Outlining the Administration’s proposals for the reauthorization of the Job Training Partnership Act, Secretary of Labor Elizabeth H. Dole last week told the Senate Employment and Productivity Subcommittee that key components would intensify that law’s focus on educational efforts for unemployed youths.
The proposals mirror many of the provisions in a bill sponsored by Senator Paul Simon, Democrat of Illinois and subcommittee chairman.
Both plans would establish a separate title for youth programs and would provide youth services--particularly remedial education--on a comprehensive, year-round basis.
Both plans would also add achievement in basic skills to the perform4ance standards mandated by law.
Currently, education and employment programs are funded under two different titles in the law and largely operate in the summer only.
“For years, the government has been distributing money to youth programs in a fragmented and piecemeal fashion,” said Ms. Dole.
Incentive, Challenge Grants
Ms. Dole also outlined two special programs the Administration would like to see enacted.
The first is a “challenge grant” proposal designed to stimulate communitywide programs for youths in inner cities and rural areas.
Under these grants, a community must agree to provide higher-quality services than are required by law, de8monstrate new ways to combine program efforts, and ensure that all participants receive services that meet their needs and career goals.
A second program would provide “incentive grants” to states that pledge to link j.t.p.a. programs with federal vocational-education, welfare, and adult-basic-education programs.
Ms. Dole said such grants would go only to states that promise to link funds “as a part of a clear, comprehensive, coordinated strategy and defined, measurable goals.”
“This is a novel--for some, a revolutionary--approach that goes beyond the rhetoric of the past on this subject,” Ms. Dole said. “It will test states’ willingness to coordinate programs and systems to serve the disadvantaged.”
