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Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. Our fiscal year 2000 budget request includes $1.163 billion for Vocational Education, $575 million for Adult Education, $12 million for State Grants for Incarcerated Youth Offenders, $55 million for School-to-Work Opportunities, and $65 million for Community-Based Technology Centers.
To close the skills gap, we need a new approach to education. Congress recently enacted new adult and vocational education legislation that gives us a framework to do this. The new Acts increase the flexibility that States and local agencies have in deciding how to improve vocational and adult education. There are fewer set-asides and rules about how money may be spent. The guidelines in the law promote quality programs and instructional strategies that research and local experience have demonstrated result in student achievement. In addition, the Acts increase our focus on student achievement, by requiring that we keep track of what happens to students and that we hold institutions and administrators accountable for students' success. We are moving to take advantage of this opportunity for dramatic program improvements.
The Department is using the flexibility in the new Acts to work as a partner with States, schools, colleges, vocational-technical institutes, and adult education programs. States, schools, colleges, and communities need to decide what educational approaches work best, and they need our support to build programs capable of closing the skills gap. We have worked with State directors, local educators, students, volunteer instructors, and national data experts to design the accountability systems called for in the statutes. We are issuing guidance, not regulations. All of our guidance documents are available to the public on our Web site, along with answers to questions about the laws. We are helping States network to help each other and are providing technical assistance to them. We are using our national research funds to give educational agencies information they can use to improve instruction and accountability.
Student achievement, and accountability for it, will be the key to our work in FY 2000 and the years that follow. I would like to spend much of my time with you today talking about the results you may expect from the investments you are making in vocational and adult education and school-to-work, and how you are going to know what those investments are achieving.
The new Acts ask States to hold themselves and their local programs accountable for the same student achievement objectives that we are holding ourselves accountable for at the national level. States will gather information about student achievement and learning gains, attainment of credentials (high school diplomas, GEDs, and college degrees), and placement and retention in postsecondary education and employment. This alignment of State and national goals and focus on students will lead to improved education strategies. States are setting goals for each of these measures of student success, in order to promote program improvement. States will agree on these goals with our office as a condition for State plan approval. They will be accountable for the results, through publication of the data and the award of incentive grant funds when they exceed their objectives. You will know how it is working because we will report to Congress annually on the results.
The validity of performance information depends largely on the quality of data collected. A number of States, including Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, have done some excellent work to ensure the quality of their adult education program data. Florida, Illinois, Indiana, and Texas are among the States that have made progress with their vocational education data systems. Still, a number of States have a lot of work to do before they can accurately report on the educational and employment outcomes of students. We are providing technical assistance to States that need help setting up data systems. We are training teachers and administrators to collect and report data, ensure that the data are valid, and use the data to improve program quality and student achievement. Our efforts to build performance management systems are supported entirely by the vocational and adult education national program funds, making that part of the budget request increasingly important to help us achieve our GPRA objectives.
Our request includes a $103 million increase in Adult Education State Grants (to $468 million) to make it possible for States to improve the quality of instruction, increase student achievement, and serve more students. The increase would enable States and local programs to add significant numbers of instructional hours, support more full-time teachers, increase the use of technology, and provide services such as child care. Over the past few years, Massachusetts has almost tripled the number of instructional hours per student per year -- something research indicates significantly contributes to student achievement. However, Massachusetts had to trade off other program objectives, such as increasing enrollment, to achieve this. Our request would allow States to improve quality, as well as increase enrollment.
The Department supplements the Adult Education State grants with nationally targeted efforts to meet our most challenging literacy needs. Our English-language initiative, "Common Ground Partnerships," would provide $70 million to improve the English language abilities, basic skills, and participation in community life among immigrants and others who have limited English skills. English language instruction is the fastest growing component of the adult education program. This initiative would reach 150,000 people, including many young adults who recently entered this country with minimal formal education. Recent immigrants are relatively young, low-paid, and vulnerable to unemployment. One third of recent immigrants have not completed high school. Actions that are second nature to us -- opening a checking account, finding a doctor, enrolling a child in school and working with her teacher, using the subway or bus system -- can be problems for new immigrants who do not yet speak English well.
Our adult education technology initiative, "America Learns Partnerships," would aim at increasing access to adult education and improving its effectiveness. With 44 million adults in the country who can benefit from improved basic skills, we must acknowledge that we will never have the resources for the classrooms and teachers needed to close that skills gap. Nor will the majority of these adults have the time, transportation, or child care they need to attend classes. The future of adult education lies in technology that gives adults flexible options to learn what they need, at home or other convenient places, in interesting ways. The initiative would make $23 million available to partnerships of States and private companies that have the capacity to develop cutting-edge technologies. The partnerships would develop and evaluate sophisticated new technology that gives adults who now have no access to technology, access to personalized instruction in basic communication, math, and technology skills. Technologies developed with these grants -- perhaps interactive instructional television programs for adults with low reading levels -- would then become available to adult education programs nationally.
Our Adult Education request includes $6 million for evaluation and technical assistance activities. These investments are targeted at achieving our GPRA objectives, which include improving student access and program quality and establishing benchmarks for adult education performance systems. FY 2000 resources would focus on three key areas: (1) professional development and certification of adult education teachers, (2) technical assistance and support to States to improve accountability systems, and (3) assessment and certification of student learning gains. Our national activities would directly support our requested increases for the State adult education grants. For example, States would need more full-time, certified instructors in adult education to fill the classrooms opened by the increase in the Basic State Grant funds, and the national professional development and certification projects would bring more of these qualified instructors into the field.
We also request $6 million for the National Institute for Literacy, which plays an important role in facilitating collaboration for literacy among the Departments of Education, Labor, and HHS and facilitating communication in the field. The Institute plays a crucial role in sponsoring projects that move research into practice. Through a current project, NIFL is supporting the development of research-based training materials for practitioners to use in improving instruction for adults with learning disabilities. NIFL, working with the Departments, makes extensive use of the Internet and other electronic forums to disseminate innovative State projects nationally and to facilitate communication among adult education providers. NIFL's "Equipped for the Future" project is contributing to new performance management systems by developing voluntary content standards that complement the Department's performance indicators.
The request for Adult Education is part of the President's strategy for addressing the skills gap. The President has also proposed a 10 percent tax credit for employers that provide English-language, literacy, and basic skills education for their employees. This would leverage more business investment and involvement in adult literacy.
The Department also includes $65 million for Community-Based Technology Centers (CTCs) in the Education Reform request. CTCs will give adults in economically distressed urban and rural communities access to technology for learning. Our Nation has a digital divide. Minority and low-income homes are unlikely to have the computers and Internet connections that are increasingly common in American homes. Many low-income people do not have even the most basic computer skills and have no way to acquire them. The CTCs will make it possible for residents to come to a local center and not only use computers for Internet access, writing a business letter, or preparing a r(sum(, but receive instruction in computer use and basic skills from qualified adult educators. This proposal builds on previous public investments in community-accessible computers, which have demonstrated that computer access can literally make a difference in peoples' lives -- through new jobs and other opportunities. This initiative will increase the number of communities that have centers and ensure that centers are available to adults with limited reading and basic skills.
The budget includes $1.163 billion for Vocational Education. Like the Adult Education Act, the vocational education legislation requires States to set challenging goals for student achievement and be accountable for results. Vocational education must continuously improve programs to reach these objectives. The requested funds would help States and communities to begin making changes in instruction, professional development, counseling, and accountability systems.
We have requested an increase of $5 million for Tech-Prep Education to continue to expand our efforts to build high-tech courses and create seamless transitions for students from secondary to postsecondary technical and professional degree programs. Through this investment, we hope to encourage such innovations as locating high schools on community college campuses and enabling high school students to receive credit for college courses. Finally, the request continues $4.1 million in support for Tribally Controlled Postsecondary Vocational Institutions.
For Vocational Education National Programs, the FY 2000 budget includes a request for $17.5 million. We are strategically using these funds to achieve our GPRA objectives. FY 2000 resources would be focused on five key areas: (1) identifying and supporting New American High Schools, (2) strengthening teacher preparation and development, (3) providing technical assistance and support to States to improve accountability systems, (4) supporting the development of instructional materials with challenging academic and technical content for careers in high-tech industries, and (5) conducting research and evaluation. To give you an example of the impact of these investments, our New American High Schools projects have research evidence on high school reform strategies that improve student achievement. By FY 2000, this relatively small project will reach 2000 high schools and create networks of schools that help each other implement reforms and improve student outcomes. Research and evaluation activities include the National Center for Research in Vocational Education and a National Assessment, which will generate information about national progress toward attaining the vocational education GPRA goals. We also include $12 million for State Grants for Incarcerated Youth Offenders, which supports State correctional agency literacy, life skills, job skills, and postsecondary education programs.
The budget includes $110 million for the final year of the School-to-Work grants -- $55 million each for the Departments of Education and Labor. All 50 States have applied for and received School-to-Work (STW) implementation grants. Although the STW initiative has been misunderstood by some, these grants have initiated many effective reforms with impressive gains in student achievement. Research on school-to-work in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York shows that students who participate are more likely to attend college and get better paying jobs. Our national activities and technical assistance in FY 2000 will concentrate on efforts to ensure the sustainability of State and local school-to-work activities after Federal funding ends.
My colleagues and I will happy to respond to any questions you may have.
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