THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 2, 1996 TAG: 9611020272
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 124 lines
Virginia is taking it slow too slow, some say - in applying for millions of dollars in federal grant money that would be used to form partnerships among schools, workplaces and civic groups to better prepare students for careers.
Since 1994, Virginia has applied for and received three developmental grants, totaling $880,002, for pilot projects under the School-to-Work Opportunities Act. But the state hasn't applied for a full, five-year grant that would provide seed money for permanent, self-sufficient programs - possibly totaling $40 million to $50 million in grant money.
Only a handful of other states have failed to apply for the full grants, but the U.S. Education Department wouldn't say how many or which ones. Twenty-seven states - neighbors North Carolina and Maryland among them - already have received funds for their initiatives, and 10 to 13 more states will receive grants this fall, according to the department.
Maryland received $4.2 million and North Carolina received $5 million in their first year in the program. North Carolina received $10 million for its second year.
Randolph A. Beales, an assistant in the state secretary of education's office and executive director of the Virginia Business-Education Partnership Program - which coordinates Virginia's school-to-work efforts under the act - said that not enough of the 23 local pilot programs had achieved their goals. Therefore, he said, the state's application for a full grant most likely would have failed.
The School-to-Work Opportunities Act, passed by Congress in 1994 and scheduled to die no later than 2001, gives winning proposals five years' of funding to build cooperative workplace-education ventures at the state and local level that will continue on their own after the grants expire.
Employers, for example, might confer with educators on what classes to offer to prepare future workers, and set up apprenticeship programs to train students under real-life conditions. The goal is to help students develop careers rather than just job-specific skills, and to create a pipeline of appropriately educated and trained workers for employers.
Beales said he will apply for more of the same preliminary developmental grants, and plans to apply next year for the full grant. That would enable Virginia, if accepted, to receive five-years' funding before the act dies, assuming Congress keeps funding the program. It did this fiscal year, increasing available funding to $400 million nationwide for the year.
The grants aren't guaranteed, but ``very competitive,'' Beales said.
``It was pretty clear we would not be eligible at this point,'' he said. ``You could always, I suppose, submit one, but it was pretty clear that we would be turned down.''
Others weren't so sure.
Northern Virginia educators and lawmakers and the office of state Sen. Stanley C. Walker (D-Norfolk, Virginia Beach) have questioned whether Gov. George F. Allen's office was foregoing federal money like it did with Goals 2000 earlier this year, when it rejected $6.7 million due to ideological differences with Washington.
Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr. entered the fray, writing the state superintendent of public instruction last week to ask about the status of Virginia's grant application.
And some of the people who've been running pilot projects are growing impatient.
Officials at New Horizons Regional Education Center in Newport News appreciated the small planning grants it received in recent years, but went to the General Assembly this year to get another $14,000 in state money to keep their program going while waiting for the hoped-for federal funds.
``We've been working two years,'' said Edward W. ``Ned'' Carr, executive director of New Horizons, a regional vocational program for Peninsula public school divisions. ``I think we've made some progress.''
Among other activities, Carr's center has set up an auto technician mentor and apprentice program involving a dozen auto dealers and 14 students who worked last summer for pay. The dealers helped set up school curriculum, interviewed the students and guaranteed them jobs after graduation.
``We have to build better linkages between what's happening in school and what's happening in the marketplace,'' Carr said. ``Kids don't understand why it's important to know algebra, why it's important to study hard and have a good understanding of science and English.
School-to-work initiatives are particularly important since 75 percent of students don't complete college, but still need to be able to work in a technologically advancing economy, Carr said. He was hoping to get enough funding to expand his program to the machine-tool and health-care industries.
``It's a big issue,'' he said. ``It's important to do, and it's important for Virginia. We're getting further and further behind other states who have gotten more money.''
In Maryland, the federal grant is expected to total $25.2 million in five years, said Katharine M. Oliver, assistant superintendent with the Maryland State Department of Education. It will allow work to continue in establishing a system of education-business partnerships that has included schools pairing with businesses, businesses helping the state develop nine ``career clusters'' in vocational curriculum, and secondary curriculum being coordinated with area colleges and businesses to complete career-preparation paths.
``We were chomping at the bit to do this,'' Oliver said. ``We're looking at this money like venture capital, like seed money, to make things happen.''
In North Carolina, educators and 100 employers had been planning and developing local partnerships since 1991, before the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, said Loretta M. Martin, director of School-to-Work Transition in the Governor's Commission on Workforce Preparedness. The state didn't feel it was ready the first year of the ct, but applied in the second.
``We knew that a lot of our partnerships would still be in the planning stage . . . but we felt we were ready because we had done a lot of work for the previous two years in getting our system defined and described,'' Martin said. ``We are up and running.''
Virginia's Beales said he's tried to keep the state-level bureaucracy small and leave program decisions to local groups. His office has three employees. It has distributed $350,530 in development grants during his 18 months as director, out of $550,002 received in that time under the act, according to his records.
``We are doing everything we can to make sure Virginia is ready'' to apply for a full grant, Beales said.
``Different states develop in different ways. One thing we have tried to emphasize is local control,'' he said. ``To try and force something on localities from Richmond and Washington . . . they wouldn't have ownership of the program that's so key to success after I'm gone.
``Sometimes that takes a little longer. But it's longer lasting, than if you impose it from the top down.''
Perhaps. But some at the bottom want to get going.
``Something needs to get done beyond these small little grants,'' New Horizon's Carr said. ``It's frustrating. I think they want to support this effort. But it requires a critical mass'' of funding.
``We need to get serious about this thing. And I don't think you can criticize the localities for not being ready.''
KEYWORDS: FEDERAL GRANT MONEY JOB TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL
STUDENTS by CNB