Etc.

American veterans not only have to deal with the aftereffects of their doing time on the battlefield, assuming they were there, and dealing with discrimination of all kinds, they are also ripe for the picking by for-profit colleges and universities:

The Obama administration and the two capitalist political parties are directly responsible for the treatment of veterans by for-profit education corporations. The Post-9/11 GI Bill of Rights allows veterans with adequate service dating back to 2001 to receive funding for up to four years of post-secondary education, but includes a major loophole that, together with the “90/10 Rule,” provides a major financial incentive for the for-profit education industry to prey on returning soldiers.

The 90/10 rule establishes as a minimum requirement that for-profit companies receive 10 percent of their funding from non-government sources like student savings accounts or private loans. However, the $63 billion in funds for educational aid made available to veterans through the Post-9/11 GI Bill of Rights was exempt from the 90/10 rule. In this way, federal funding for veterans could be counted on company balance sheets as part of the 10 percent required to avoid government sanctions.

Time to close that loophole. I don't think for-profit schools should get ANY kind of federal aid because education is not a business.
_____

The Obama administration needs to leave the teaching profession to the professional teachers and not spew talking points from the Heritage Foundation or "Democrats" for Education Reform.
_____

Online K-12 schools have been dealt a setback in New Jersey--at least for the time being:

The state Department of Education today announced approval of nine new charter schools for September, but said the New Jersey Virtual Academy Charter School, a full-time online charter school, would instead be given a "planning" year to further develop "academic and operational components."

However, two offering a mix of online and traditional learning did receive approval. Both Newark Prep and Merit Preparatory of Newark Charter School intend to offer "blended" learning in a school setting, Newark Prep serving high school students, and Merit Prep starting by enrolling sixth-graders.

Another full-time virtual school, Monmouth County-based New Jersey Virtual Charter School, requested an additional planning year, as did Merit Preparatory of Trenton, also a blended school.
_____

So much for the "skills gap" nonsense being peddled by corporations as an excuse to hire cheap foreign labor:

Even though Janesville, Racine, and Milwaukee have the highest unemployment rates in the state, manufacturers claim that job seekers from those cities aren’t qualified for the positions on offer – that there is a “skills gap” between job seekers and the requirements of the employers. When pushed to identify those skills, they invariably characterize them as “soft skills” – a corporate term for a cluster of personal qualities, habits, attitudes, and social graces that make someone an obedient and dependable employee.

They complain about job applicants not arriving at an interview on time or being able to pass a drug test or having a felony conviction on their record. They also complain about a poor work ethic among job seekers. But they don’t have any actual data or evidence to back up these claims. They are all just strongly and oft-asserted opinions.

Some manufacturers also claim that they can’t fill high-skilled engineering positions, but they don’t mention the salaries, benefits, and terms of employment associated with those jobs. A search of mechanical engineering positions currently open in the Milwaukee metropolitan area requiring a minimum of a bachelor’s degree and five years of experience yielded the most results in the $30,000 - $50,000/year salary category. Some of those positions are offered on a contract or temporary basis, meaning no benefits.

Over the past year I’ve been writing about legislative and public policy initiatives designed to align public education at all levels with the workforce demands of corporations. This article published in January debunked claims made by Tim Sullivan, former CEO of mining equipment manufacturer Bucyrus (now owned by Caterpillar) that Milwaukee Area Technical College wasn't training enough welders. Those same bogus claims have been raised again and again as a pretext for shifting the financial burden of employee training away from private companies and onto the ever-diminishing resources in the state budget.

No comments:

Featured Post

Obituary: Kris Kristofferson

 Singer, songwriter, and sometime actor Kris Kristofferson, 88, passed away yesterday at his home in Hawaii.  Unreal he was that old.  I rem...