A Common Core Invitation from the U.S. Dept. of Labor?! They are extending an invitation to all public-private partnerships to receive grant money to further align our students, regardless of educational choice or age.
Act Now, This Offer Won’t Last:
If you want the grant money here’s your time constraint: “The period of performance is 60 months. This performance period includes all necessary implementation and start-up activities. The process for program development and registration should begin immediately and apprenticeship enrollments should be expedited, with the expectation of apprentice enrollments to begin in the first 12 months of the grant.” (the announcement on the website is dated 3/14) How much money? $100 million in the form of 25 grants. That means each P3 will receive quite a bit for their participation. (see: http://www.doleta.gov/oa/aag.cfm) *Note: be sure to notice the examples of acceptable use of the grant money. The application period isn’t over until April 2015, by the way.
What’s an “American Apprenticeship”?
In the Dept. of Labor’s words, “Learn and earn models that meet national standards”. So that means a person who is in the program is an apprentice who’s learning, earning while meeting national standards. Oh, just so you know, the U.S.Dept. of Labor is encouraging P3s to use ‘leveraged resources’ to make the program a true success. See their pdf of FAQs for the parameters: Registered_Apprenticeship_FAQs_2014
‘Win Win’ for Everyone, Right?
According to the employer toolkit promoting the American Apprenticeship Program, benefits abound for everyone!! How exciting…here are their words,
“Benefits for Business: Highly-skilled employees, More diverse workforce, Reduced turnover costs, and Higher productivity.
Benefits for Workforce Intermediaries and Education Organizations: Proven model to help job seekers immediately start working and increase skills and earnings, Effective strategy to connect with employers in diverse fields and to use as part of industry sector strategies.
Benefits for Workers: Increased skills, higher wages, National credential , and career advancement.” *Note: do you see which of the 3 groups benefits the most? Do you see which group benefits the least?
Here’s how they illustrate it all:
In the Dept. of Labor’s Apprenticeship Model concerning 2 year or 4 year schools, see how segmented our students can become:
You’ll really want this ToolKit for a resource to fight Career Pathways in your state; Career Tech Education, College/Career Readiness Standards, and all the other names used to have CCSS aligned education. There are many other things I’d like to share, but it’s important you have this in its entirity to do your own digging. Be sure to share what you find, especially with those who are against Common Core, but are fully supportive of Workforce and all it encompasses. Do they know there’s a direct link? Will they care to know? They MUST know! apprenticeship_toolkit
States Registry:
Yep, the grant money application period isn’t even behind us, but there’s a U.S. Dept. of Labor Registered Apprenticeship State Registry. (By the way, have you noticed the incentives for business to register? Do you find it odd that no one seems to pick up on all this registering is for tracking purposes? More data mining, for certain!) How to get to the Registry: http://www.doleta.gov/oa/contactlist.cfm What the Registry will tell you about our state is this who the contact person is for your state’s Apprenticeship and Training Bureau. If you access the “educators” link on the left hand menu you’ll be taken to a page where you’ll see this:
Here are the groups behind the RACC: “The Consortium’s principles are agreed to collectively by the higher education community; National Registered Apprenticeship sponsors; the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of apprenticeship; and the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education.” I urge you to download the RACC’s Framework. You’ll need this for your fight against CC aligned post-secondary education. RACC_framework
How the Dept. of Labor is ‘selling’ Apprenticeships: http://www.dol.gov/apprenticeship/
Closing:
The one thing I kept noticing as I was digging into the research for this topic. It won’t take you long to discover by clicking on all the related resources the U.S. Dept. of Labor provides you before you realize you’ve been guided here before via previous posts of mine, and/or other’s articles. Warriors, we must keep sharing all we, as citizens, we’re finding out. Many think there’s no way all this can be connected to Common Core, but it’s proven..again and again. Help raise awareness with your elected officials. If they truly want Common Core out of their states, like you do, they MUST know Workforce is also Common Core aligned.
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