adult education

Senate Workforce Investment Act of 2013 To Be Marked Up Today

/ The Old Crank

NCL Letter of Support - Senate WIA 2013

(Updated Below)

Just a reminder that the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will mark up legislation to reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) today at 10:00am. The National Skills Coalition has published a nice summary that provides some good background on this bill.

The National Coalition for Literacy has sent the committee a letter of support for the bill.

There is still apparently some disagreement in the disability community about the title on vocational rehabilitation negotiated separately from the rest of the bill by HELP committee Chairman Harkin (D-IA) and Ranking Member Alexander (R-TN). Their plan establishes new requirements that must be met before individuals with disabilities could be allowed to work for less than the federal minimum wage, but some advocates are concerned it does not go far enough.

UPDATE 11:05 AM: Well, that was quick. The Committee passed the bill quickly and uneventfully about 20 minutes into the session, by a vote of 18-3. Voting no were Sens. Burr, Scott, and Roberts. Sen. Paul not voting.

UPDATE 2:30 PM: In a piece published in The Hill this morning, Dr. Fredric K. Schroeder, former commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration under President Clinton and a vice president at the National Federation of the Blind, explains his concerns about the vocational rehabilitation changes proposed by Sens. Harkin and Alexander:

Section 511 purports to permit placement in subminimum wage work only as part of training for later competitive employment, with a review of the worker’s status required every six months. But this approach would merely write subminimum wages into the Rehabilitation Act—where there has never before been any language authorizing subminimum wages. Sheltered workshops often claim that they are training their workers, but we know from sad experience and extensive study that 95 percent of the workers who enter sheltered workshops never leave them. Section 511 does nothing but require a rehabilitation counselor to certify that a worker is in “training” every six months. This proposal will simply make the rehabilitation system complicit in the exploitation of disabled workers from the time they are old enough to leave school—or possibly earlier—until they die.

Quick Followup from Yesterday’s NSC Webinar

/ The Old Crank

Just a couple of quick followup notes from yesterday’s National Skills Coalition webinar on immigration reform.

  • During my presentation, I mentioned that we expect new estimates of adult literacy rates in the U.S. in October of this year, based on findings from a new survey, called the Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC. More information on PIAAC here.)In addition, the National Coalition for Literacy will be conducting a webinar about PIAAC tomorrow (July 31st) at 3pm.
  • A questioner asked about how to locate adult ESOL programs. I believe she was looking for more than a directory of programs, but more specifically, how to find best practices related to ESOL instruction in her local community. That’s a bit tougher for me to answer at a distance. At any rate, I did mention that there have been efforts to create and maintain a national database of adult literacy programs. Here are the two that I know about that might be helpful:

America’s Literacy Directory
National Literacy Directory

  • Finally, I thought participants may  be interested in this new World Education immigrant integration project, funded by the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) at the U.S. Department of Education, which will “develop and implement a theoretical framework for immigrant integration and provide technical assistance to five immigrant integration networks with a dual focus on accelerating key services and on network development.” More information here.

National Skills Coalition Webinar on CIR

/ The Old Crank

I’ll be a panelist on a webinar hosted by the National Skills Coalition at noon today, talking about adult education in the context of comprehensive immigration reform. Depending on the questions we get, I may post some followup info here later this afternoon.

Senate HELP Committee Set to Markup the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 2013 Next Week

/ The Old Crank

The Senate Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) Committee has officially announced on its Web site that it will markup the Workforce Investment Act of 2013 on Wednesday, July 31, 2013.  The bill was introduced earlier today by Sens. Murray, Isakson, Harkin and Alexander.