07/24/2006 Share this page

Past issues Subscribe Unsubscribe

What's inside...
Note from the Editor
Office of the Assistant Secretary
Community Colleges
Adult Education and Literacy
Secondary, Career, and Technical Education
Other Department News

Note from the Editor

There will be one summer edition of the OVAE Review. We will resume the monthly editions in September.

Top

Office of the Assistant Secretary

It is with gratitude and appreciation that I tendered my resignation as acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE), effective July 3, 2006. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve you and the nation over the past two years both in this capacity and in prior positions at the U. S. Department of Labor. I plan to continue my work in the field of education, as well as refocus my energy on my family.

My service within this administration has been incredibly rewarding and enriching. As a young man who grew up as a child of migrant farm workers, my early life was spent migrating each year from California to Nebraska, following the seasonal crops. My family traveled to areas of farm labor continuing up to my college graduation. During these years, effective education programs and caring principals, teachers, and coaches played a vital role in my academic development, eventually leading me to the completion of several degrees and credentials in education. Overcoming the challenges of my early years inspired me to pursue a career in public service and to dedicate my working life to ensuring that every student, including those with limited English proficiency and other barriers to educational achievement, would have access to a high-quality, rigorous educational experience.

Guided by the President's vision and Secretary Spelling's leadership, I was given the opportunity to pursue the following goals during my service in OVAE: to improve the transition of secondary students into postsecondary education, to improve adult literacy, to upgrade the accountability systems for vocational and adult education, to better coordinate the provision of educational services to rural schools and communities, and to bring the message of No Child Left Behind to Hispanic and other non-native speaking students. I am pleased to report that considerable progress has been made in each of these areas.

To improve postsecondary transition, this office has continued to implement the State Scholars Initiative. This initiative now supports student's completion of a rigorous core curriculum in twenty-two states and 376 districts across the nation. OVAE has also continued work to develop rigorous programs of study, through the College and Careers Transition Initiative (CCTI), combing academic and technical coursework, which is bridging the gap between high schools and community colleges throughout the nation.

Considerable progress has been made in responding to the administration's concerns about the quality of accountability data for vocational and adult education programs. For both programs, national and regional data quality institutes have been held and OVAE staff have worked extensively with states to improve the reliability, validity, and completeness of vocational and adult education data.

During my service, teacher quality has become a central tenant of adult education. The office has used the national activities resources to not only provide training for teachers in evidence-based reading instruction, but also to lay the groundwork for teacher training in math instruction. In addition, OVAE supplies technical assistance in professional development to twenty-four states with emerging populations who are learning English as a second language.

In 2005, this office established the Center for Rural Education and rejuvenated the Secretary's Rural Education Task Force. These efforts have enabled the department to disseminate information regarding research and state-of-the-art instructional practice to schools and communities in rural America and, at the same time, bring renewed attention to the problems and issues of students and teachers in rural schools.

Finally, during my service, I have been able to bring the administration's message of No Child Left Behind to the Hispanic and other non-native speaking communities. This has occurred both through my travels to schools and communities across the nation, as well as through the media.

While much work lies ahead for vocational and adult education, I am encouraged by progress that we have made over the past few years. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors in ensuring that no youth or adult is left behind.

Top

Community Colleges

The College and Career Transition Initiative (CCTI), a project funded by OVAE and administered in collaboration with the League for Innovation in the Community College, is designed to enhance the role of the community colleges in easing student transitions between secondary and postsecondary education. This occurs as community colleges and their secondary partners improve the alignment of secondary and postsecondary programs, particularly in high-growth career fields.

Sinclair Community College, one of the CCTI partnership sites, is beginning to see the positive impact of this initiative in its Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program. Sinclair was already in the process of building on and transforming an existing engineering technologies tech-prep pathway, which was established in the early 1990s. With the help of the partnership, Sinclair's STEM program now begins at grade 11 and culminates in either an AS degree in Engineering Science or an AAS degree with a major in one of 16 Engineering and Industrial Technologies Division programs. All degree programs have either dual enrollment or articulation agreements through baccalaureate degrees at a variety of four-year institutions.

Using the CCTI model has made a measurable difference for students who are newly entering the college. In the most recent graduating classes from five high schools, 66 students enrolled in the program and 44 matriculated at Sinclair. Out of this group, less than 7% needed developmental math, reducing by half the number of students needing this type of remediation.

According to Ron Kindell, the CCTI Project Coordinator at Sinclair, "The charge [to community colleges] has to be much more expansive, especially regarding math readiness." For his school, having such a charge from CCTI opened a direct conversation with Sinclair's developmental math teachers, the math chair, and the high school faculty to develop new strategies for working together to ensure successful secondary to postsecondary transitions.

For more information, contact Ronald.Kindell@sinclair.edu

Top

Adult Education and Literacy

New State Directors Management Workshop
August 21 - 24 in Washington, DC

OVAE's Division of Adult Education and Literacy (DAEL) will be holding a management workshop in Washington DC from August 21-24. This training session is primarily targeted to new state directors of adult education-those in their position for one year or less-yet is open to other state adult educators. In addition to discussions with a panel of experienced state directors, the workshop involves participants in "hands-on" examples, requiring them to analyze current program information and develop strategies to address real challenges in administering statewide adult education programs. Participants also will hear from key OVAE officials and network with colleagues to share information with similar states.

STAR Participants Celebrate Success in Moving Research to Practice

More than 70 teachers, program administrators, professional developers, state administrators and staff celebrated the successful conclusion of OVAE's Student Achievement in Reading (STAR) pilot during a two-day symposium this month in Washington, D.C. As a result of STAR's success, evidence-based reading reform has been introduced into more than 140 adult education classrooms in nearly three-dozen programs in six participating states. STAR states include CA, CT, IL, ME, OH and SD.

STAR is a tool for adult education teachers to use for improving reading instruction for adults who are reading at a 4th to 9th grade level. Teachers learn to conduct diagnostic assessments in the four components of reading (alphabetics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) and use assessment results to develop appropriate reading instruction. OVAE worked with national, state, and local partners in developing the STAR instruments and pilot initiative.

The symposium on STAR's results featured remarks by key department officials as well as noted researchers, including Mary Beth Curtis of Lesley University, John Strucker of Harvard University, and Judy Alamprese of Abt Associates. Participants told symposium evaluators that they found their hard work was acknowledged, appreciated the networking time, and felt honored to be part of the symposium. Teachers particularly found STAR participation valuable because it gave them an opportunity to share ideas and get feedback from colleagues at the symposium.

While it is too soon to be able to share final results from STAR's independent evaluation, the change in adult education teachers' knowledge and attitudes about teaching reading to adults already is evident. "STAR has changed my teaching and therefore really helped my students," said one participant, while another reported "I just wish I knew all of this at the beginning of my career as an adult educator..."

Top

Secondary, Career, and Technical Education

Oklahoma Scholars Project Taps Into Tribal Community

The Oklahoma Scholars Project will expand its national education initiative into rural Oklahoma schools with the help of thirteen Native American tribes.

The Oklahoma Scholars project is a business-led initiative that places business leaders into 8th grade classrooms to help students understand the benefits of taking a more rigorous course of study, specifically, the Oklahoma Scholars Core Course of Study. This course of study provides students with skills for a lifetime of learning, whether they choose to go to a four-year college, community college, the military, or directly into the workplace. The Scholars presentation is presented to all students, but the main focus is on students who would normally choose not to take a more rigorous course schedule but respond well to encouragement, especially from a business leader.

The support of Oklahoma's Scholars Project by tribal leaders is very significant given that a majority of Oklahoma's 541 school districts are rural and have little or no local business interests. In most of cases, there are tribal affiliations to fill the business void.

Oklahoma was one of the first six states to receive funding from OVAE to implement the State Scholars Initiative in May 2003. The funds to support the program for two years were awarded to the Oklahoma Business and Education.

For more information regarding the program or the curriculum, please contact Terri Nicoll, Project Director, 405/270-4498 or tlnicoll@earthlink.net.

For more information about the State Scholars Initiative go to http://www.wiche.edu/statescholars/

Top

Other Department News

Secretary Spellings Announces July 1 Availability of $790 Million in New Grants for Higher Education

On June 21, 2006, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and Governor Tim Pawlenty held a press conference to discuss the availability of Academic Competitiveness Grants and the National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) Grants. Secretary Spellings announced that starting July 1, the Department of Education's Federal Student Aid office will notify Pell Grant-eligible students of their potential eligibility through email or regular mail, and students can start applying for up to $1300 in new Academic Competitiveness grants. Third and fourth year Pell Grant-eligible students who meet requirements, and major in certain designated science, technology, math, and foreign languages, will automatically receive the National SMART Grant during the 2006-07 school year.

"Math, science, and foreign language skills are the new currency in our global economy. In developing these grants, we realized just how badly our country needs students to have these skills," said Secretary Spellings. As our world grows more competitive, America must run faster and break new ground, just as we always have. President Bush's American Competitiveness Initiative is an administration-wide plan to strengthen our ability to compete."

Academic Competitiveness Grants will provide additional aid to first- and second-year college students who complete rigorous high school coursework, are enrolled fulltime, and maintain a 3.0 GPA in college (up to an additional $750 for first-year students and up to an additional $1,300 for second-year students). National SMART Grants will provide up to an additional $4,000 to third- and fourth-year Pell Grant-eligible college students who have maintained a 3.0 GPA, are enrolled fulltime, and who major in math, science, or critical foreign languages. Nationwide, 1.9 million students are potentially eligible for these grants.

These grants continue President Bush's historic levels of support for college students. Together, Academic Competitiveness and National SMART Grants will provide $790 million in the 2006-07 academic year and $4.5 billion over the next 5 years. These grants will encourage students to take more challenging courses in high school, and to pursue college majors in high demand in the global economy, such as science, mathematics, technology, engineering, and critical foreign languages.

Governor Pawlenty, as Chair of the National Governors Association (NGA) Education Committee, has helped to put competitiveness at the top of America's national agenda. The NGA is taking a lead role in making all Pell Grant-eligible students aware of these new grants, and how to obtain them.

For more information on Academic Competitiveness Grants and National SMART Grants, please visit: http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/competitiveness/ac-smart2.html

Top

	Printable view Share this page