Weekend News: Heads Up, Higher Ed CTE Update

This Weekend News is an update to the continued Common Core/Career Tech Education/Aligned Apprentices efforts our post secondary students are facing. What can we do to fight this? How can we inform others? Read on, my fighters!!

A White House “Fact Sheet”:

Dated September 9th, 2015, this news release gives us several key pieces to the continued alignment of our students. We know this is part of the ‘cradle to career’ agenda so prevalent in the CCSS Initiative. What is stunning, is that the White House continues to promote these efforts.
So, what are the ‘key pieces’? Here’s my list:
1) “Education and job training are among the surest pathways to the middle class.” (The old school ‘American Dream’ wasn’t middle class, it was MUCH bigger)
2) “President, the First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden, and Secretary Arne Duncan will travel across the country in the coming days to highlight the need for affordable, quality career and education choices..” (in my past articles, I have shared how the Vice President was tasked by the President to come up with Workforce/Education ideas)
3) “President will announce new steps to expand apprenticeships and to continue to build momentum nationwide to make community college free for responsible students.” (in past articles, I’ve shared with you how the nation’s community colleges are already CCSS/CTE aligned)
4) Specific agenda items the “Touring Team” will promote:
a) Dept. of Labor grants “Grants to 46 public-private partnerships marrying the efforts of employers, organized labor, non-profits, local governments, and educational institutions to expand high-quality apprenticeships.”
b)  “independent creation of the College Promise Advisory Board, led by Chair Dr. Jill Biden, and Vice-Chair former Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer and directed by former Under Secretary of Education, Martha Kanter.”
c) “Heads Up America will call on everyone to join the movement to make two years of community college free for responsible students around the country.”
d) Those “American Apprenticeship Grants “ will help train and hire more than 34,000 new apprentices in high-growth and high-tech industries as diverse as health care, IT, and advanced manufacturing while scaling up proven programs in construction, transportation, and energy over the next five years.”
e) “Over 140 employers, colleges, and labor organizations have signed on to be ApprenticeshipUSA LEADERS (Leaders of Excellence in Apprenticeship Development, Education and Research) by expanding their own training programs and encouraging their peers to get on board.” 

To summarize the rest of the news release, it is basically affirming that the White House is over-stepping its authority again, blaming Congress for not being supportive enough when it comes to WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act). It is also revealing the massive amounts of money, the number of citizens to be involved in MORE career pathways for life.

The College Promise Advisory Board:

Helping the efforts of ‘free’ community colleges will be the following:
Walther Bumphus (American Association of Community Colleges) I exposed his ties to CCSS/CTE in my 2 part series: https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/05/06/wybi-upskilling-america-part-1/  AND https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/05/07/tech-thursday-upskilling-america-part-2/
Lily Garcia(NEA), Randi Weingarten(AFT), LaVerne Srinivasan (Carnegie Corp.), Ellen Alberding (Joyce Foundation), and Randy Boyd (TN Economic and Community Development). There are many others, but these individuals above are well known CCSS/CTE/CCR supporters. (you can see the entire list by accessing the news release’s link)

Those 46 P3s:

The grants are broken down by regions across the USA. In the Northeast, MA, NY, CT, RI, and VT were the ‘winners’. The bulk of the grants appear to be workforce education, outcome based education, or economic based. Some of the programs include The United Way, various department of labor current activities, and more. In the South, SC, GA, AR, TX, and FL ‘won’ money. Money awarded in these states appears to be ’21st Century Initiative’, ‘compressed education’, economic, and workforce based. Mid-Atlantic ‘winners’ are WV, MD, DC, VA, and PA. Their money will be devoted to all kinds of apprenticeships, including a grant to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters! The Mid-West states getting grants are IL, MI, MN, and WI. Illinois received the bulk of the grants. Among the apprenticeships, workforce, education alignment, you’ll find STEM and MAP+ (MI). In the West, HI, CA, OR, NM, WA, NV, and AK will get the big bucks. It appears the bulk of the money will be for either community wide efforts (including community colleges).

Each grantee will have a specific dollar amount, what organizations will benefit by receiving the money and what purpose the money will serve. All kinds of ethnic groups, special needs, and much more are included. The grant information can be accessed:
americanapprenticeshipinitiativegrantsawardsummaries

“Heads Up”:

This website gives us only two choices ‘yes’ and ‘maybe’.

This website is so full of agenda driven motives it isn’t funny. For example in the ‘toolkit’, you’ll find ‘willing to work for it’ defined. Part of the definition? Good grades, credits that will follow you, and a commitment to serve your town. As an example of the ‘service’ TN is featured. “Required community service” there when you get ‘free community college’.
“Heads Up” is being called a nation wide grassroots activity. They’ve got a Twitter account (#HeadsUp) The group is really pushing for everyone to get on board with the program, too. One of the ways is to embed their website or Twitter handle in every communication you have access to. Here’s a quote, “Spread the word through social media and by organizing events on your campus and in your community! Think creatively about ways you can make a lasting impact. Every time you spread the word, use our official hashtag ..Make sure you keep an eye on all @Comm_College, @CCTrustees, @AchieveTheDream, @WhiteHouse and @ScholAmerica social media accounts for the latest campaign updates and progress as well. And spread the good news. Let’s do this!”

Here’s the ‘toolkit’, wait until you open to to see how ‘grassroots’ this really isn’t. HeadsUpAmerica_toolkit

The White House Press Release: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/09/fact-sheet-providing-more-americans-affordable-access-education-and-job

One last quote from the news release “The Administration has also undertaken efforts to better align community college programs to in-demand jobs.”

Resources:

 To access my articles about the Vice President’s role in aligning America to CTE, Apprentices, and more: https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/08/06/tech-thursday-career-pathways-meet-competency-based-pathways/ (*Note: this article will link you to two other articles about the VP, CCSS, CTE, and Achieve.)

To access the article about those “Aligned Apprentices”, see: https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/02/12/tech-thursday-aligned-apprentices/

To see how all this ties to the current NCLB (No Child Left Behind) re-authorization bills (HR5, The Student Success Act and the S1177, Every Child Achieves Act), read:
https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/06/20/sic-em-saturday-ccss-menu-your-choice/