02/27/2004 Share this page

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As I officially take on the role of Assistant Secretary for Vocational and Adult Education, I am heartened by the reception I have been granted by audiences across the country. I have appreciated the input I have received from many of you as I have outlined the challenges and opportunities that face our nation as we work to build an effective and efficient workforce to meet the needs of an ever-changing global economy. In order to meet this challenge, we must focus on providing a solid educational foundation for our young people, beginning in the elementary years and continuing through high school. It is essential that all our students be prepared to succeed in either postsecondary education or their chosen careers. If there is anything we have learned over the past decade it is that low skills jobs are, for the most part, non-existent, and high skills jobs are in danger of being exported out of this country for lack of a skilled work force to fill them here. In addition to academic and technical skills, employers are continually telling us about the expectations they have for new workers to have skills in teamwork, problem solving, personal management, time management, and communications.

The No Child Left Behind Act is well suited to helping produce the kind of workers that employers are looking for through its emphasis on accountability, local control and flexibility, greater choice for students and their parents, and doing what works. In OVAE we endeavor to apply the principles of No Child Left Behind to our administration of the Perkins Act and the Adult Education Act to enable today’s students to compete successfully in the worldwide economy of the twenty-first century. To that end we have established certain expectations for ourselves, including working with the Department of Labor to act on the President’s commitment to improve job opportunities for all Americans, helping school districts, community based organizations and literacy groups that are seeking research-based practices and methodologies to improve student learning, and establishing a high school initiative to ensure that all American high school students graduate with the knowledge and skills they need for good jobs or further education.

As we continue with our common themes of high expectations, strong accountability for results, and maintaining a focus on what works, I look forward to a continued dialogue with all of you to ensure that no child, no matter what age or circumstance, is left behind.

Leaders of the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) participated in several activities during the recent Career and Technical Education (CTE) Week to support and enhance the awareness of the Bush Administration's career and technical education priorities.

On Monday February 9, 2004, Assistant Secretary Susan Sclafani moderated a panel discussion among national student leaders of career and technical education student organizations that was web cast by the National Dissemination Center for Career and Technical Education. The panel discussion, "Building Academic, Technical and Leadership Skills: Lessons Learned from Career and Technical Education Student Organizations," can be accessed at http://www.nccte.org.

Later in the week, Assistant Secretary Sclafani visited Kingsborough Community College, in Brooklyn, New York to talk with students and administrators and to learn more about the college’s participation in MDRC’s "Opening Doors" demonstration project. "Opening Doors" is examining curricular innovations, financial aid strategies and other interventions that may help more nontraditional students, including at-risk youth and low-wage working parents, earn the postsecondary credentials they need to advance in the workforce.

OVAE Deputy Assistant Secretary Hans Meeder spoke at the annual Georgia State Tech Prep Conference on February 9 about the Administration’s efforts to support high quality CTE programs that offer pathways to good jobs. He also met with CTE state director Jimmy Hogg, Tech Prep Director Kathy Jo Elliott, and other leaders of Tech Prep in the state. Deputy Assistant Secretary Meeder then traveled on to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he joined Pennsylvania state officials at a CTE recognition ceremony. He also met with business leaders involved in CTE partnerships and visited the nanotechnology program at the Lehigh Career and Technical Institute, the largest vocational school in Pennsylvania.

The Bush Administration and the U.S. Department of Education maintain a commitment to supporting career and technical education programs that prepare students with academic and vocational training necessary to ensure a successful transition into postsecondary education and the workforce. Many innovative CTE programs have emerged in recent years, and the Administration's proposal is designed to accelerate the transition into these new highly effective programs.

Under the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998, eligible agencies seeking grant funds in 1999 submitted five-year plans describing how the Perkins funds would be used to enhance and improve vocational and technical education programs in their states. In the absence of new legislation, the Perkins Act has been continued for an additional year; thus, July 1, 2004, will begin the sixth year under this law. Since the enactment of the Carl D. Perkins Act, states have experienced significant changes in their economic and labor market conditions.

On February 11, 2004, Assistant Secretary, Susan Sclafani, issued detailed guidance to the State Directors of Vocational and Technical Education for revising their state plans. The guidance is designed to provide the states the opportunity to describe how their current activities reflect changes in their conditions and needs since 1999. The revisions will also address changes the states have implemented since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. The guidance memo requires states to submit the following: a letter requesting to extend the current state plan, as modified by the submitted revisions; a new budget for the sixth year of funding; and proposed performance levels for the program year beginning July 1, 2004, which each state must successfully negotiate with OVAE staff.

In order to ensure timely receipt of the new grant awards, these items must be received in OVAE by April 30, 2004. Submissions may be emailed to Perkins2004@ed.gov, or FAXED to (202) 205-5522, followed by a signed, hard copy via mail.

Please contact Maurice James, Chief of the State Administration Branch at (202)205-8487 or your state liaison, if you have any questions.

Each year nearly 2/3 of America’s high school graduates will enter college, however more than half will drop out before completing their degree. The reason for such a high drop out rate is often attributed to students not being academically prepared for college level work. According to figures recently released by the American College Testing Program, Inc. (ACT) only 40% of college level seniors were prepared for college level algebra and only 26% were ready for college biology. For African-American students the numbers were even worse, with only 5% prepared for biology and 10% for college algebra. Furthermore, in 2001 the National Commission of Excellence in Education reported that only 3 in 10 students completed the necessary coursework recommended for college entrance.

In August 2002 President Bush, together with U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, announced a new initiative, designed to support implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act and that addresses the need to more successfully prepare our nation’s high school students for postsecondary education and their future careers. They established the State Scholars Initiative to dramatically increase the percentage of high school students who have the academic foundation necessary to succeed.

The five key components of this effort include:

• Mentoring for middle and high school students to support their enrollment in and successful completion of a rigorous academic core (this would include 4 credits in English, 3 credits in Mathematics, including Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2, 3 credits in Science, including biology, chemistry and physics, 3.5 credits in social studies, and 2 credits in languages other than English);
• Alignment of state and district policies to support increased rigor in required coursework;
• Partnerships with business and postsecondary institutions to support the creation of community wide incentives and support mechanisms to help students stay on track;
• Articulation of high school curricula with postsecondary requirements and workplace needs; and
• Evaluation of student outcomes, including student performance on standardized assessments, postsecondary enrollment, and remediation rates.

Today the U.S. Department of Education supports 12 states that are implementing the State Scholars model: Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Indiana, Maryland, Rhode Island, Kentucky, Connecticut, New Mexico, Washington, New Jersey, and Mississippi. The State Scholars Initiative brings educators and the business community together to help students understand the demands of the new information-based economy and the need for them to challenge themselves by completing courses of study beyond the minimum requirements for graduation. According to Robert Mosbacher Jr., who serves on the Board of Directors for the Center for State Scholars, "The State Scholars Initiative helps students understand that high school is a crucial opportunity to acquire an academic foundation for skilled jobs and the earning power associated with them."

In his State of the Union Address, President Bush announced Jobs for the 21st Century - a comprehensive plan to better prepare workers for jobs in the new millennium by strengthening secondary education and job training efforts. As part of this plan, the President proposes $12 million in funding for the State Scholars Initiative. To date, the Center has received $4.8 million in support for the first 12 states.

For additional information, contact:
Peggie.Klekotka@ed.gov Or http://wiche.edu/statescholars/

The American Diploma Project (A partnership of Achieve, The Education Trust and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation) released its new report, Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma that Works, on February 10, 2004. The report can be downloaded at http://www.achieve.org

According to the American Diploma Project, "States' expectations for high school graduation remain largely disconnected from the real-world demands graduates face in postsecondary education and in high-growth, high-performance jobs. This gap could cripple a wave of high school reform growing nationally." In their report they point out the following:

• Most high school graduates need remedial help in college;
• Most college students never attain a degree;
• Most employers say that high school graduates lack basic skills;
• Too few high school students take challenging courses; and
• Most high school exit exams don’t measure what matters to colleges and employers.

Assistant Secretary Susan Sclafani of the Office of Vocational and Adult Education issued the following statement about the report, "We applaud the work of the American Diploma Project in identifying a set of benchmarks that high school graduates will need to master in order to succeed in postsecondary education or in the demanding high-performance jobs of the 21st century. This effort supports the work of No Child Left Behind and our high school initiative, Preparing America’s Future, and reinforces the need for students to be engaged in rigorous academics in order to have successful futures."

OVAE’s Preparing America’s Future High School Initiative focuses on four major themes:

• High expectations for all;
• Innovative learning structures that fully engage students;
• High-quality teaching and leadership, and
• Accelerated transitions to work or additional education.

These themes address many of the concerns raised in the American Diploma Project’s report.

In addition, the President’s 2005 budget proposed funding to initiate or expand activities that help meet the goals of the President's new Jobs for the 21st Century initiative by ensuring that all students are prepared to succeed in postsecondary education and the workforce. Specific proposals include the following:

• A secondary school reading initiative, Striving Readers, that would focus on developing and implementing research based interventions to improve the skills of teenage students that are reading below grade level;
  
  
• A new Secondary Education Mathematics Initiative under the Mathematics and Science Partnership program that will make 100-140 competitive grants to ensure that secondary-school mathematics teachers are highly qualified and help mathematics teachers meet the needs of struggling students;
  
  
• Under the Administration's reauthorization proposal for "Secondary and Technical Education State Grants" to increase the number of States implementing State Scholars programs that encourage high school students to complete a rigorous four-year course of study.
  
  
• Enhanced Pell Grants for State Scholars to provide an additional Pell Grant award of up to $1,000 to low-income students who participate in the State Scholars program by taking a rigorous high school curriculum.
  
  
• An Adjunct Teacher Corps Initiative to support approximately 60 to 100 awards to partnerships to create and implement arrangements for utilizing well-qualified individuals from business, technology, industry, and other areas as teachers in secondary schools on an adjunct basis; and
  
  
• Funding for the Advanced Placement program to ensure that teachers in low-income schools are well trained to teach AP and International Baccalaureate courses and to increase the rigor of the high school curriculum.

These policies will help to move high school students into the academic rigor that they will need to meet the challenges of the 21st century and compete on a global basis. If we fail to do this, the achievement gap has the potential to continue to grow within our country and impact the future economic growth of our nation.

More than 20 new state directors of adult education and other state staff participated in OVAE’s three-day management training session here on January 13-15. Our training supports the Administration’s emphasis on accountability reflected in No Child Left Behind and OVAE’s Blueprint for Preparing America’s Future. Nearly half of all states selected new state directors of adult education since 1999 and ten states hired new state directors since 2002 alone. OVAE’s workshop objectives were to:

• Improve new state directors’ understanding of basic requirements of federal adult education program administration and the aims of the Blueprint for Preparing America’s Future;
  
  
• Enhance new state directors’ administrative skills, including analyzing issues and applying program requirements to day-to-day operations consistent with the Administration’s focus on program quality and accountability;
  
  
• Increase new state directors’ range of skills necessary to accomplish goals and objectives of federal statutes, Administration guidance and the aims of the Blueprint for Preparing America’s Future; and
  
  
• Facilitate the development of mentoring relationships between experienced and new state directors and networking relationships among new directors with similar challenges.

On February 3rd, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige appointed former Assistant Secretary ofor the Office of Vocational and Adult Education Carol D'Amico to the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. The 15 member panel is charged with recommending to the Secretary which accrediting agencies should be recognized as reliable authorities for judging the quality of postsecondary institutions and programs. Schools must be approved by a recognized accrediting agency to be eligible for federal student aid and participation in other federal programs.

U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige announced two new policies that will help students who are new to this country and the English language while also giving states and local school districts greater flexibility to help these students and still meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind education reform law. Secretary Paige made the announcement at a press conference accompanied by Latino singer Jon Secada, who came to the United States from Cuba and attended school in Miami as a new immigrant. Also in attendance were current English language learners, their parents and teachers.

Read the Full Press Pelease from the Department of Education.

The President’s 2005 budget invests in preparing America’s youths and adults for the jobs of the future. It recognizes that success in the 21st century demands both a rigorous academic education and cutting-edge technical skills.

Read the Details MS WORD (408K)

President Bush continued his commitment to America’s students and their families by submitting a budget request for 2005 that provides $57.3 billion in discretionary funding for the U.S. Department of Education. The budget request includes an additional $3 billion -- the largest dollar increase of any domestic agency -- representing a 3 percent increase over 2004 and a 35.8-percent gain for education programs since the president took office.

Read the Full Press Release from the Department of Education.

In his State of the Union Address, President Bush announced Jobs for the 21st Century -- a comprehensive plan to better prepare workers for jobs in the new millennium by strengthening post-secondary education and job training and improving high school education. This plan includes over $500 million in new funding for education and job training programs.

Read the Full Press Release from the White House.