Apologies for the long update. These days I need the weekends to catch up with everything. - Jeff — Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. Everyone is aware by now that the "Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act” has passed both houses. I should have mentioned that the bill incorporates some of the provisions that were in the "CTE for All Act” co-sponsored by Sen. Reed and Sen. Baldwin, which was designed to push the program to better serve adult learners. Their bill was supported by NCL, NCL members, and others. Some of you know I worked on this a bit during the last Congress, so I’m eager to better understand what got in — and what NCL members think the ramifications will be. I took a quick look and it’s not totally clear to me how this will all work in practice, even with the guidance of the press release issued from Sen. Reed’s office (attached). I suspect that the adult education community will need to be out front and vocal in promoting/utilizing the changes in the bill that are advantageous to adult learners. I’ve also attached Sen. Reed’s statement on his bill (from this past June), in which he credits NCL and other groups for supporting his efforts, which you may have missed in the coverage of this in other sources. Friday I saw Sen. Reed’s education staffer at a meeting and conveyed our thanks to her and also for Sen. Reed’s effort to increase funding for Title II of WIOA. Appropriations Update: It’s looking like the Senate will take up the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill sometime during the week of August 13th (next week), and that it will be bundled together with the defense bill. Last week, Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee chair Roy Blunt (R-MO) said he was OK with this. This is an unusual move… but the consensus I hear among labor/health/education advocates is that the bundling is probably a good thing, because we know the Senate wants to pass their defense bill, thus bundling the Labor-HHS bill with defense raises the likelihood that it moves forward. And we want it to move forward: remember that the Senate version of the Labor-HHS bill has some important increases in it (like the one for adult ed under WIOA). Meanwhile, some significant differences between the House and the Senate have stalled negotiations on creating a single version of the first three government funding bills that have were passed by both chambers as a package deal back in June (Energy and Water, Military Construction-VA, and Legislative Branch). Won’t bore you with the details. but the problems appear significant enough that it has slowed things down. And slowing things down supports the likelihood (already pretty likely) that they won’t finish by the end of September (the deadline for the government to have passed all their FY 2019 appropriations bills, since the federal government’s 2019 fiscal year begins on Oct. 1), and so will need to pass a “continuing resolution” (aka a CR) to freeze spending in place at FY 2018 levels for a few weeks (likely through the midterm elections). Otherwise we’d be facing a government shutdown on Oct. 1. However, on Sunday morning, President Trump said on Twitter that he would be willing to shut down the government if Congress did not agree to his demands on immigration and border security, in particular the construction of his wall along the U.S.-Mexico border: > I would be willing to “shut down” government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall! Must get rid of Lottery, Catch & Release etc. and finally go to system of Immigration based on MERIT! We need great people coming into our Country! One other thing, from the just-in-case-you-heard-about-this-and-are-wondering-about-it department, last week the House Appropriations Committee revised its 302(b) allocations for all twelve FY 2019 spending bills. These allocations, which are generally set in the spring before the appropriations process begins, provide the committees with the base lump sum that they have to work with when they start deciding which programs get what. That’s why early in budget advocacy season , adult ed advocates ally with other education advocates to ask for the biggest 302(b) allocation for Labor-HHS-Education we can get, because the bigger the slice of the overall pie the committee gets, the greater the likelihood of securing addition adult education funding. Anyway, they needed to make some tweaks recently to the original allocations due to some things that came up during the appropriations process (the details are tedious, so I won’t get into them). However, these changes will not change anything in terms of available funding for the FY 2019 Labor-HHS-Education bill, even thought on the committee tables looks like it does. Unless you’ve looked at this table and are wondering about it, you can just ignore this paragraph — I just wanted to flag it in case anyone did. Aim Higher Act. The Democrats on the House Education and the Workforce Committee introduced their own Higher Education Act reauthorization bill last week, the “Aim Higher Act.” As you will recall, action on the Republican reauthorization bill (H.R. 4508, the “PROSPER Act”) has gone nowhere since the Committee marked it up late last year. The Democratic Committee has a detailed summary here: http://democrats-edworkforce.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Aim%20Higher%20Act%20--%20Bill%20Summary.pdf <http://democrats-edworkforce.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Aim%20Higher%20Act%20--%20Bill%20Summary.pdf> Of note: It increases the maximum Pell grant by $500, indexes it to inflation, and makes most of the program mandatory; It repeals the prohibition banning incarcerated individuals from accessing Pell; It allows Pell grants to pay for short-term high-quality training programs. Hoping that someone who is familiar with the bill in detail can tell us about what it says regarding Ability to Benefit… This bill, and HEA reauthorization generally, is not going anywhere this year, but at least we now have a good look at the House Democrats' approach and the House Republicans' approach... Farm Bill. There was some talk that the Senate might name its conferees and that they might get farm bill conference talks going with the House before the House left for summer recess on Friday, but that didn’t happen. So that means that the first public meeting of the conference committee can’t take place until September at the earliest. A few weeks ago in this Roll Call article there was a quote from Sen. Roberts (R-KS), theSenate Agriculture Committee Chair, that you may find of interest: > “The House bill takes $8 billion and sends it to the states,” Roberts said. “I don’t know who is going to implement this. I don’t know who in the Department of Agriculture has the capability to send that money out to states. ... Who is going to conduct the job training?” > That same Roll Call article outlined the differences in the two bills with regard to SNAP work requirements, which I’ll paste here verbatim: > The Senate bill would keep the current 20-hour work requirements for able-bodied adults and would incorporate findings from 10 state demonstration projects that are trying to incorporate work and education requirements for working-age adults. The bill would fund an additional eight state pilot projects that focus on SNAP recipients who have problems finding work. The legislation would make it easier for state agencies to work with the private sector in training SNAP recipients for jobs. It would also end a bonus program that rewarded states with low error rates in benefit payments because of Justice Department concerns that several states manipulated data to collect rewards. > > The House bill would expand work requirements to able-bodied adults ages 18 to 59 so that they keep their food benefits, requiring at least 20 hours a week of work that would be increased to 25 hours a week. The legislation also would tighten eligibility requirements, change the way monthly benefits are calculated and shift billions of dollars from food benefits into funding for state SNAP job-training and education programs. https://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/house-farm-bill-author-urges-support-snap-work-requirements <https://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/house-farm-bill-author-urges-support-snap-work-requirements> National Council for the American Worker. National Council for the American Worker. On July 19th, the President signed an Executive Order that establishes a "National Council for the American Worker,” made up of senior administration officials from the various agencies that oversee workforce development programs, including the Secretary of Education. The task force will be making recommendations to President on workforce policies and strategies. I’m to going to spend a lot of time with this one. As a friend of mine who attended the White House event on the 19th advised, read though the information and decide what to do with it. That could include nothing. But I agree, read though it. Here is the EO: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-establishing-presidents- <https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-establishing-presidents->national-council-american-worker/ Here is a White House fact sheet: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trumps-administration-taking-action-equip-american-students-workers-skills-need-succeed/ Here is White House adviser Ivanka Trump’s Wall Street Journal op-ed: https://www.wsj.com/articles/training-for-the-jobs-of-tomorrow-1531868131 <https://www.wsj.com/articles/training-for-the-jobs-of-tomorrow-1531868131> And finally, the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released a report outlining the importance of "reskilling" America's workforce for the jobs of the future. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Addressing-Americas-Reskilling-Challenge.pdf That’s it for now. Again, as a reminder plea, it wold be much appreciated if you would credit me and NCL as a source or at least a help if you use any of this info. If there are errors, they are mine and not NCLs! Jeff Carter Cell: (202) 374-4387 | @jeffcrtr Senior Policy Advisor National Coalition for Literacy www.national-coalition-literacy.org <http://www.national-coalition-literacy.org/> jcarter@literacypolicy.org <mailto:jcarter@literacypolicy.org> President, Committee for Education Funding Executive Director Physicians for Social Responsibility 1111 14th St, NW, Suite 700 Washington, DC 20005 www.psr.org <http://www.psr.org/> | jcarter@psr.org <mailto:jcarter@psr.org>

Oops! Just realized I forgot the attachments I promised my previous message: Reed statement on S. 3083 Reed press release on Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act Jeff . > On Jul 30, 2018, at 12:11 PM, Jeff Carter <jcarter@literacypolicy.org <mailto:jcarter@literacypolicy.org>> wrote: > > Apologies for the long update. These days I need the weekends to catch up with everything. - Jeff > — > > Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. Everyone is aware by now that the "Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act” has passed both houses. I should have mentioned that the bill incorporates some of the provisions that were in the "CTE for All Act” co-sponsored by Sen. Reed and Sen. Baldwin, which was designed to push the program to better serve adult learners. Their bill was supported by NCL, NCL members, and others. Some of you know I worked on this a bit during the last Congress, so I’m eager to better understand what got in — and what NCL members think the ramifications will be. I took a quick look and it’s not totally clear to me how this will all work in practice, even with the guidance of the press release issued from Sen. Reed’s office (attached). I suspect that the adult education community will need to be out front and vocal in promoting/utilizing the changes in the bill that are advantageous to adult learners. I’ve also attached Sen. Reed’s statement on his bill (from this past June), in which he credits NCL and other groups for supporting his efforts, which you may have missed in the coverage of this in other sources. Friday I saw Sen. Reed’s education staffer at a meeting and conveyed our thanks to her and also for Sen. Reed’s effort to increase funding for Title II of WIOA. > > Appropriations Update: It’s looking like the Senate will take up the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill sometime during the week of August 13th (next week), and that it will be bundled together with the defense bill. Last week, Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee chair Roy Blunt (R-MO) said he was OK with this. This is an unusual move… but the consensus I hear among labor/health/education advocates is that the bundling is probably a good thing, because we know the Senate wants to pass their defense bill, thus bundling the Labor-HHS bill with defense raises the likelihood that it moves forward. And we want it to move forward: remember that the Senate version of the Labor-HHS bill has some important increases in it (like the one for adult ed under WIOA). > > Meanwhile, some significant differences between the House and the Senate have stalled negotiations on creating a single version of the first three government funding bills that have were passed by both chambers as a package deal back in June (Energy and Water, Military Construction-VA, and Legislative Branch). Won’t bore you with the details. but the problems appear significant enough that it has slowed things down. > > And slowing things down supports the likelihood (already pretty likely) that they won’t finish by the end of September (the deadline for the government to have passed all their FY 2019 appropriations bills, since the federal government’s 2019 fiscal year begins on Oct. 1), and so will need to pass a “continuing resolution” (aka a CR) to freeze spending in place at FY 2018 levels for a few weeks (likely through the midterm elections). Otherwise we’d be facing a government shutdown on Oct. 1. > > However, on Sunday morning, President Trump said on Twitter that he would be willing to shut down the government if Congress did not agree to his demands on immigration and border security, in particular the construction of his wall along the U.S.-Mexico border: > >> I would be willing to “shut down” government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall! Must get rid of Lottery, Catch & Release etc. and finally go to system of Immigration based on MERIT! We need great people coming into our Country! > > > One other thing, from the just-in-case-you-heard-about-this-and-are-wondering-about-it department, last week the House Appropriations Committee revised its 302(b) allocations for all twelve FY 2019 spending bills. These allocations, which are generally set in the spring before the appropriations process begins, provide the committees with the base lump sum that they have to work with when they start deciding which programs get what. That’s why early in budget advocacy season , adult ed advocates ally with other education advocates to ask for the biggest 302(b) allocation for Labor-HHS-Education we can get, because the bigger the slice of the overall pie the committee gets, the greater the likelihood of securing addition adult education funding. Anyway, they needed to make some tweaks recently to the original allocations due to some things that came up during the appropriations process (the details are tedious, so I won’t get into them). However, these changes will not change anything in terms of available funding for the FY 2019 Labor-HHS-Education bill, even thought on the committee tables looks like it does. Unless you’ve looked at this table and are wondering about it, you can just ignore this paragraph — I just wanted to flag it in case anyone did. > > Aim Higher Act. The Democrats on the House Education and the Workforce Committee introduced their own Higher Education Act reauthorization bill last week, the “Aim Higher Act.” As you will recall, action on the Republican reauthorization bill (H.R. 4508, the “PROSPER Act”) has gone nowhere since the Committee marked it up late last year. The Democratic Committee has a detailed summary here: > > http://democrats-edworkforce.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Aim%20Higher%20Act%20--%20Bill%20Summary.pdf <http://democrats-edworkforce.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Aim%20Higher%20Act%20--%20Bill%20Summary.pdf> > > Of note: > It increases the maximum Pell grant by $500, indexes it to inflation, and makes most of the program mandatory; > It repeals the prohibition banning incarcerated individuals from accessing Pell; > It allows Pell grants to pay for short-term high-quality training programs. > Hoping that someone who is familiar with the bill in detail can tell us about what it says regarding Ability to Benefit… > > This bill, and HEA reauthorization generally, is not going anywhere this year, but at least we now have a good look at the House Democrats' approach and the House Republicans' approach... > > Farm Bill. There was some talk that the Senate might name its conferees and that they might get farm bill conference talks going with the House before the House left for summer recess on Friday, but that didn’t happen. So that means that the first public meeting of the conference committee can’t take place until September at the earliest. > > A few weeks ago in this Roll Call article there was a quote from Sen. Roberts (R-KS), theSenate Agriculture Committee Chair, that you may find of interest: >> “The House bill takes $8 billion and sends it to the states,” Roberts said. “I don’t know who is going to implement this. I don’t know who in the Department of Agriculture has the capability to send that money out to states. ... Who is going to conduct the job training?” >> > > > That same Roll Call article outlined the differences in the two bills with regard to SNAP work requirements, which I’ll paste here verbatim: > >> The Senate bill would keep the current 20-hour work requirements for able-bodied adults and would incorporate findings from 10 state demonstration projects that are trying to incorporate work and education requirements for working-age adults. The bill would fund an additional eight state pilot projects that focus on SNAP recipients who have problems finding work. The legislation would make it easier for state agencies to work with the private sector in training SNAP recipients for jobs. It would also end a bonus program that rewarded states with low error rates in benefit payments because of Justice Department concerns that several states manipulated data to collect rewards. > >> > >> The House bill would expand work requirements to able-bodied adults ages 18 to 59 so that they keep their food benefits, requiring at least 20 hours a week of work that would be increased to 25 hours a week. The legislation also would tighten eligibility requirements, change the way monthly benefits are calculated and shift billions of dollars from food benefits into funding for state SNAP job-training and education programs. > > > https://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/house-farm-bill-author-urges-support-snap-work-requirements <https://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/house-farm-bill-author-urges-support-snap-work-requirements> > > National Council for the American Worker. National Council for the American Worker. On July 19th, the President signed an Executive Order that establishes a "National Council for the American Worker,” made up of senior administration officials from the various agencies that oversee workforce development programs, including the Secretary of Education. The task force will be making recommendations to President on workforce policies and strategies. I’m to going to spend a lot of time with this one. As a friend of mine who attended the White House event on the 19th advised, read though the information and decide what to do with it. That could include nothing. But I agree, read though it. > > Here is the EO: > https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-establishing-presidents- <https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-establishing-presidents->national-council-american-worker/ > > Here is a White House fact sheet: > https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trumps-administration- <https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trumps-administration->taking-action-equip-american-students-workers-skills-need-succeed/ > > Here is White House adviser Ivanka Trump’s Wall Street Journal op-ed: > https://www.wsj.com/articles/training-for-the-jobs-of-tomorrow-1531868131 <https://www.wsj.com/articles/training-for-the-jobs-of-tomorrow-1531868131> > > And finally, the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released a report outlining the importance of "reskilling" America's workforce for the jobs of the future. > https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Addressing-Americas-Reskilling- <https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Addressing-Americas-Reskilling->Challenge.pdf > > That’s it for now. Again, as a reminder plea, it wold be much appreciated if you would credit me and NCL as a source or at least a help if you use any of this info. If there are errors, they are mine and not NCLs! > > > > Jeff Carter > Cell: (202) 374-4387 | @jeffcrtr > > > > Senior Policy Advisor > National Coalition for Literacy > www.national-coalition-literacy.org <http://www.national-coalition-literacy.org/> > jcarter@literacypolicy.org <mailto:jcarter@literacypolicy.org> > President, Committee for Education Funding > > > Executive Director > Physicians for Social Responsibility > 1111 14th St, NW, Suite 700 > Washington, DC 20005 > www.psr.org <http://www.psr.org/> | jcarter@psr.org <mailto:jcarter@psr.org> > >