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Transcript of NTA Conference Call Presentation held on 06/12/96 NTA Overview
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| Frank Rusch: Welcome,
everybody, to our first teleconference. By way of
introduction, there are three major partners, responsible
for three major activities: research and evaluation,
technical assistance, and dissemination. I'll talk about
the first of these, Richard Horne will talk about the
dissemination component, and David R. Johnson will talk
about technical assistance. We'd like to give you a sense
of what's going on in each of these areas. At the
University of Illinois, we have the Transition Research
Institute, which is primarily involved in three principal
activities: identifying effective practices, not only
from special education literature, but also from
vocational education, general education, and special
needs in general; working with each of the implementation
states in identifying indicators that are being used in
relation to evaluating each state's own efforts to make
progress in the School-to-Work Initiative; and providing
technical assistance to model programs which are funded
by the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative
Programs, principally through Secondary Special Education
and Transitional Services. Technical assistance, as I said, is provided primarily by Minnesota through the National Transition Network (NTN) under David and Teri. We overlap a little bit with them. Tom Grayson, at the University of Illinois, is leading the charge for technical assistance to the model programs. Apart from that, technical assistance is mainly being offered to the Implementation and Development states. This activity, "this" being this teleconference, is an example of one of the activities that is being highlighted by the NTN. In the area of dissemination, there are two efforts being championed by Richard Horne, and he'll tell you about those. One is dissemination itself, and the other is the emergence of some of our concerns and also opportunities in something we're referring to as the Forum. The Forum will occur in years 2 and 4. So as we begin to think about some of the lead activities for all of us to be engaged in, thinking about systems change and developing one system that serves all individuals, we plan to put together a Forum, so that all the voices, of everyone who is interested in mission reform in secondary special education, as well as regular secondary education, can take part in that and talk about each of the different "hats they wear" in those areas. In addition to those activities, we have three major contributors to our effort through the NTA: the Council for Chief State School Officers is involved with us, the National Alliance of Business, and the National Association for State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE). The principal parties involved, respectively, are Daniel Wiltrout, Peter Joyce, and Smokey Davis. In effect, there is a 3x3 matrix. You could list down the side the three major activities (research and evaluation, technical assistance, and dissemination), and each of those three major activities has a group mainly in charge: the Transition Research Institute at Illinois (research and evaluation), the National Transition Network (technical assistance), and the Academy for Educational Development (dissemination). Across the top, could be listed the three major collaborators: the Council for Chief State School Officers, the National Alliance of Business, and NASDSE. That's the basic framework, and my time limit, so I'll turn the talk back over to Teri Teri Wallace: Thank you, Frank. Next, we have Richard Horne, from the Academy for Educational Development. Richard Horne: On behalf of the Academy for Educational Development, we're very pleased to be part of this conference call as part of the National Transition Alliance. I'd like to talk briefly about some of the activities that the Alliance is taking on in information dissemination and electronic information exchange. One of our major goals is to try to conduct outreach for people about what the National Transition Alliance is and who all its partners are. All of you have probably been receiving some mailings from us, through both the National School-to-Work Office and the National Learning Center, as well as some information about our world wide web site and home page. That information is also being advertised through the mail and in our new newsletter. Our website is located under www.aed.org/transition/alliance/nta.html. We hope to be able to provide an exchange of information about promising and successful practices for all students, particularly students and youth with disabilities, in order to link states with promising practices that are emerging across the country. We hope to make that information consumable and useful and usable by you. We hope that through our site you will be able to communicate directly with us. You will find e-mail links to all of the individuals you've already been introduced to and others who can be met there, as well as a way to interact directly with us through all kinds of information-collection and user-information exchange activities. We hope that as you peruse our website, you'll give us some ideas about the kinds of information that might be helpful or useful to you. We also hope to be able to bring about a link between the research aspects and the technical assistance aspects of the National Transition Alliance, in order to make our products and materials as useful and consumable by you as possible. Finally, as Frank has discussed, the NTA will be coordinating the meetings and conferences and forums that are part of our cooperative agreement. We will be reaching out to many of you in the near future to ask you questions about our upcoming Forum, which we are planning for 1997. We're also here to provide you assistance with outreach and dissemination activities. Your input is important to these efforts and initiatives, all of them marketing activities that are happening across the state, so we hope you will share with us your successes with outreach, particularly as they relate to youth with disabilities, as well as your suggestions for how we might be of use to you. Our newsletter, as I said, will be disseminated. We will be sending copies to the Learning Center, and they will send them out directly to the states. That's a brief overview of the dissemination aspect of the Alliance. David R. Johnson: Welcome to all of you who have joined us here. I have a few comments to make about technical assistance. I empathize with anybody on the line who is receiving all this information at such high speed. I speak fast, but not quite as fast as Richard does. You got a lot of information packed into a couple of minutes, Richard. Please feel free to access us by phone, or otherwise, to get any of this information again, or further information, or if you just want to talk about what we're doing. Call me, or Teri, or Frank, or Richard, or Tom, or the others who are involved with this individually. I know you're getting bombarded here. By the way, I plan to cut off when J. D. Hoye comes on, so that will be my conclusion. I'd like to back up for a second. For those of you who may not be familiar with the National Transition Network, I'd like to give you a little background on it. It was established in 1992, when the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services established a federal systems change initiative on transition for students with disabilities. Currently, there are 45 states, plus the District of Columbia, that receive technical assistance, assistance in evaluating their systems change efforts, and various kinds of resource support, dissemination materials, etc., which have been used by the states in supporting state-level activity. The National Transition Network involvement with the National Transition Alliance is obvious. First, we are now the primary group, as Frank described, that will be responsible for establishing technical assistance relationships with the School-to-Work Implementation and Development states. Obviously, we want to build onto and create one system, to try to take a look at the relationship between the Systems Change Program on Transition for Youth with Disabilities and what's gone on in the National School-to-Work Office and its efforts to set up a national system of school-to-work services for all students. So we're building upon our already existing activities within states and trying to fuse these projects together to try to create a unified system for all students. The specific kinds of things we're involved with, though, may directly affect you, if you are operating a School-to-Work Implementation Project, or planning to. Technical assistance is a broad concept. We have established an advisory committee, composed of people who are involved in State School-to-Work Implementation and Development Projects as well as people who represent systems change and others who are part of our own member organizations, the Council for Chief State School Officers, the National Alliance of Business, and NASDSE. They are intimately involved, as are the Transition Research Institute at Illinois & AED, in all of the technical assistance work we are doing. The kinds of technical assistance we deliver are based on input from states about the kinds of technical assistance that are most important to them. We also draw from having learned in NTN that technical assistance of this nature is based on a fundamental concern over the quality of relationships that are established with each state. We are therefore taking a lot of time to identify key contacts within individual states, people who will develop a relationship with us to help identify technical assistance needs and other resource needs within states to support inclusion of students with disabilities in school-to-work programs. We have reviewed basic State School-to-Work Implementation and Development proposals that have been funded. We have also made and are now making contacts for the purpose of going into more depth to determine along with the states their relative needs for technical assistance. Along with that goes the outline of a plan for states. This teleconference is one type of technical assistance we deliver. We hope, as we move along, that we are developing and growing an audience that will be responsive to such calls. Through such calls, we hope to deliver current, pertinent information which will be helpful to individuals in state agencies or local programs who have an interest in promoting the program, looking at specific policy issues, and the like. So your input on these is important. We are also conducting direct technical assistance via within-state visits. We are also trying to use general principles of networking, which we feel have been very effective. That is, we have been bringing states together, as we can, for the purpose of looking at questions and issues which cut across states, in working with students with disabilities. It's a broad-based, comprehensive level of technical assistance, centered on the understanding that each state starts this process from that state's own set of local conditions. Another kind of technical assistance we do will be to support the information and materials production which will be coordinated with AED and their efforts. We are currently developing those relationships with each state as we proceed. Teri Wallace: I'd like to mention our Technical Assistance Advisory Group. That group includes people who are helping to provide guidance to us as we talk about technical assistance and what it should be like. Some of those people are Cindi Bowman in New Jersey, Abby Deschapelles from the South Atlantic Regional Resource Center, Brigid Flannery in Oregon, Roberta Ginavan in Iowa, Susan McAlonan in Colorado, and William Sugarman in Vermont. I hope you will see the integration of the various strands through the National Transition Alliance. We have included, ex officio, Ivan Charner, Tom Grayson, and Daniel Wiltrout to help with that integration and keep us coordinated. Let's go on with J. D. Hoye, now. Thank you for joining us, J. D., we're looking forward to what you have to say. J. D. Hoye: I'd like to go over some strategies that we're working on. I just came off a meeting in Detroit with the National Employer Leadership Council. We talked a lot about integrating initiatives around all students, initiatives for students with disabilities, initiatives from the School-to-Work Office for venture capital, initiatives for drop-out students or at-risk youth, and so on. As we communicate with our publics - teachers, employers, labor organizations, community leaders, parents, and others - it's important to build up front a dialogue about the economic imperative of working with all children. It works best for people to stop classifying students with a strategy, and instead to think in terms of workforce development and improving community development. In order to do that, there is not a single individual that can be wasted or lost. Data about productivity, the changing nature of work, and changes in retirement because of the changing labor market apply to all of us, no matter what population we address. We need to communicate the wide change, no matter through what venue. It's a common message, a common agenda. We also talked there about relationships with employers. In partnership with employers, we need to give employers input about why they should do these things. For some employer groups, it's more of a social angle, a giving-back to the community. But nationally, that approach undermines what we have to suggest: that all people have a place to participate in productivity and the workplace, and to achieve self-sufficiency. We need to talk with employers, and such groups as the National Alliance of Business, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Employer Leadership Council, the National Chamber of Commerce, about the business case. It isn't just a social or community angle. It is also good for business. There is a lot of cost-benefit information, as well as anecdotal information, observations from employers who have chosen to encourage such participation. Engaging certain populations in the workforce has been perceived as a risk in some environments, but some who have tried it have been very, very pleased. We don't do enough with testimonials, with reports not just that it felt good, but that it was good for business in terms of productivity. It isn't taking a worker who's less than another worker; it's taking a worker who is qualified and who contributes to the profitability of the business and improves the "bottom line." We need to engage together in putting the business case. It's an opportunity both to get to scale and to talk consistently about "all," communicating the same message. We have work to do to build bridges. It will help if we can design and develop a common message. The same productivity and business issues we talk about are the ones employers talk about. They grow from real experiences with employers and real students for whom employment has made a difference in their education. We should start actually looking less different and more alike in our communication. John Longo (Oklahoma): I'm the Assistant State Superintendent in Oklahoma. I've had the privilege of being involved with our recently successful transition grant application. Our State Superintendent has asked me to provide leadership on school-to-work, as well. I'm concerned about the criticism that some groups in our state have levied against school-to-work. These are far right, extremist perspectives about government involvement in schools, a kind of political outcry about that. We're having to deal with that issue as we move to implement school-to-work in Oklahoma. Are you aware of that happening nationally? What kinds of strategies do you think we can use to get the community to buy into school-to-work? We think we have a good buy-in with industry and business in Oklahoma, but the community at large is asking questions about this. How can we dispel some of those extremist views about this kind of program? J. D. Hoye: There are strategies that have worked. It's positive both that you have been asked to participate in bridging with the Transition grant and the Implementation grant. You comment that business is well engaged. That's a major factor. We have found across the country that having a local community or a state fully engaged in the all-students agenda and the school-to-work system-building concept depends on having a positive, well-engaged employer. They have vision, education, and nature. The community needs to be consciously going through a process of defining the concept of "school-to-work," just talking about education, and asking community leaders what they want from their schools and what proficiencies they would like their students to have when they leave school. When that is done, the tenets of school-to-work end up being reflected in a majority of the public's opinion. People get hurt when they come up with what they believe to be a good idea, at the federal or state level, and then take steps to impose that idea on local regions or communities, rather than first having communities go through a strategic discussion of what they want from their schools to tie what they want to the access of resources to simply help them get where they want to go. We've had great discussion about what the federal government can do. We consistently hear from states and locations that the degree to which we weigh in, in any formal way, adds fuel to the fire. It reinforces the idea that it's really a federal agenda, controlled here. We need to say that it's a framework for learning and change; it's a competitive grant procedure, and only those who are interested apply. The plans that are being put together are in no way tied to some kind of national plan. They are different strategies, built around state and local issues, unique to each area. If you never get a chance to have that communication, you're always chasing the negative. People get tied into knots. The "campaign" that is being waged against school-to-work seems to have flared out of the careers bill. As you probably all know, that is currently in conference committee in the House and Senate around a comprehensive consolidation bill. School-to-work is a part of the careers bill discussion. They're discussing repealing it and moving it into this consolidated bloc grant. Most of the legal forum has a signed copy of a paper from Phyllis Schafly. It continues to talk about the current bill being released quite wrongly, as another step of government controlling by consolidating resources and forcing strategic thinking in certain areas. It's not limited to school-to-work. It's a general issue nationally over the role of the federal government and finances to states and locations. The people who find successful answers are those who work with local communities and employers and put together a communications strategy in their state that lifts out facts and myths and provides clarification. They don't run from the people who are challenging them. We encourage states to make sure as they put together advisory bodies that they have nay-sayers involved, as well as supporters, and to make sure that religious organizations, which have great community leadership, are also part of the discussion of designing the system. If they're left out, you're not including your whole community. John Longo: Thank you. I have a follow-up question. I've been asked to help our State Department of Vo-Tech review our initial local applications for the flow-through funds for school-to-work in the morning. What one component of a local or regional application would you stress? Would it be some evidence that there's been a community or regional basis to prioritizing their needs for linking school to business? Is that one of the highest priorities I should look for? J. D. Hoye: That's a good question. As you look at the application, I imagine that you are looking for degrees of readiness, to see if there are local, regional applicants who are ready to implement the tenets of school-to-work in that area. In terms of readiness, I generally stress the eight system-building elements as a "litmus test" for whether or not an individual is ready to move into a school-to-work project. I know you've heard me a million times on system-building elements, but I'll run over them again. First, "all students" is one. All means all, and whether they have strategically considered financing strategies and organizing strategies that incorporate all students and the delivery system of a given area. Second, employers and unions, organized and not, need to be involved. They need to have engaged their employer community. If it's only a small percentage of engagement, they need to have thought through how to get to scale with employers while they are getting to scale with students. There needs to be some kind of sensible thinking about real numbers and real student opportunities and employer opportunities over time. Third is staff development. Staffs need to have assessed themselves and know where they are weak and where they need to invest funds to develop their professionals, teachers, counselors, and administrators, as well as community leaders, job training people, workforce development people. They need to prepare them for a new delivery strategy. Fourth is the concept of accountability. Do they know where they are today? Do they know where they want to go? Do they have a vision? Do they have a method to measure value added. It needs to be a sensible method, but not necessarily a traditional measurement strategy. They should also be looking for qualitative changes. Fifth is core curriculum in terms of career education. Have they thought through how to make it something other than a stand-alone activity? Are they actually talking about curriculum development and contextual learning? That leads to the sixth element, industry in all aspects. They should not be locked into job training, but into career development, as part of high academic standards and how to bridge those. Seventh is, if you're working off the career major strategy for articulation to postsecondary, whether or not those are relative to real labor market opportunities, both today and tomorrow, which is the real question in most of the applications we have seen. Eighth is sub-state roll-out. In your case, you obviously already have in place your sub-state roll-out strategy. That's why you're looking at local applications. That's more of a state system-building question. I hope that helps. John Longo: Thank you. Yes, it does. Ed Davis (North Carolina): I'm not sure if this question is for J. D. or not. Our concern is over the technical assistance identified to provide for the National Alliance. Have the kinds of technical assistance for North Carolina been identified? If they are, when will we make contact? Amy Bennett (National School-to-Work Office): I think what you're referring to is the RFI, or request for technical experts. On Monday, the Department of Labor mailed out announcements to both successful and unsuccessful applicants to let them know if they were accepted or not accepted into the pool. I would assume that within a couple of days people will know whether they are going to be involved as technical experts through the RFI or not. At the School-to-Work Office we will have by Monday morning a list that can be public. We're waiting a couple of days, though, until people have received those letters. Break in tape - sorry. Amy Bennett: Nationally, we have committed to a $125,000 Technical Assistance pool for our State Implementation grantees. That's our firm commitment. Other venues are being explored, but nothing has been decided. J. D. Hoye: Several months ago, $18,500 was the figure given to each of the Implementation States targeted specifically to public education and public communication. Is that the one you mean? Ed Davis: That may be it. J. D. Hoye: It'll be out of '96 dollars. One reason it's seen as a "rumor" is that it was also a focus of the request for information for the second round of technical assistance providers to get more marketing companies and communication organizations on that list, if possible, so that states have a variety of individuals to choose from as they look at getting help to design good communication and public education material. Patty Zembrosky-Barkin (Western Regional Resource Center): When will the next list of vendors be made public, those that would be available to the states on that line of credit for technical assistance? Also, when will there be another round of requests for RFIs or RFPs to get on the vender list? Amy Bennett: Thanks for joining us. It was a pleasure to meet you last week. The RFI list will be public information on Monday. We anticipate opening up the RFI announcement again in 4-6 months, probably closer to four months. Patty Zembrosky-Barkin: How will you make that public? Amy Bennett: The strategy that the Department of Labor has us use is publication in the Commerce Business Daily. At the School-to-Work Office, we are not allowed to mail the actual application out. We do a widespread mailing; the National Transition Alliance helped us do this the last time around. The mailing lets people know that the RFI has been published in the Commerce Business Daily. So there are two choices. You can have someone monitor the CBD for you, or you can call me at (202) 401-6226 in about two months, and I'll be able to give you a better sense of when we're going to do it again. Steve Alexander (Missouri): I have two questions for J. D. As we increase employer involvement, the first question employers ask is about their liability in having students in the workplace, both paid and, particularly, unpaid work experience. We've received a lot of help with the Fair Labor Standards Act. Is there any guidance you can give us in the liability of these companies, an answer we can give them? J. D. Hoye: Yes and no. This came up early in the whole school-to-work discussion. We have published a Fair Labor Standards Act and Child Labor Law publication that is available through the Learning Center. It provides lay language for individuals to understand when the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Wage and Hour Act apply, under which circumstances. We're still struggling with the liability issue, and who bears the liability. We're finding that's more of a state-to-state issue. State laws end up driving that in different directions, depending on which state you are in. This is also true for internships for teachers and whether they must be paid or can be unpaid. Representatives from a group of states have been working with Dean Teger on our staff on this issue. As we get more liability issues and examples, we will be doing more resource bulletins on the Internet to provide people contacts, ideas, and ways to begin to work this through. I'm still very interested in having conversations with national insurance companies like Lloyds of London, who will take large initiatives and, for a relatively small fee, will cover large numbers of populations for this issue. We're still playing around with whether or not we have a way to limit the comp associated with total protection. David R. Johnson: The National Transition Network also worked with the Departments of Education and Labor in formulating a cooperative agreement or letter of understanding, which was translated into a guidebook on the Fair Labor Standards Act in terms of supporting students with disabilities in community-based placements, including employment. That's available, if you'd like to give us a call. It's fairly comprehensive guidebook, which has been used across all states by a variety of state agency people. Steve Alexander: We do have a copy of that. We also have the Fair Labor Standards booklet that came through the National School-to-Work Office. Those are both good publications. But when we show those to employers or talk to employers about the content of those books, they say that's fine, but they want to know about the physical liability of having that student in their building and what will happen if something happens to that student or if that student disrupts their production. That's the liability issue that they address, rather than what's covered through the Fair Labor Standards Act. Amy Bennett: Our commitment to you at the National School-to-Work Office is to continue working on this issue, through our Employer Leadership Council, and through our own staff. Keep at us about this. We are working on it, and we know you need the information. We are trying to make it available. Steve Alexander: This is kind of a side question. Do you have work on the extension of the development grant monies? We haven't heard about those yet. Amy Bennett: Give me a call after this conference call, and I'll get you an update. Ivan Charner: One other thing on the liability issue. The Learning Center has additional information, plus examples of state legislation that other states have passed on this issue. It's available on the Learning Center's world wide web page, or by calling the Learning Center directly. Our number is (800) 251-7236. Teri Wallace: We have to wrap it up now. I had wanted to go back and find out who else has joined us. I know several have. But there isn't time. In addition to Mary Mack on our staff, I'd like to mention Megan Dushin, our Communications Coordinator. If you have feedback on this teleconference, or any others, I'd appreciate it if you give me a call. My number is (612) 626-7220. The next teleconference is scheduled for July 24, same time, same place, same phone number and access code. Richard Horne will be speaking on the topic of Outreach and Marketing, which seems timely, considering the issues brought up today. We appreciate the participation of all of you, including the RRCs and thank you very much, J. D. and Amy, for being on the line. |
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National Transition Alliance for Youth with Disabilities (NTA) conference call presentations are sponsored by the NTA and coordinated by the National Transition Network. For a copy of this or other transcripts, contact us at:
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