SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- With more than 12 million Americans unemployed, community colleges and technical schools are collaborating to help people retrain for new jobs.
About 1,100 institutions nationwide are contributing to the Opportunity America survey on workforce development. California Community College System Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley said "upskilling" will be crucial to an equitable recovery from the pandemic.
"It isn't high-wage-earning, white-collar workers that have been impacted. It is blue-collar, front-line vulnerable workers at the lowest level that have been hit the hardest," Oakley said. "And these are individuals that community colleges have the greatest access to."
Ajita Menon is president of Calbright College, a state-run online community college. She said the survey results will promote best practices.
"It's a real tool for planning and innovation that we can share and understand and learn from what other institutions are doing," Menon said.
Colleges are being asked to complete the survey this month. Tamar Jacoby, president of the nonprofit Opportunity America, said she hopes the data will convince state lawmakers to allocate more for career education.
"The problem is, you have millions of Americans wanting these short, job-focused programs that the colleges are well positioned to provide, but in many states there's no way to pay," Jacoby said. "You can't use your Pell grant to pay for them. Most states do not fund them."
Salvatrice Cummo, executive director for economic and workforce development with Pasadena Community College, advises people looking for work to consider short-term community college courses that can lead directly to jobs in such hot industries as healthcare and computer science.
"Sit with the counselor and take a look at the programs that best fit your desires and interests and career path," Cummo said. "And have them share with you, what are the growth occupations?"
Cummo noted many of California's 116 community colleges now offer competency-based credentials that are designed to funnel graduates into fields that are in demand.
Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.
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Idaho students still have not caught up to pre-pandemic levels in education, according to a new report.
The third annual Education Recovery Scorecard finds Idaho students are half a grade level behind 2019 marks in math, and 60% behind in reading.
One of the biggest issues in the state is chronic absenteeism.
Professor Tom Kane - lead author of the study and faculty director at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University - said the pandemic was the earthquake, but absenteeism is the tsunami that keeps rolling through schools.
"Fewer than 5% of students in Idaho were chronically absent before the pandemic," said Kane, "but right after the pandemic in 2022, more than 20% of students were chronically absent - so missing more than 10% of the school year."
The scorecard says Idaho ranks 30th in math recovery and 38th in reading recovery between 2019 and 2024.
However, the report also points to bright spots - such as in Lewiston, Kuna, and Idaho Falls, where students are approaching or exceeding full recovery.
The report finds the gaps between high-income and low-income districts nationally has widened, with the richest districts nearly four times more likely to recover in math and reading when compared to the poorest districts.
Kane said the country is failing some students.
"School closures were a public health measure that was taken on behalf of all of us," said Kane. "But, at this point, the people who are paying the biggest price for those school closures are not adults. They're children, especially poor children."
Federal relief dollars expired last year. However, Kane said there still are ways states can help students.
He urged teachers to tell parents when students fall behind. Kane also noted that states have Title I funds - grants to improve academic performance especially in high-poverty schools.
"States do have some flexibility in how they administer federal Title I dollars," said Kane, "and we encourage states to use that flexibility and continue funding academic catch-up efforts like tutoring and summer learning."
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A New York bill would require schools to teach about the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The bill calls for all K-12 students to be taught about the event, with the state determining how best to incorporate the events into history classes. Since 2021, public opinion on the U.S. Capitol attack has dulled because President Donald Trump and his supporters have downplayed it since then
Asm. Charles Lavine, D-Glen Cove, the bill's sponsor, said it is important not to whitewash the facts.
"The problem with whitewashing history is that students in those states are not going to learn to be the critical thinkers that we really need in order to confront the great dilemmas that will face us in the future," Lavine contended.
Though initial polls found people equated the Capitol attack with an attack on democracy, some polls show people approve of Trump's actions. Many groups have teaching tools so educators can accurately answer students' questions about Jan. 6.
While the bill is relatively new, it has garnered positive feedback. It is under review by the Assembly's Education Committee.
The bill comes several weeks after President Donald Trump pardoned everyone prosecuted for participating in the Jan. 6 attack. Polls show most people disapprove of the pardons.
Lavine acknowledged one challenge for the bill is finding an impartial way to teach about a politically polarizing event, adding it will be left to the state's education experts.
"Those are the members of the Board of Regents, in consultation with the state's Education Department, to make the determination about what is taught particularly in subject matters," Lavine outlined. "What this bill simply does is add to a list of major subject areas that should be instructed in our public schools."
Along with the Capitol attack, the bill also calls on teachers to educate students about patriotism, citizenship, civic education, values and America's history with diversity and religious tolerance. Lavine noted one goal of the bill is to ensure children learn about good and bad parts of history, from slavery and the Holocaust to the Irish potato famine.
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With cost at the forefront of prospective students' minds, higher education institutions in North Carolina are rethinking how to overcome one of the biggest barriers to enrollment.
William Peace University in Raleigh has launched its "Peace Pledge," a program offering 100% tuition coverage for qualifying students.
Damon Wade, vice president for enrollment management and marketing at the university, said school officials took a hard look at the enrollment challenges students faced.
"Cost was a major factor in their decision-making for them and their families," Wade observed. "We wanted to do our level best to try to mitigate that and remove cost as a barrier to their education as reasonably as we possibly could."
Qualifying students must be first-time, traditional undergraduate students who reside in North Carolina. They also must come from households with incomes of $75,000 or less, be eligible for federal Pell Grants and have a high school grade-point average of 3.25 or higher.
Other colleges in North Carolina are also offering free tuition, including Duke University, which covers tuition for families with incomes less than $150,000. Wade pointed out colleges are closely considering the cost students face.
"A lot of institutions around the country and then particularly in North Carolina have given thought to the cost associated with education and have come up with different pathways for students to enroll," Wade explained.
Wade added students want to enroll in programs to prepare them for the workforce or graduate school.
"But they want to do it in as cost-effective as possible," Wade emphasized. "We hear that from them and their parents, and they understand that mom and dad or their guardians don't always have the capacity to cover the cost."
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