aerospace employees is an example. But by and large, the 35 percent provision is just a loophole for specifying the use made of no more than 65 percent of the slots. 4. MDTA had the advantage of being placed at the beginning into well organized institutions but the disadvantage that, with the passage of time, the program in too many localities has settled into bureaucratic rigidity repeating the same courses and practices without the necessity of constant reassessment. 5. Fluctuation of budgets and enrollments have interfered with orderly functioning and maintenance of competent staff. Yet efforts to smooth out fluctuations do tend toward stagnation rather than reassessment. 6. Outside the laudable contributions of the AIDS, there has bee:: too little staff development, too little development and dissemination of curriculum and technique and too little communication and sharing of experience among NDTA practitioners. 7. Though there has been sufficient evaluation of the program's overall worth, there has been too little evaluation of what works best for whom at a micro level, too little feedback and analysis of management information data and toolittle measurement and reward based on performance. But these and other shortcomings are typical of manpower, education and labor market institutions, not justifiable but understandable. The verdict still stands. 3DTA has been a laudable program, not adapted to the needs of all of the disadvantaged in all places, not as good as it might be but more capable of demonstrating achievement than any other manpower program and more carefully evaluated than most public programs with defensible results. Conclusions and Recommendations Based on these predominately favorable findings, the following conclusions and recommendations may be stated: 1. DTA training, both Institutional and OJT, is a high payoff. public investment which should be continued and expanded. If current legislative proposals for the decategorization of separate manpower programs prevail, Institutional and OJT skill training should play a major role in the program mix which energes from decentralized state and local manpower planning. 2. The higher average income gains for disadvantaged than nondisadvantaged enrollees support continuance of the present emphasis on service to this target population.. 3. Since the tendency is to leave participants better off but still poor following training, since income gains correlate with length of training and since those occupations generally recognized as being more highly skilled and requiring the longest training time tend to result in both greater income gains and higher post-training incomes, it would be a wise public investment to emphasize those occupations, even at the resulting higher per capita costs. 4. Since skills centers appear to offer the most successful route to income gains for those already in the labor market and individual referral seems to favor those entering or rentering the labor force, the factors leading to these phenomena should be identified to maximize the relative advantages of each. 76-736 O 72 pt. 3 14 This letter is to brief you regarding our feelings and expressing some concerns that we have about the Esch-Steiger bill, H. R. 11688. We feel that most of the manpower bills which have been presented to Congress over the past two years have given either no consideration or very little consideration to the authority that educational agencies across the nation should have in conducting manpower training programs. The Esch-Steiger bill also does not recognize the impact and contributions that education has made in carrying out the institutional portion of the training under existing MDTA programs. Additionally, this bill provides that most of the perogatives as well as the authority is given to the Department of Labor and federal guidelines which may provide assurance in terms of accountability are not provided for. The bill further lacks provisions for obtaining excess property to supplement current funding resources. We further feel that a sounder practice for solving the total manpower needs is to address ourselves to a greater degree to those programs which are designed to be preventative in nature rather than those which are, in large part, designed to be corrective or remedial. In terms of meeting human needs and alleviating family stress and frustration, much could be done in identifying those needs at an earlier age and then providing sufficient funding to plan and establish programs which will prevent such human waste. Many individuals could be spared the frustration of continued failure, unemployment and low economic status by using such an approach. Preventative type programs such as are being conducted through the Vocational Education Amendments of 1968, have done a tremendous job in this direction with the limited amount of funding that has been allocated. Such acts and programs should be funded to the full extent authorized. current MDTA programs which are conducted jointly between labor and education have been successful in Montana. One coordinated, total approach to the comprehensive manpower and human resources and needs would avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts and pool our financial resources in order to provide opportunities for more people. Additionally, Honorable Lee Metcalf We thank you for the interest you have given to vocational education and manpower training in the past and feel confident that you will continue to give these areas your very sincere attention in the future. We would be most happy to continue to provide you with information regarding the status of vocational and manpower training in your state and hope that you will call on us frequently for any assistance we may give you with regard to this matter. |