to, to the witnesses for speaking with us today. Learning and employment records have the potential to open new pathways to employment for many
workers who have the know how to do the job but lack a four year degree. As both unemployment and and the cost of living continue to rise, it's vital that we invest in new technologies and resources for Americans to achieve upward economic mobility. However, there are still many questions that need to be answered. Learning and employment records come with with many hurdles to implementation, including a lack of common data, standards, data privacy concerns, and and low buy in from both employers and
job seekers. For learning and employment records to benefit employers and job seekers, we must comprehensively address these problems. We must also ensure that that by implementing these systems, that we're opening doors to opportunity and not closing them. When done right, learning and employment records could potentially uplift marginalized populations. And as we continue to to discuss these issues, we must take steps to further close income gaps and prioritize equity in job training and hiring.
I do appreciate our conversation today. It's been certainly very helpful, and I hope that we can continue to work to provide economic opportunity to all Americans, not just the wealthy and the well connected. Mister chairman, thank you. I yield back, the balance of my time. Thank you so much. I I tell you, I think it's important that we recognize visionaries when we have them. And, you know, I can think that back in the day of, the first flight, not too many people understood the power of the Wright Brothers experiment.
They had no idea that Alexander's Bell, Hello Watson would turn into this. I can say this, I do recognize what you guys represent, your entire team, your industry. It's gonna be very, very exciting times. I hope I can kind of convey that in my closing statements, but I wanna thank you for thinking outside the box collaboration that you're going through right now and seeing what can truly happen and and allows so many people who've been lost in the past to finally get that taste of the American dream. I'm excited about being part of that process. Imagine children born today with options and choices that they'll have eighteen years from now.
Not only children raised in the middle class, but the 400,000 foster kids, the 11 to 12,000,000 kids born in poverty, that in the past, over eighty percent will probably die in poverty. What you your vision compared to whatever, connected with everything else that's happened in the last ten months is gonna be remarkable as we get into the next few years. Combined over the last ten months with the Trump account, federal choose school choice, LERs, Eighteen years from now, no matter who's listening, regardless what community you lived in or what job you have, your child will have a personal Trump account with potential based
on average stock of value around 8, 300,000 by the time they're 18 years old, Due to school choice passed by the Working Families Tax Cut Act, you'll be able to enroll your child in the best school and setting for them, where they'll no longer be stuck in poverty. They will be able able, therefore, to be proficient in math, reading, and and, writing. Not only that, but they'll also be financially literate because for the years that the years coming up to that and years ahead, they will be they will have their own Trump account, understanding how to get the best return on investment on their account.
By the way, not counting Social Security, the personal Trump account will be worth millions by the time of, people are getting ready to retire. Because LER's AI and buy and parents' buy in, little old Jane and Johnny starting around sixth or seventh grade will start to prepare for their own, career passion. With high school dual enrollment and trades certification and and, apprenticeships, some will leave high school ready to start a career, or some will start their own business because they've been taught about the capitalist system, about free and free enterprise.
And those, who have a passion for higher education, they'll not only take the courses necessary for their career, but due to their own financial literacy, will leave with no debt. All these scenarios of young people working smart, hard, and following their dreams will allow them to buy their first home in their twenties and start their families in their twenties. They'll be able to retire in their forties, their fifties, and sixties, possibly, if they want to. More importantly, they'll be able to enter and enjoy the middle class, which is what our country is all about. They'll appreciate our American culture, and they're taught about our our history, the capitalist system,
to give back, the fact that we have a god in heaven that really gave us a remarkable country, and they'll be able to teach their kids these, same lessons that we're learning. This will be the For our kids, not not just a few of them, but our foster kids, kids trapped in poor ZIP codes, kids that are experiencing the juvenile system right now that have bad or no parenting. They will grow up being great parents, being able to teach their kids because they've been educated and they will pass on that the idea of hope and opportunity. So I I wanna thank you. This is a game changer.
I I don't know if everybody everybody else gets it yet. I had a chance to, last little last little message. I had a chance about four years ago to sit down with Nick Saban. He came to talk to a bunch of us about, NIL. And he talked about how they look for talent. He said, they actually can identify a young man in the seventh grade. By the time he gets to eleventh grade, they can offer him a scholarship. The reason why is because they're communicating with this young man. This young man, first of all, knows what Alabama or Miami can offer, and, therefore, he's gonna do whatever it takes because that's his passion.
It's not work. It's it's it's a enjoyment for him to get to what to this place, this place of NFL opportunities, maybe the color, the culture, whatever it might be. And that school also recognizes young man, their talent, that this is what we need to grow our successful team. So they're communicating. By eleventh grade, they have come to a win win. We need to be doing the same thing with our kids. Seventh, eighth grade, AI, parents involvement, parents understanding, great teachers. The things we're gonna do the next eighteen to twenty years, these kids growing up right now, will be remarkable. And, I'm excited to be part of that.
That should be our legacy. What can we do to make sure our kids have such a remarkable great future? And it comes down to working confidence, middle and middle class giving back, and saying thank you for this opportunity of this remarkable country. So that being said, I can't thank you guys enough. I appreciate anything we can do. I love the bipartisanship that we have on this. Let us know we can help. And with that, I wanna thank the witnesses again for taking the time to testify before the subcommittee today. Without objections, there being no further business, the subcommittee stands adjourned.
Thanks. Thank you.