05/31/2006 Share this page

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Community Colleges
Adult Education and Literacy and Secondary, Career and Technical Education
Adult Education
Secondary, Career, and Technical Education
Other Department News

Community Colleges

Strengthening our ability to produce a well-educated and skilled workforce by providing American students and workers with the skills and training needed to compete with the best and brightest in the world is an integral part of the American Competitiveness Initiative. As noted in the report on American competitiveness released by the Domestic Policy Council, Office of Science and Technology Policy, “Community colleges make great training providers because they are affordable, accessible, and, perhaps most important, adaptable.” Community colleges are able to track changing local labor conditions and partner with local employers to provide training geared toward the jobs that are in demand.”

On May 11, 2006, OVAE hosted a session entitled, “Community College Working Group on American Competitiveness.” Representatives from community colleges, the business community, and school districts from across the country met to discuss how community colleges could continue to play an integral role in keeping America competitive. U.S. Department of Education officials shared the President’s goals for the initiative as they relate to the work of the participants. The all-day working group featured two panel sessions with a focus on workforce development and college and career preparedness. Panelists shared their experiences and successes in workforce preparation, career pathways, and secondary to postsecondary transition. A recurring theme of the workshop was the ability of community colleges to partner with business and/or school leaders in their communities to ensure their success in the global economy.

To learn more about OVAE’s community college working groups, please visit: http://www.ed.gov/print/about/offices/list/ovae/pi/cclo/wg.html.
For more information on the American Competitiveness Initiative, please visit:
http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/competitiveness/innovation.html

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Adult Education and Literacy, and Secondary, Career and Technical Education

The U.S. Department of Labor, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education, announced that 23 states are eligible to apply for incentive grants under section 503 of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). These states must submit their incentive grant applications to the U.S. Department of Labor by June 12, 2006. Awards will be made by June 30, 2006.

To qualify for an incentive grant, a state must exceed its agreed-upon performance levels for WIA Title I, WIA Title II (Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA)), and the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act (Perkins III). Incentive grant funds may be used to carry out an innovative program consistent with the requirements of any one or more of the programs within [WIA] Title I, AEFLA, or Perkins III. Applications must include assurances that:

• The legislature of the state was consulted with respect to the development of the application.


• The application was approved by the Governor, the eligible agency for adult education (as defined in section 203(4) of WIA (20 U.S.C. 9202(4))), and the state agency responsible for vocational and technical education programs (as defined in section 3(9) of Perkins III (20 U.S.C. 2302(9)).


• The state and the eligible agency, as appropriate, exceeded the agreed-upon levels of performance for WIA Title I, AEFLA, and Perkins III.

For additional information visit the Federal Register Notice.

OVAE, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment Training Administration (ETA), held its second institute as part of the “Strategic Partnerships for a Competitive Workforce Initiative” on May 1-2 in Los Angeles, CA. This national initiative was established to help local leaders build broad-based partnerships to develop and implement career pathways within their communities.

This second session, entitled “Pathways and Partnerships in the Healthcare Industry,” brought together community-based teams comprised of key representatives from school districts, adult education, business and industry, community colleges, and workforce investment boards. Teams left the two-day institute with an action plan for implementing their local vision and approach to economic development through career pathways.

Two additional institutes are scheduled for this fall and will focus on career pathways in advanced manufacturing and skilled trades/construction. Although participation in the institutes is limited to ETA’s Community-Based Job Training grantees, both OVAE and ETA will widely disseminate the institute’s model and career pathways materials to help other communities develop and implement their career pathways programs.

For further information about this initiative, please contact Gregory Henschel at OVAE by phone at (202) 245-7661 or via email at gregory.henschel@ed.gov.

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Adult Education

The new GED 2002 test places a much greater emphasis on math applications and problem-solving, but just six percent of adult education teachers have solid backgrounds in mathematics. As the new GED 2002 test was implemented, math scores of adult education students dropped significantly. In response, OVAE launched a GED “Train the Trainer Project” to improve GED math teachers’ skills in the classroom. As the first step in this project, GED math test results were analyzed to determine the questions that most students missed and, the skills needed to improve their test scores.

As the next step, OVAE will hold a two-day “GED Math Train the Trainer Institute” on August 22-24 in Washington, DC. OVAE will pay travel expenses for one adult educator from each state to attend the institute and has asked each state to support the travel for another adult educator to attend. Participants will learn new techniques for teaching numeracy skills to adults and will leave the institute with a set of materials to improve math instruction in their states.

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Secondary Career and Technical Education

High School Graduates Need Similar Math, Reading Skills Whether Entering College or Workforce Training Programs

High school students who plan to enter workforce training programs need academic skills similar to those needed by students planning to enter four-year colleges, according to a new study conducted by the publishers of the ACT college test. In the study, ACT looked at the types of occupations that offer a wage sufficient to support a family of four, as well as potential for career advancement but that do not require a four-year college degree. These occupations, which include electricians, construction workers, upholsterers, and plumbers, typically require some combination of vocational training and on-the-job experience or an associate's degree.

The academic skill levels compared in the study were based on job profiles from ACT's WorkKeys program and the company's College Readiness Benchmarks on its ACT college admission and placement exam. The results show that the levels of math and reading skills needed for success in the first year of college are comparable to those needed by high school graduates to enter the vast majority (90 percent) of these profiled jobs. Based on these results, ACT recommends that all high school students should experience a common academic program, one that prepares them for both college and workforce training, regardless of their post-graduation plans.

For further information, please visit: http://www.act.org/news/releases/2006/05-08-06.html

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Other Department News

Secretary Spellings Announces National Mathematics Advisory Panel Members

On May 15, 2006, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced the membership for the newly-established National Mathematics Advisory Panel. The panel will include 17 experts and six ex-officio members who will advise President Bush and Secretary Spellings on the best use of scientifically-based research to advance the teaching and learning of mathematics.

"To keep America competitive in the 21st century, we must improve the way we teach math and we must give more students the chance to take advanced math and science courses in high school," Secretary Spellings said. “America's high school graduates need solid math skills, whether proceeding to college or going into the workforce."

The National Mathematics Advisory Panel will examine and summarize the scientific evidence related to the teaching and learning of mathematics, with a specific focus on preparation for, and success in, learning algebra. The National Mathematics Advisory Panel will issue an interim report by January 31, 2007, and a final report by February 28, 2008. Both reports will provide policy recommendations on how to improve mathematics achievement for all students.

The National Mathematics Advisory Panel will be chaired by Dr. Larry Faulkner, president of the Houston Endowment and President Emeritus of the University of Texas at Austin. Other panelists are:

• Dr. Deborah Ball, Dean, School of Education and Collegiate Professor, University of Michigan
• Dr. Camilla Benbow, Dean of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Peabody College
• Dr. A. Wade Boykin, Professor and Director of the Developmental Psychology Graduate Program in the Department of Psychology, Howard University
• Dr. Francis "Skip" Fennell, Professor of Education, McDaniel College (Maryland); President, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
• Dr. David Geary, Curators' Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri at Columbia
• Dr. Russell Gersten, Executive Director, Instructional Research Group; Professor Emeritus, College for Education, University of Oregon
• Nancy Ichinaga, former Principal, Bennett-Kew Elementary School, Inglewood, California
• Dr. Tom Loveless, Director, Brown Center on Education Policy and Senior Fellow in Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution
• Dr. Liping Ma, Senior Scholar for the Advancement of Teaching, Carnegie Foundation
• Dr. Valerie Reyna, Professor of Human Development and Professor of Psychology, Cornell University
• Dr. Wilfried Schmid, Professor of Mathematics, Harvard University
• Dr. Robert Siegler, Teresa Heinz Professor of Cognitive Psychology, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University
• Dr. Jim Simons, President of Renaissance Technologies Corporation; former Chairman of the Mathematics Department, State University of New York at Stony Brook
• Dr. Sandra Stotsky, Independent researcher and consultant in education; former Senior Associate Commissioner, Massachusetts Department of Education
• Vern Williams, Math Teacher, Longfellow Middle School, Fairfax, Virginia
• Dr. Hung-Hsi Wu, Professor of Mathematics, University of California at Berkeley

Ex-officio members are:

• Dan Berch, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health
• Diane Jones, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
• Tom Luce, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Education
• Kathie Olsen, Deputy Director, National Science Foundation
• Raymond Simon, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Education
• Grover (Russ) Whitehurst, Director, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education

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