White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics

This is crossposted from the U.S. Department of Labor blog.

Thanks to the efforts of Department of Labor partners all across the country, Youth Apprenticeship Week (YAW) was a huge success! Employers, apprentices, apprenticeship graduates, education providers, labor organizations, community-based organizations, government officials, industry associations and workforce leaders together held over 420 events. All 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico hosted over 682,600 attendees. States, counties, municipalities, apprenticeship system partners and program sponsors also issued over 120 proclamations across a variety of states, counties, municipalities, apprenticeship system partners and program sponsors.

It was an exciting week full of celebrations and announcements like the Student Career Expo pictured above, where young people learned about vocational careers and apprenticeships in the Baltimore County, Maryland area. Below you will find more from some of the events that took place during the week.

Youth Apprenticeship Week National Kick-off Event

We held a kick-off event at our D.C. headquarters moderated by one of our Apprentice Trailblazers, and our very own Randy Copeland, who joined the department’s Office of Apprenticeship as a college student 14 years ago through the Pathways program. Randy now leads the office’s youth portfolio and the nation’s first Youth Apprenticeship Week to support our work creating pathways for thousands of young people across the country.

Kyle deCant, director of labor policy for the White House National Economic Council, and Veronica Hinton, the associate director of workforce policy and innovation at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management joined me in providing opening remarks to celebrate and kick-off this historic and exciting week. deCant began by noting that the Biden-Harris administration has focused on developing the next generation of workers that have access to high-quality apprenticeship programs since day one. Hinton shared how the recently announced Federal Youth Apprentice Pathways Final Rule will increase access and opportunities for youth and young adults, especially Registered Apprenticeship graduates, into federal government jobs.

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training Manny Lamarre facilitated a panel with youth apprentices which allowed the audience to hear from young apprentices about how they are earning and learning in high-growth, high demand industries. To close out the day, Amy Loyd, assistant secretary for the Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, provided inspiring closing remarks.

Youth Apprentice Roundtable with Acting Secretary Julie Su

Acting Secretary Julie Su and I had the chance to hear directly from more than 20 young apprentices, pre-apprentices and apprentice graduates during Youth Apprenticeship Week.

The stories that these young people shared with us about their experiences and how they heard about apprenticeships were extremely powerful and speak to the impact that Registered Apprenticeship has on the lives of so many individuals.

First National Apprenticeship Signing Day

On May 9, the department joined the District of Columbia Department of Employment Services to host a large-scale signing day event. Signatories included members of the nation’s first HBCU public service apprenticeship program, Howard University, DC Water, Howard University Hospital, University of the District of Columbia and 45 high school and college students.

 
Youth Apprenticeship Week Industry and Community Engagement

Across the country, industry leaders, employers, labor unions, students and community members learned more about the value and benefits of youth apprenticeship. I appreciated my visit to AAR Corp.’s facility in my hometown of Miami, hosted by Career Source Florida, where I learned about their apprenticeship program, about what it means for recruitment and retention and about high-demand careers in the aviation industry.

What makes AAR’s program a success is the partnerships they have with their local workforce board and public educational institutions, among others, to create pathways into their Registered Apprenticeships and ensure their apprentices earn credentials along the way.

If you hosted an event, make sure we know about it! Click here to share your Youth Apprenticeship Week event highlights with us so they can be featured in our summary report.

José Javier Rodríguez is the assistant secretary for employment and training in the U.S. Department of Labor.

This was crossposted from the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance blog.

The United States is facing a chronic absenteeism crisis. Over 14 million students nationwide during the 2021–22 school year were chronically absent. This means that they missed at least 10 percent of school days—equivalent to approximately 18 days in the year. Missing this much instructional time creates significant learning challenges for students and adversely affects student wellbeing. School systems across the nation are looking for ways to address this crisis and the accompanying problems it presents.

IES has created four handouts that discuss research findings and research-based tools from across IES that educators and policymakers can use to improve student attendance and engagement: 

• Text Messaging with Families to Support Student Attendance
• Using Data and Early Warning Systems to Improve Student Attendance and Engagement
• Partnering with Families to Support Student Attendance and Learning: Resources from the Regional Educational Laboratory Program
• Promoting a Positive School Climate and Safe Learning Conditions: Resources from the Regional Educational Laboratory Program

These resources from IES can help educators and policymakers consider different research-based approaches to improving student engagement and attendance. They include ways to partner with families, promote a positive and safe learning environment, use data and early warning systems, and apply cycles of evidence-based continuous improvement. Before selecting any particular strategy to address chronic absenteeism, we recommend all educators consult Applying a Cycle of Evidence-Based Continuous Improvement when Selecting Interventions and Project Components to Improve Attendance. Educators can also go to the REL program page on the IES website to learn more about the program and search for other REL products and resources.

We hope you find these resources helpful. Please send any feedback or questions you may have to [email protected].

Text Messaging with Families to Support Student Attendance

Findings from IES-funded research suggest that text messaging can be effective in reducing rates of chronic absenteeism.

What is the text messaging practice?

As schools and districts work to decrease chronic absenteeism rates, text messaging has emerged as an evidence-based practice to increase engagement with families and support their efforts to get students to school regularly. It involves schools sending messages to parents or guardians informing them of their child’s attendance record and encouraging them to get the child back in school. The text messages can include many different messages, discussed below, but generally the approach is to let families know how many total days students have missed. Additionally, the texts often have a message about how important school attendance is and where families can turn to for support if there is an issue that the school should be aware of, such as chronic health challenges or transportation issues. These texts aim to engage families and have them partner with schools to increase attendance.

How easy is it for schools to adopt this practice?

Text messaging is a low-cost practice that districts can adopt to encourage family engagement. The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at the U.S. Department of Education developed a toolkit that provides information on how districts can develop their own text messaging approach. The toolkit encourages districts to form an attendance team to determine the priorities of the text messaging approach and then to develop the system that can be automated and easily implemented. The toolkit provides guidance to districts on how to incorporate existing student information systems to develop the texts.

What are the different types of text messaging?

IES’s evaluation of the text messaging strategy involved different types of text messaging to determine if certain features improved attendance.[1] The “basic” texts involved a weekly message every Sunday to families about how important attendance is and different ways to overcome potential challenges to attendance. In addition, schools sent automated same-day texts when a child missed a day of school, which were personalized to include the student’s name and the total number of days the student had been absent that school year. These basic texts can be framed to emphasize the benefits of attending school (i.e., “Going to school every day can help [the child’s name] learn math and reading.”) or the consequences of missing school (i.e., “Children who miss 2 or more days a month starting in elementary school are less likely to graduate from high school.”)

The IES evaluation also included “intensified texts,” which were targeted to families of students who had already missed many school days, despite receiving the basic texts in the previous school semester. These texts either consisted of school staff reaching out directly to families to increase family engagement and to provide individualized support, or an automated text message asking families to set goals for their child to attend school every day in the upcoming school week.

How effective is the text messaging practice at improving attendance?

The evaluation study by IES found that, regardless of the type or framing of text messaging used by the district, the percent of students who were identified as chronically absent decreased by 12 to 18 percent when schools implemented the text messaging strategy.  On average, basic text messaging was sufficient to increase overall attendance in schools. Among students with a prior history of chronic absenteeism, intensified text messages further decreased the chronic absenteeism rate. Thus, schools might benefit by implementing a basic text messaging strategy for all students and targeting students with records of chronic absenteeism to receive the intensive texts. Since the effectiveness did not vary by framing or approach, districts and schools can identify a strategy that meshes with their school mission and approach.

Where can I learn more about how to implement text messaging?

The IES toolkit on using text messaging provides step-by-step information on how districts and schools can adopt and implement the text messaging strategy to support their families and students. The toolkit contains strategies for both the leadership team as well as the IT team developing the text messaging system using the student information system that the district already uses. This toolkit also contains many examples of different versions of texts that the district can employ, based on the age of students, how frequently the district decides to send text messages, and the framing the district decides to use.

Resources

Heppen, J.B., Kurki, A., & Brown, S. (2020). Can texting parents improve attendance in elementary school? A test of an adaptive message strategy (NCEE 2020-006). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/ncee

Kurki, A., Heppen, J.B., & Brown, S. (2021). How to text message parents to reduce chronic absence using an evidence-based approach (NCEE 2022-001). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/ncee

This was crossposted from the U.S. Department of Labor’s blog.

Teacher Appreciation Week, May 5-10, is our nation’s opportunity to celebrate and recognize the important role teachers play in developing our nation’s future workforce. For too long, the U.S. has struggled to recruit and retain qualified teachers that also reflect the demographics of their classrooms. To help address these challenges, the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education are collaborating to expand access to education careers through Registered Apprenticeship.

Registered Apprenticeship is an effective “earn and learn” model with a long history of establishing career pathways in growing industries by providing structured, paid, on-the-job learning experiences with a mentor combined with job-related technical instruction that leads to a nationally recognized credential. To learn more about Registered Apprenticeships, visit www.apprenticeship.gov.

Building on the Biden administration’s Good Jobs Initiative, we’re expanding Registered Apprenticeships for educators and investing in quality teacher preparation programs. These efforts started with a joint effort, leadership, and call to action from our departments through a Dear Colleague Letter for education and workforce leaders to address educator shortages, and investments to support developing, expanding and scaling high-quality and affordable pathways into teaching. This call to action aims to ensure teachers have access to increased pay and better working conditions across the early childhood, K-12 and higher education workforce.

The Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration has continued to partner with the Department of Education to make significant investments to develop and scale teacher apprenticeship programs, including:

• Funding a Registered Apprenticeship Industry Intermediary to provide no-cost technical assistance and support to state education agencies, districts, education preparation programs, teacher unions or associations and other partners to help develop and implement high-quality educator Registered Apprenticeship programs.
• Awarding over $66 million in State Apprenticeship Expansion Formula grants to 46 states and territories to develop and scale Registered Apprenticeship programs in education and other critical sectors, over $60 million of which went to states that identified education as a targeted sector.
• Awarding funding to Kansas, Utah, North Dakota, Washington and New Hampshire to support the expansion of Registered Apprenticeship programs for K-12 teachers.
• Awarding more than $171 million in Apprenticeship Building America grants to strengthen and modernize Registered Apprenticeship programs and enable workers to find a reliable pathway to the middle class, more than $45 million of which went to grantees that identified education as a target sector.

We also recently announced the availability of nearly $200 million to support Registered Apprenticeship expansion, prioritizing projects that support the Investing in America agenda by increasing access to Registered Apprenticeships in high-demand sectors and occupations, including K-12 teacher occupations. Strategies to use Registered Apprenticeship to train a next generation of teachers continue to expand, with 37 states and territories now providing K-12 teacher apprenticeship programs, up from just two states in 2022. Today, over 100 K-12 teacher Registered Apprenticeship programs have been registered and over 3,000 K-12 teacher apprentices have been trained. That’s a lot of progress made in just two years! And this administration is committed to ensuring that progress continues.

To support raising awareness around K-12 teacher Registered Apprenticeships, ETA industry intermediary partner RTI International published a Profile in Educator Registered Apprenticeship Programs report, which explores different program design models, varying target populations, modernized onramps to successful teacher pathways, innovative funding models, and opportunities for degree attainment.

The report is the first in a series, which ETA will release in partnership with RTI to explore various strategies to expand the use of Registered Apprenticeship to train America’s educators. K-12 teacher Registered Apprenticeship programs will continue to play a key role in increasing pathways to rewarding careers in the education sector, filling vacant positions with high-quality, well-trained teachers, and a focus on diversifying the workforce.  For additional information on any of these programs, please visit Apprenticeship.gov.

Manny Lamarre is a deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration.

This is crossposted from the U.S. Department of Education blog, Homeroom

The U.S. Department of Education Invites Applications for NPD Competitive Grant

By: Beatriz Ceja, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) and Loredana Valtierra, Policy Advisor, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development (OPEPD)

The need for bilingual and multilingual teachers is critical more than ever, as over five million of our public-school enrolled students are English learners (ELs). “Raise the Bar (RTB): Lead the World” Initiative is the U.S. Department of Education’s (Department) call to action to transform pre-kindergarten through postsecondary learning and unite around what truly works. The National Professional Development (NPD) program, administered by the Office of English Language Acquisition, is ready to respond to the call. Investments in programs that promote academic excellence to boldly improve teaching and learning will increase our global competitiveness.

The NPD program is a competitive grant program that provides funding to support the implementation of pre-service and in-service professional development activities intended to improve instruction for ELs and assist education personnel working with ELs to meet high professional standards. This competitive grant through new rulemaking is focused on the development and support for bilingual and multilingual teachers. The Notice Inviting Applications, which was recently published in the Federal Register on March 12, 2024, aligns with the education priorities of the Biden-Harris Administration and the Department’s goals to ensure that ELs have access to well-prepared educators and growing the number of qualified bilingual and multilingual educators needed to expand the availability of bilingual program. An $8.4 million dollar investment, this effort seeks to support pre-service training programs for teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators, and aspiring educators, including high school students, who want to become fully certified as bilingual or multilingual educators.

For both Beatriz Ceja, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Language Acquisition (OELA) and Loredana Valtierra, Policy Advisor for the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development at the Department, this work is fueled by personal experience.

When reminiscing on her experience, Beatriz said, “I remember walking into the classroom on my first day of kindergarten ready to learn. I didn’t speak English at the time and my kindergarten teacher did not speak Spanish. While kind, she sat me down with the other students who didn’t speak English and together we tried to make sense of this new experience. I felt unseen and felt embarrassed for not speaking English. In those days, I was pulled out of the classroom for hours with the rest of the Spanish speaking students to learn English. At some point I learned enough English to participate with the larger group and the pull-out time was decreased. Years later I would become a bilingual teacher and recognized the importance of making families and especially EL students feel welcomed into our schools by acknowledging and valuing their native language”.

Loredana shared a similar sentiment, “In sixth grade, I was a bilingual kid who attended a predominantly white school district. That I spoke another language at home seemed irrelevant and unnoticed until one day, a newcomer student arrived from Honduras who could only speak Spanish at the time. Not a single adult who taught us could speak to her and I was assigned to be her interpreter. We shared the same schedule, sat next to each other in every class, and suddenly had the eyes and ears of our white peers on us at every moment. Sometimes it wasn’t so kind, but my new classmate couldn’t understand that. I felt alienated and disappointed by our ‘very good school district’. How did we live in America, and nobody was prepared to receive students like her? I still think of her and know that for every lonely feeling I held, she likely felt more.”

This reimagined NPD came out of recognizing the shortage of multilingual teachers and a gap in federal policy to specifically address the need, while a growing number of public-school students speak a language other than English at home. We hear about this need from so many school communities. The education field has often missed or overlooked the growing talent among our bilingual paraprofessionals and young people in their own backyards, as a pool of bilingual and multilingual future teachers. This is the talent of potential educators that we need to tap into, inspire, and support.

We need to uplift the assets bilingual communities bring to our schools like their heritage language and culture. The hope is that students like Loredana’s classmate and children like Beatriz are seen and that they truly have access to high quality educational opportunities.

By: Montserrat Garibay, Assistant Deputy Secretary and Director, Office of English Language Acquisition

I clearly remember my first day of middle school as a newly arrived student from Mexico in Austin, Texas, I didn’t speak a word of English and was nervous to start a new life with my mother and sister.  My first class looked like the United Nations, students from all over the world speaking different languages, we were shy and scared.  It wasn’t until, our ESL teacher, Mrs. Hernandez welcomed us with a big smile that I knew t I was going to be fine. My feelings were confirmed when I heard her speak Spanish.

Within a few months, everyone in the class was learning. Mrs. Hernandez had high expectations for all the students; her classes were rigorous, she had us working in groups, collaborating, singing, and using different strategies. Her classroom was full of diverse books, multicultural pictures and a world map with our pictures and displaying our best work. She had also established a strong relationship with my mom and would communicate with her often to let her know how I was doing in school. She would share about different resources such as food banks and after school programs for tutoring.

Within a year, I was able to transition to regular English classes. Years later, I graduated from high school all because of Mrs. Hernandez’s strong foundation., she helped me believe in myself.  Mrs. Hernandez was my inspiration to become a bilingual teacher. I wanted to be just like her. Her presence inspired me to embrace multilingualism, become a critical thinker, and actively engage with families. That experience fueled my passion for education and led me to become a teacher.

Nearly a decade later, when I was a bilingual pre-k teacher at the same school district where I attended middle school and graduated from high school in Austin, Texas, I had the opportunity to pursue my master’s degree in Bilingual Education at the University of Texas at Austin through Proyecto Maestria, a National Professional Development (NPD) grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

At the time, Proyecto Maestria may not have been called a “grow-your-own” effort, but it had the components of what we know today to be beneficial. This grant opened the door to expand my knowledge about the importance of quality bilingual education, the impact that it can have on promoting biliterate and bicultural students, and the benefit of continuing as a bilingual teacher in my home community. That NPD grant had a significant impact on my life because it provided me with the opportunity to continue my education with the goal of providing an exceptional education for my students. Getting to this point in my career though, wasn’t easy. I had to navigate working multiple jobs to pay for my tuition, being a first-generation college student, taking remedial math classes to be proficient in math. I can only imagine how many more doors it could open if it were available for aspiring educators who need help getting their foot in the door – who perhaps like me, want to serve kids like the ones we were, but don’t have all the resources to get started.

This is why the Department is proposing new priorities, requirements, and definitions in the NPD program that would grow our numbers of bilingual and multilingual educators to expand the availability of bilingual programs for all students and help ensure that English Learners have access to well-prepared educators,  and emphasize and elevate supports for students from low-income backgrounds. The Notice of Proposed Priorities (Federal Register :: Proposed Priorities, Requirements, and Definitions-National Professional Development Program invites public comment for 30 days.

Montserrat Garibay is the Assistant Deputy Secretary & Director for the Office of English Language Acquisition at the U.S. Department of Education. Previously, she served as the Senior Advisor for Labor Relations at the Office of Secretary for two years. Garibay was a bilingual pre-kindergarten teacher for eight years and a National Board-Certified Teacher in Austin, Texas. She served as Vice President for Certified Employees with Education Austin, a merged union local with the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. She graduated from the University of Texas-Austin with a Master of Education. 

This is crossposted from the U.S. Department of Labor blog.

This year marks the 86th anniversary of the National Apprenticeship Act, which established the Registered Apprenticeship system as we know it today. As the apprenticeship system continues to evolve, expand and diversify, Registered Apprenticeship continues to serve as a gold standard of work-based learning.

In honor of Registered Apprenticeship’s transformative impact on the lives of millions of apprentices over the past 86 years, we’re launching the Apprentice Trailblazer Initiative. This new initiative will create a national network of apprentices and apprenticeship graduates from all walks of life and give them a platform to feature their stories, share their experiences on Registered Apprenticeship, and show how apprenticeships increase opportunities for all communities, particularly underserved populations.

The Apprentice Trailblazer Initiative is a part of our broader Youth Employment Works strategy, which supports policies, partnerships and strategies to provide equitable access for all young people to prepare for high-quality career paths through Registered Apprenticeship.

The first cohort of Apprentice Trailblazers will focus on youth ages 16-24. We’ve seen how Registered Apprenticeship provides young people the unique opportunity to gain critical skills and work experience in their early working years and access to a career pathway and free education, often including college credit and even a degree. Serving as an Apprentice Trailblazer will offer additional professional development opportunities for apprentices and graduates, as participants will have the chance to enhance their leadership and teamwork skills and engage in networking and mentorship.

As we turn towards the future of Registered Apprenticeship, we must ensure that all youth, especially those from traditionally underrepresented populations, have access to these opportunities for good jobs and high-growth career pathways.

Apply to become an Apprentice Trailblazer

We are calling on all youth apprentices and recent graduates interested in becoming Apprentice Trailblazers to coordinate with your Registered Apprenticeship sponsors on the application. The application deadline for the first cohort is Sept. 30, and we plan to announce the first cohort of youth Apprentice Trailblazers during National Apprenticeship Week, Nov. 13-19.

Visit the Apprentice Trailblazer page to find the application and learn more about the initiative.

Please spread the word throughout your networks, encourage youth apprentices and recent graduates to apply, and remember to tag us on social media with #ApprenticeTrailblazers and #ApprenticeshipUSA.

Brent Parton is the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department’s Employment and Training Administration.

Watch Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su announce the Apprentice Trailblazers Program.