Background Information
Current Status
Latest News
ACTE Resources, Positions & Statements
External Resources
Current Status:
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| Law: | Workforce Investment Act of 1998 [P.L. 105-220] |
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| Senate | No action in 110th Congress |
| Action: | |
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| House | Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning & Competiveness holds hearings, 6/28/07, 7/26/07 |
| Action: | H.R. 3747, "Workforce Investment Improvement Act," introduced by Republican leaders, 10/4/07 [More info] |
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Latest News:
October 24, 2007
On October 4, Republican leaders of the House Education and Labor Committee introduced two separate bills. The first one, H.R. 3746, is titled the "College Access and Opportunity Act," and is designed as a comprehensive Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization bill. The second, H.R. 3747, is titled the "Workforce Investment Improvement Act," and would reauthorize the long overdue Workforce Investment Act (WIA). This bill is similar to legislation to reauthorize WIA introduced in the previous Congress, and a summary of it is available on the Committee’s Web site.
While these bills will not likely be the starting point for Committee activity, they provide insight into the upcoming reauthorization discussions and clearly present Republican views on the respective programs. Neither chamber has begun serious discussions on the Workforce Investment Act, and it is growing increasingly unlikely that work with be completed on either bill this year.
Archived Updates & Historical Information
ACTE Resources, Positions & Statements:
Fact Sheet on Concerns Regarding Workforce Investment Act Infrastructure Funding Proposals
WIA Reauthorization Letter to Congress 6/4/07
ACTE Postsecondary Position Paper - Expanding Opportunities: Postsecondary CTE and Preparing Tomorrow's Workforce
WIA 2007 Leave Behind
Employment and training services play a vital role in assisting job seekers and preparing the American workforce to meet community and industry needs. ACTE supports the following in reauthorizing the Workforce Investment Act:
Funding: ACTE supports overall increases in funding for the Workforce Investment Act to meet the skills development needs of jobs seekers, workers, and employers. Reauthorization efforts should include a separate line for funding WIA’s One-Stop system’s infrastructure needs.
One-Stop Infrastructure Funding: If a reauthorized WIA is unable to provide a separate line item for infrastructure needs in WIA’s One Stop system, ACTE supports the continued negotiations of these cost sharing agreements at the local level, where local agencies can best make these decisions. As mentioned above, among issues of concern in reauthorization are proposals to provide funding for WIA’s One-Stop infrastructure by taking funds from WIA partner programs, including the Perkins program, which provides postsecondary education and training services through WIA’s One Stop employment center system.
Training: ACTE supports increasing overall opportunities for training in the WIA system, including the elimination of WIA’s “sequence of services” provision which forces participants to go through a prescribed sequence of core and intensive services before gaining access to training. Participants instead should be able to access immediately the services most suitable for their needs.
Tracking WIA-Funded Clients: ACTE supports limiting the tracking requirements to WIA-funded participants within an individual program, so that training providers such as community colleges do not have to track and report on all of a program’s students if only a few of WIA-funded participants are enrolled in a course.
Youth: ACTE also supports conserving WIA’s current focus on serving both in-school and out-of-school youth, maintaining funding for youth programs, and maintaining WIA’s Youth Councils to ensure that local communities maintain a focus on the employment concerns of young people.
WIB Membership: ACTE supports maintaining Perkins membership on local Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs), WIA’s local governing bodies. Both the Administration’s plan and the House bill remove local partners from local WIBs. While improving the workings of local WIBs should be discussed, maintaining local partners membership is crucial to a well-functioning local workforce system – those who are being asked to carry out workforce development functions should retain their seat at the table in order to be part of important decisions about funding and local priorities.
External Resources:
A Vision for the Future of the Workforce Investment System, MDRC 1/07
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