Centers is engaged in group living and professional counseling activities. Attitudinal and behavioral adjustment in Civilian Conservation Centers is relatively rapid, partly because the Centers are small in size, the staff has personal knowledge of each Corpsman and he receives individualized attention. Your report states that "such benefits are generally intangible, however, and not subject to precise measurements." We believe your evaluation of the Job Corps program could ne considerably strengthened by searching out indices of such intangible benefits. For instance, it is noteworthy that Conservation Centers have had little problem in maintaining Corpsman discipline and Center control during a period when youth are rioting at other institutions throughout the country. Another index of social adjustment might be found in data which indicates that Job Corpsmen have a substantially lower arrest rate than the average youth of the same age. Improvement in self-confidence which is essential to motivation is readily accomplished at Civilian Conservation Centers and has been measured through study. Basic education is a highly important facet of the youth renewal program at Civilian Conservation Centers. As you know, the assignment policy until November 1968 provided that enrollees with less than fifth grade reading ability be sent to Civilian Conservation Centers and the upper half be sent to Men's Urban Centers. During 1967 and 1968, about two-thirds of the new enrollees at Civilian Conservation Centers were reading at or below the third grade level upon admission. Your finding was that few Corpsmen achieved the program goals established for Conservation Centers which were equivalent to about seventh grade public school level. The short average length-of-stay was cited as one factor which precluded them from advancing to the desired level. You may wish to update your data on education gains. Latest data shows average reading gains per terminee to be 2.8 levels as compared with 1.9 in fiscal year 1968. Such gains are verified by the Stanford Achievement Test. Corresponding improvements in mathematics gains have been experienced. During this time, the average length-of-stay increased from 5.3 months to 6.1 months. While we are still working to increase the average length-of-stay and educational gains, the current gains can be considered remarkable when viewed in the perspective of the group of low educational achievers assigned to Civilian Conservation Centers. The inference that emphasis placed on accomplishing work projects adversely affected training programs and the instance cited that Corpsmen were often excused from academic courses to work on the projects is definitely not representative of the program. Training is given priority over work project accomplishment. Beginning readers are given daily reading instruction both during the education and workweeks. The audit report puts primary emphasis on the vocational training and work-experience aspect of the Job Corps Conservation Center program. In this activity it has findings and opinions and states conclusions which are grossly erroneous. In its present form the report presents a completely inaccurage picture of vocational training and work experience in Forest Service Conservation Centers. It portrays work skills training at Conservation Centers as generally projects which require the use of the most basic hand tools such as axes and shovels, providing only limited marketable skill development training. This is not factual. We have made an analysis of work-program accomplishment reported by Forest Service Centers in fiscal year 1968 which includes the period of the audit. From this reported $12,085,000 of project value, $9,339,000 of which was conservation work, we have arrived at the following breakdown of training value: Examples of projects with only some or little training value are: Enrollees are initially assigned to general work projects to learn work habits, to provide time for them to make a selection for vocational training, and to provide time to raise their reading and math ability so they can participate in higher level training. The report recognizes that the May 2, 1968 Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers Program Task Force Report revised some program concepts and policies for operation of academic and vocational training programs at Centers. It also states the opinion that implementation of the requirements as they relate to vocational training would have a beneficial effect on the training program. I am pleased to report that during the 10 months which have elapsed since the issuance of that task force report the program revisions have been implemented. Staff vocational training capabilities have been adjusted, the work program revised to offer maximum training opportunities, precise and detailed curriculums provided, and a system for documenting performance achievements of corpsmen implemented. We have not found these program improvements to increase Center operating costs. Forest Service Job Corps Conservation Centers have a well-defined work skills training program operating successfully. This program provides skills training to the apprentice level in the occupations of carpentry, heavy equipment operation, welding, automotive service mechanic, bricklayer apprentice-cement mason, cook, and painter. Training has been further strengthened by arrangements with national labor unions for training instruction and placement assistance for heavy equipment training programs at two Centers, carpentry training programs at six Centers, and painter training programs at 20 Centers. The Civilian Conservation Center training program has the additional advantage of teaching work skills in an on-the-job situation which makes the learned skills easily transferable to later employment. Two other points may be worth considering which related to the emphasis the report places on the vocational training component of the Job Corps program. The first is the finding cited in the report that only 25 percent of working terminees were working in areas in which they had received training and 75 percent were working in other areas. If this is so, then experience would indicate that social adjustment and work habits may be at least as important as vocational training. The second is that according to your sample and other more extensive studies, Civilian Conservation Center terminees are working at an average of about 10 cents per hour less than Urban Men's Center terminees. When one considers that the top half of the enrollees, educationally speaking, have been assigned to Urban Centers and the lower half to Conservation Centers, it is difficult to establish that one program is more successful than the other in the area of making Corpsmen employable. We hope that these comments will be helpful to you in preparing your report to Congress. If possible, we would like them included in your report. Sincerely, EDWARD P. CLIFF, Chief. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, Washington, D.C., March 17, 1969. Mr. HENRY ESCHWEGE, DEAR MR. ESCHWEGE: This Department, as a participant in the Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center program, has been informally advised of the conclusions and recommendations concerning the Civilian Conservation Center program contained in the draft report of the audit of the programs under the Economic Opportunity Act. On the basis of the information available to us, we are prompted to offer the following comments in the belief that they are necessary to a full and fair understanding of degree to which the program has achieved success in filling its primary purpose; that of assisting young men to become more responsible, employable, and productive citizens in a way that contributes to the development of National, State, and community resources. We believe that it is important at the outset to understand that this program in its conception, and as it has existed since its inception, has been essentially a research and development effort, one which is directed toward discovering the ways and means by which a society could redeem not only its failure to a segment of its population-the uneducated, unskilled, underemployed young men-but also to redeem the individual failure of the members of that population. It has, and will continue to have, an orientation and an urgency not found in the more traditional Federal, State and local programs. This program directs its orientation toward a human resource that is multiplying itself in our ghettos, our urban and rural areas at a rate that far exceeds th availability of the dollars or the knowledge necessary to deal with it. As such, it has incurred the relatively higher costs that are attendant with research and development programs. We believe that any judgments with respect to program costs must be viewed in this light. Further, we believe that it is essential in viewing the work experience aspects of the program to understand that we are dealing with an element of our population that has neither the aptitudes nor the attitudes that are necessary to make them employable. We know from the statistics provided to us by the Office of Economic Of portunity that upwards of 60 percent of our Corpsmen come from homes. where the head of the household is unemployed; nearly 40 percent. come from families on relief. Within the Conservation Center program, we are concerned with work skills and attitudes. The report states that the work experience aspects of our program call largely for the use of common labor and basic hand tools and questions whether intensive vocational training can be provided. This statement ignores the fact that highly complex work projects offering a variety of marketable skills are being conducted in our centers. We want to say more about this, but feel it is essential at this point to draw your attention first to the values derived in terms of Corpsmen attitudes from the work experience aspects of our program. We believe that "employability" for our type of enrollee is comprised of equal parts of work skills and attitudes that are most readily acquired through the actual on-the-job training at Civilian Conservation Centers. Countless potential employees have told us "give us a boy who knows what it is to work and who is willing to work and we will provide the additional specialized training necessary so that he can hold down a job with us." For young men who come to us from backgrounds of the unemployed and the relief rolls, a realization and an acceptance of what it means to do an honest day's work for an honest wage is essential. Even if our program was largely one of basic hand tools and common labor-which it is not-the realization and acceptance of these values which take place in our Corpsmen is of immeasurable value to the Nation. More specifically, we want to point out that our program does offer meaningful vocational training in skilled areas recognized in, and in fact based on, the Department of Labor's "Dictionary of Occupational Titles" for automobile-service mechanic, carpenter (construction), cook, bricklayer-cement mason, production line welder, operating engineer (heavy equipment operator). These training standards were developed with the assistance, cooperation, and advice of the recognized governing bodies of the trades and crafts involved, and were issued with their endorsement. At the present time, training in automotive skills is offered in 23 of our 30 centers with a program to be implemented in three additional centers by July 1. Carpentry skills are offered in 27 centers with three additions planned. Bricklayer-cement mason skills are offered in 20 centers with four additions planned. Heavy equipment operator skills are offered in every center. Welding skills are offered in 19 centers with five additions planned. Cooking skills are offered in 24 centers with four additions planned. In addition, we are conducting programs at one of our centers in cooperation with the Kentucky State Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO, and we have recently joined with the Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators, and Paperhangers of America in offering meaningful vocational training in painting skills at 18 or our centers. This training is accomplished through our work programs which provide for the teaching of work skills in an on-the-job situation. The work projects through which the skills are acquired are directed toward the conservation mission of each of the conservation agencies and are reviewed at the departmental level to insure that they provide maximum skill exposure. Thus, while acquiring skills in an occupational area, the Corpsmen contribute to the conservation of the Nation's resources and recreational areas. Our analysis of the work program accomplishment within this Department's Centers from the inception of the program through fiscal year 1969 indicates that millions of dollars worth of improvements to our natural resources and recreational areas have been returned to the public through this program. While the report questions the validity of the appraised values within the program, we |