[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 86 (Friday, June 26, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1274-E1275]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF SCHOOL-TO-WORK PROGRAMS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. HENRY J. HYDE

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 25, 1998

  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, one of the nation's experts on education, D.L. 
Cuddy has written an important article I would like to bring to my 
colleagues' attention.

                      The New Transatlantic Agenda

                            (By D.L. Cuddy)

       In the U.S. Congress, Rep. Henry Hyde has been warning 
     people about school-to-work (STW) education initiatives, and 
     Senator John Ashcroft has amended the Workforce Investment 
     Partnership Act now being discussed to prohibit its funding 
     of STW. At the state level, N.C. Rep. Don Davis is chairing a 
     House Select Committee for Federal Education Grants, which 
     has been investigating STW grants among others, and invited 
     Richmond Times-Dispatch op-ed editor Robert Holland to 
     address the Select Committee on this subject.
       While the implications of STW at the state and national 
     levels have been widely debated, not much has been written 
     about the international connections. On May 18, the White 
     House released a statement at the conclusion of the U.S.-
     European Summit in London, indicating that ``through the New 
     Transatlantic Agenda (NTA), created in 1995, the United 
     States and the European Union have focused on addressing the 
     challenges and opportunities of global integration.''
       One part of this ``global integration'' in 1995 was the 
     agreement between the U.S. and the European Community 
     establishing a cooperation program in higher education and 
     vocational education and training. The agreement, signed 
     December 21 of that year, called for ``improving the quality 
     of human resource development . . . Transatlantic student 
     mobility, . . . and thus portability of academic credits.'' 
     In this regard, a Joint Committee would reach decisions by 
     consensus.
       As part of the NTA, the U.S. and European Union then 
     convened a major conference, ``Bridging the Atlantic: People-
     to-People Links,'' on May 5-6, 1997 calling for ``thematic 
     networks for curriculum development,'' and further stating 
     that in an information-based global economy, ``governments 
     too are obliged to adapt their economic, training and social 
     welfare programs.'' The conference final report noted that in 
     the U.S., ACHIEVE has been one of the organizations at the 
     forefront of defining key issues in this regard and 
     developing strategies to address them. ACHIEVE has been 
     measuring and reporting each state's annual progress in 
     establishing Internationally competitive standards, and 
     business leaders involved have indicated their commitment to 
     consider the quality of each state's standards when making 
     business location or expansion decisions.
       The ``Partners in a Global Economy Working Group'' of the 
     conference discussed ``what redesigning of curricula is 
     required . . . (i.e. what career skills are needed), . . . 
     portability of skill certificates, . . . and 
     institutionalizing cross-national learning/training 
     activities.''
       Most people debating STW in the U.S. are familiar with the 
     role of Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on 
     Education and the Economy. He's also on the National Skill 
     Standards Board (NSSB), and on its website under 
     international links, one finds ``Smartcards Project Forum,'' 
     under which

[[Page E1275]]

     one reads: ``The Tavistock Institute and the European 
     Commission are working on a feasibility study to research the 
     affect of using Smart Cards in competence accreditation. The 
     study will be carried out in the USA and parts of Europe.'' 
     The project involves assessing and validating students' 
     skills, with information placed on personal skills 
     Smartcards, which ``become real passports to employment.''
       If without a passport one cannot enter a country, does this 
     mean that without a skills passport one may not be able to 
     get a job in the future?
       In October 1997, the Tavistock Institute (and Manchester 
     University) completed the final report for the European 
     Commission, and described in a report summary were the 
     relevancy of Goals 2000, SCANS (U.S. Department of Labor 
     ``Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills'') 
     typology with its ``profound implications for the curriculum 
     and training changes that this will require,'' valid skills 
     standards and portable credentials ``benchmarked to 
     international standards such as those promulgated by the 
     International Standards Organization (ISO).''
       The report summary went on to say that ``there is 
     increasing attention being focused on developing global skill 
     standards and accreditation agreements,'' and there will be 
     ``partnerships between government, industry, and 
     representatives of worker organizations . . . (and) a high 
     degree of integration . . . embedding skills within the 
     broader context of economic and social activity, and 
     specifically within the areas of secondary education, work-
     based learning and local and regional economic development. . 
     . . The NSSB, Goals 2000, STW Program are all combining to 
     act as a catalyst to promote the formation of partnerships to 
     develop skills standards. In this regard, a system like O*Net 
     can be seen as the `glue' that holds everything together.''
       O*Net is a new occupational database system sponsored by 
     the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training 
     Administration, and is being piloted in Texas, South 
     Carolina, California, New York and Minnesota. It includes 
     information such as ``Worker Characteristics'' (abilities, 
     interests and work styles) and ``Worker Requirements'' (e.g., 
     basic skills, knowledge and education).

     

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