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Congressman Miller/

AVA

When matching funds are required in order to entice federal dollars, these funds are limited as are many resources in depressed communities. Therefore it is detrimental to attracting federal dollars into these depressed communities.

The October 3, 1977, Federal Register Rules and Regulations for PL 94-482 broadly categorizes "economically depressed areas". In Section 104.141, the States are directed to consider applications for funding that define "economically depressed areas" according to (1) the financial ability of LEA's to provide vocational education services, and (2) the relative number or concentration of low income families or individuals within such agencies.

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In this regard, the existing construct of the Vocational Education Law and companion Rules and Regulations have provided a maximum amount of flexibility to States to apportion their federal vocational education dollars to economically depressed areas, whether they be depressed inner cities or depressed rural communities. Moreover, according to Department of Commerce data, many states such as Virginia are classified as 100 percent economically depressed. Therefore, while this flexibility in the law's interpretation is a commendable effort to permit local determination of federal vocational education expenditures, it has virtually prohibited any collection of "hard data" to single out, for example, the percentage of federal vocational education dollars spent solely in urban areas of high unemployment. In addition, as was mentioned in the hearing, the lack of vocational education facilities in urban areas precludes targeting programmatic dollars for clients who simply have no accessible vocational education facilities.

The focus of President Carter's Youth Initiative, on the other hand, does more narrowly define economically depressed areas and areas of high unemployment. As such, it will allow greater targeting of federal vocational education dollars. While the comingling of federal, state and local funds has characteristically been a strength of vocational education, it has made it a much more difficult process to isolate the dollar figures that solely reflect the impact of federal vocational education funds in economically depressed areas and areas of high unemployment. For example, although we are pleased that U.S. Office of Education data for program year 1978 indicate we are serving 1,797,631 educationally and economically disadvantaged individuals, and, in the aggregate, are spending $498,016,909 for disadvantaged clients, we know that only 16.6 percent were federal expenditures and 93.4 percent were state and local monies. federal commitment has lagged far behind the resources of state and local governments. In effect, the most accurate assessment of the implementation of Section 106 (5) of PL 94-482 recognizes the tremendous latitude of the law's focus in the categorization of economically depressed areas and reflects the current adoption by the States of criteria to meet this provision. The focus of the Youth Initiative would alleviate

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much of the problem of concentrating federal funds to depressed areas and that is supported by the American Vocatioanl Association.

HEARINGS ON THE PRESIDENT'S YOUTH EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT INITIATIVE

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1980

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE on ElementARY, SECONDARY,

AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION,
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met at 9:45 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Carl D. Perkins (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Members present: Representatives Perkins, Ford, Miller, Kildee, Buchanan, and Erdahl.

Staff present: John F. Jennings, majority counsel; Nancy Kober, staff assistant; Richard DiEugenio, minority legislative associate; and Jennifer Vance, minority senior legislative associate.

Chairman PERKINS. The subcommittee will come to order.

The Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education is continuing hearings today on the President's youth education and employment initiative.

Today, we will hear from a panel representing the National Education Association. They will be followed by representatives of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the Kentucky State Department of Education. Then we will hear from a panel representing the National School Boards Association.

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome all of the participants in today's hearings. It is a great pleasure for me to welcome the NEA at this time, and to hear from you, Mr. Green, assistant director for legislation, and Mr. Lestina, legislative specialist.

You go right ahead, Mr. Green, and proceed in any manner you prefer. Without objection, your prepared statement will be inserted in the record.

STATEMENT OF JAMES W. GREEN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR LEGISLATION, AND DALE LESTINA, LEGISLATIVE SPECIALIST, NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am Jim Green of the National Education Association and assistant director for legislation. I have with me today Dale Lestina, who is an NEA legislative specialist, who has as his major assignment the legislative proposal which is under consideration here. today. We will both speak briefly to the issue.

One of the major problems in the Nation's troubled economy is the rate of unemployment among young Americans and especially among poor and minority youth in urban areas. Increasingly, prep

aration for employability is education, namely, the ability to read, write, and to calculate.

While schools are primary in the process, the preparation of youth for jobs in the 1980's will require a strengthened, cooperative partnership among Government, education, business, labor, and community-based organizations.

This proposal under consideration offers a program that utilizes the resources of the community, the schools, and the infusion of dollars with a plan for their use to reduce the supply of unemployables. We are going to address areas of the proposal that we support, and areas that cause us concern in terms of NEA policy. Our policy, of course, commits us to the premise that the preparation of students for vocations and productive jobs should be a basic policy of secondary and higher education. So we are pleased to offer our testimony in support of this initiative.

We commend the President for his thoughtful approach to the problem, and to this committee for its timely hearings.

Mr. LESTINA. Mr. Chairman, as Jim has mentioned, we very much support this proposal. I would like to highlight some of the concepts we would very much like to see remain in the proposal as is, as it proceeds from the specification situation on into a bill, and hopefully on through this committee, and into law.

The basic thrust of both titles in the specifications zeros in on junior and senior high school students. It deals with the concept of basic transferable job skills, which transfer into reading, writing, speaking, and computation kinds of skills.

The strategy is to cut off the supply in structural employables, and we see this as a very good preventive approach, one which is much cheaper than the financing of byproducts such as welfare and crime control.

A second area that we like very much, Mr. Chairman, is that the proposal fosters cooperation at the local level between education, business, industry, labor, Government, and other citizens. We see this as going a long way toward cutting the duplication in these areas, and getting the most for our dollar.

We also appreciate the mutual understanding that is fostered here in this particular piece of legislation as proposed and LEA's, in that the council that advises both the prime sponsor and the LEA, given agreement between these two parties, can be one and the same.

We would like, however, to see a statutory mandate included here that among the LEA's appointments would be representatives of the teachers' bargaining unit, which is similar to existing CETA legislation and its provisions for union involvement.

Another area we like very much is the emphasis that both titles, the employment and the education titles, put on keeping school aged youth in school, and attracting school aged youth who have dropped out back to school-based type of programs.

We also like the proposals for the school-site-wide approach to this particular problem. We think that the schoolwide-type projects will go a long way toward eliminating the tendency that exists in some cases under title I, where title I teachers are singled out, students being singled out, and being separate and apart from the rest of the school system.

We are also pleased with the involvement of the vocational education program, and it being a major partner in this piece of legislation, and the emphasis on counseling. We like the percentage breakdown of the Federal funds as they are earmarked in the specifications, with a minimum amount staying at the Federal and State level for administration, the lion's share going to the local level for program implementation.

We also like the eligibility requirement. It is based on low income, and we think that this is a wise way to go. The Orshansky formula is used to target in on the poverty level. That formula has been somewhat troublesome to us in the past; however we do not have any constructive alternative to offer at this point. We would be interested in exploring one for the long-range future.

Last on the areas that I would like to highlight that we like, is that the proposal leaves to the LEA the selection of the instrument and procedures by which basic skills achievement will be measured for eligibility and accountability. We think that that is an excellent feature.

There are four or five areas that we would like to highlight as far as additions or changes in the specifications.

The first of these is standards for educational personnel hired by prime sponsors and CBO's for the programs that they administer. We feel that the standards for those personnel must be equivalent to the personnel of comparable kinds of jobs in the public schools in the prime sponsor area.

We view and accept the accountability of schools for basic education skills. We are not, however, in the job of after graduation job placement. We, therefore, feel that we cannot be held accountable for that, but we can and do wish to cooperate with the prime sponsor and the private sector in developing procedures for aftergraduation job placement.

Another area of concern has to do with the State administration vocational education component. The specifications provide that after the money goes to the LEA for program development, the program being developed between the LEA and the local vocational education area, the agreement on the plan that involves vocational education and only that part needs to be approved by the State agency.

This is out of sync with the other requirements that are there. We would recommend that that piece be eliminated. That once the local level agrees between the LEA and the vocational education local agency that should be it, and the plan should be able to be implemented.

Of the last couple of areas that we are very pleased that the specifications speak to is teacher in-service training. We feel that teachers centers should be one of many ways in which this training can be made available.

The last area I wish to highlight is the specifications language around involvement of nonpublic schools in this proposal. The specifications seem to indicate for nonpublic school student involvement a procedure which goes beyond the existing bypass procedure in ESEÀ. We will hold firm that the bypass procedures within ESEA should be the type of mechanism used here, and that we not go beyond it.

Mr. GREEN. Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that the youth employment program ideally should serve all of the school aged population in the school district who meet the poverty or achievement criteria for eligibility. We have seen too much of the inequity caused by the targeting procedure which has been implemented to deal with the inadequate funding of title I of ESEA. We would hate to see this ambitious and much needed new program condemned to the same fate.

We would prefer that sufficient funds be made available for the youth employment program so that targeting of the specific school sites based on concentration of eligible students would not be necessary. We hope that the Members of Congress will share our concern when it comes time to fund the program.

We stand ready to work with you and the committee to secure the passage of this new initiative, and we will answer any questions that we can.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of James W. Green follows:]

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