June 30, 2016
The
U.S. departments of Labor and Education have collectively issued five rules to
implement the Workforce Innovation and
Opportunity Act (WIOA) (Pub. L.
113-128). President Barack Obama signed WIOA into law on July 22, 2014. WIOA is landmark legislation that is designed to strengthen and
improve our nation’s public workforce system and help get Americans, including
youths and those with significant barriers to employment, into high-quality
jobs and careers and help employers hire and retain skilled workers.
Today,
the U.S. departments of Labor and Education announce the advanced posting of
the following:
- Workforce
Innovation and Opportunity Act; Joint Rule for Unified and Combined State
Plans, Performance Accountability, and the One-Stop System Joint
Provisions; Final Rule
-
Workforce
Innovation and Opportunity Act; Department of Labor-only Final Rule
- Programs and Activities Authorized by the Adult
Education and Family Literacy Act (Title II of the Workforce
Innovation and Opportunity Act); Final Rule
-
State Vocational Rehabilitation Services
Program; State Supported Employment Services Program; Limitations on use
of subminimum wage; Final Rule
-
Workforce
Innovation and Opportunity Act, Miscellaneous program changes; Final Rule
These
rules will formally publish in the Federal
Register in the coming weeks and will be available on the Federal Register’s public inspection
website at https://www.federalregister.gov/. For a
preview of these documents, please visit https://www.doleta.gov/wioa/, https://www.ed.gov/aefla, and http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/rsa/wioa-reauthorization.html.
For
more information and the most recent updates, please visit the Department of Labor’s WIOA landing page at www.doleta.gov/WIOA and the Innovation and Opportunity Network on WorkforceGPS
(ION),
which features technical assistance on strategies fundamental to WIOA implementation, such as
customer-centered design, strategic boards, career pathways and sector
strategies. It will also host technical assistance specific to the regulations
as it is available. Use ION to find peer learning groups and calls, fact
sheets, and details on training events.
Visit
the ION community of practice at https://ion.workforcegps.org/.
Disclaimer: This regulation
has been submitted to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) for publication,
and is currently pending placement on public inspection at the OFR and
publication in the Federal Register. This version of the regulations may
vary slightly from the published document if minor technical or formatting changes
are made during the OFR review process. Only the version published in the
Federal Register is the official regulation.
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Ensuring that all students have
access to high-quality secondary and postsecondary CTE programs is central to
achieving the education equity required by law. As such, the U.S. Department of
Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and Office of Adult, Career, and
Technical Education (OCTAE) released a Dear Colleague Letter. The letter, a part of the
White House’s United State of Women Summit on gender equality issues,
including educational opportunities and economic empowerment for women and
girls, makes clear that “all students, regardless of their sex, must have equal
access to the full range of career and technical (CTE) programs offered.” It clarifies
the legal obligations under the civil rights laws that OCR enforces to ensure
equitable access to CTE programs, and provides examples of issues that may
raise concerns about compliance with these obligations. And while the letter
focuses on discrimination based on sex in CTE programs, it also stands as a reminder
that “other considerations, such as race, ethnicity, English language status,
and disability are [also] important characteristics in examining CTE access,
participation, completion and outcomes."
Building on this guidance, OCTAE is
developing the Advancing Equity in CTE Tool Kit. The tool kit will highlight
resources and strategies to support state and local education agencies,
academic staff, school administrators and counselors, and parents and equity
coordinators to develop and implement equitable high-quality CTE programs,
services, and learning practices.
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That
all students should be prepared in high school for both college and careers has
been a persistent theme of President Obama’s administration. Currently, 23 states and the District of
Columbia require all students to complete a college- and career-ready course of
study. California, the most populous state, with more than 38 million people (2013
U.S. census data), is not one of these states. It does, however, have rigorous
requirements—known as the a-g requirements (30 semesters of college-prep
coursework). These must be completed with a grade of “C” or higher in order for
students to be eligible to apply for admission to either of the state’s public
university systems—the University of California (UC) system and the California
State University (CSU) system.
For
not requiring that all high school graduates are college- and career-ready, the
state has come under sharp criticism. Partly in response to this criticism, several
larger California school districts—including San Diego, Los Angeles, San
Francisco, and Oakland—have adopted high school graduation requirements
mandating that all students complete
the a-g course of study (as locally modified).
A
recent report, College Prep for All: Will San Diego Students Meet Challenging New
Graduation Requirements?, published by the
Public Policy Institute of California, provides data from the San Diego school
district, where students in the classes of 2016 and later will be required to
complete the a-g coursework with grades of “D” or higher in order to
graduate. This data was compared to the
Los Angeles and San Francisco school districts’ pre-2016 graduation cohorts
that were not required to meet the more stringent requirements and the post-2016
graduation cohorts. Selected findings
from these comparisons follow.
-
The San Diego
classes of 2016 through 2018 have increased their college-prep course taking as
compared with earlier graduating classes.
Students from in the classes of 2016 through 2018 also are completing
more courses.
- Students with
the “lowest likelihood of completing the requirement” have made the greatest
improvement in doing so. Early evidence suggests that students in the class of
2016, who complete the required curriculum with a grade of “C” or higher, may
rise by 10 percentage points, a meaningful gain that makes these students
eligible to attend either of the two California university systems.
-
On the other
side of the ledger, the report estimates that up to 28 percent of the class of
2016 will have trouble completing their required courses on time, with a larger
percentage of English learners and special education students falling short of
meeting the requirements.
In
summary, the study finds that under the new requirements about 10 percent more
San Diego students may become eligible to apply to the CSU and UC systems, but
16 percent more may fail to graduate from high school—thus producing “many
students who will win, and many who will lose.” This new initiative is an
ongoing experiment. San Diego (along
with the other districts) is continuing to deal with unresolved questions,
including how the “college prep for all” policy could be adjusted to become a
“win-win” for both higher- and lower-achieving students.
The
report offers three suggestions about possible modifications to the
experiment. Reading the entire study,
therefore, will provide valuable information for any state or district
considering implementing similar initiatives.
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The U.S. Department of Education, in partnership with the departments of Health and Human Services, Housing
and Urban Development, Transportation, and Labor, recently
released the Foster Care
Transition Toolkit to support current and former foster youths who want to
pursue college and career opportunities. The tool kit incorporates input
from practitioners and current and former foster youths, and includes tips and resources to aid foster youths as they
transition into adulthood. It also serves as a resource for caseworkers, care
givers, teachers, and mentors who serve foster youths.
There are currently over
400,000 children and youths in America’s foster care system, and every year
more than 23,000 of them age out of the system without ever having a permanent
home. Many of these youths lack the structures and supports to access and
navigate the many emotional, educational and skills barriers ahead of them.
The Department of
Education has long recognized that a high-quality education can help foster
youths achieve life success despite past experiences with abuse, neglect,
separation, and other barriers. This tool kit aims to help both youths in
foster care and those who have aged out of the system successfully move into
adulthood, continue to postsecondary education, and set out on a fulfilling
career.
The tool kit includes information
on
- financial aid and money
management;
- mentoring opportunities;
- job and career support;
- health care resources;
- transportation options; and
- housing and food
benefits.
The toolkit will be
distributed through social media, foster care groups, advocates, teachers, school
counselors and other stakeholders.
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