[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 12 (Wednesday, February 9, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                             SCHOOL-TO-WORK


                         the pressler amendment

 Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am happy to cosponsor Senator 
Pressler's amendment to S. 1365, the school-to-work bill. This 
amendment will help address the unique needs of students from America's 
rural States.
  Mr. President, throughout my congressional career I have generally 
supported Federal assistance for our Nation's educational system, and 
will continue to do so. However, I am concerned that, all too often, 
Federal education programs do not address the unique needs of students 
from rural States.
  The legislation before us is an example of this problem. S. 1365 
provides for a 10 percent set-aside for ``high poverty areas'' that 
have an unemployment rate of at least 30 percent. By focusing solely on 
unemployment figures, this set-aside would exclude many hard-pressed 
areas in States like North Dakota.
  While many areas of my State may not have a 30 percent unemployment 
rate, the distress of economic hard times manifests itself in other 
ways. For example, a number of counties in North Dakota are 
experiencing an out-migration of over 60 percent of young adults 
between the age of 20 and 29. Instead of a high unemployment rate, out-
migration creates social and economic stress from the loss of some of 
the most productive, hard working people in the Nation. In other words, 
when jobs fade away, many young North Dakotans simply move away to find 
work.
  This amendment will address this problem by broadening the 10 percent 
set-aside for high poverty areas to include States with low population 
densities. It will authorize funding for a model school-to-work program 
for rural America, which is being developed by a consortium of State 
schools in Wyoming, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana. The 
development of this model will require educators and business leaders 
to develop a school-to-work training program that tackles the 
particular needs of rural America.
  Mr. President, if we really want to establish a school-to-work system 
that will help students enter the new economic world, we must include 
the real needs of rural America in that system. This amendment will 
further the goal, and I support it.

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