CONGRESS / EYE ON EDUCATION : Vocational, Science and Math Bills Passed; Literacy Effort Still Pending

Responding to calls for a better-educated work force to cope with new technologies, Congress worked on several education-related bills during the session that just ended. These three were considered the most significant:

Vocational Education Bill

By the year 2000, nearly 70% of the nation’s jobs will require a college education, a report by the William T. Grant Foundation’s Commission on Work, Family and Citizenship says. This bill, sponsored by Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles) and signed by President Bush in September, revamps vocational programs to serve students unlikely to pursue a traditional college education.

The legislation would provide funding to state and local governments so schools can set up vocational programs that would start in the last two years of high school and finish during two years at a community college or a post-secondary technical school. The bill, which authorizes $1.6 billion in fiscal 1991, would distribute 75% of the funds to improve vocational education and 25% to programs for the disabled and displaced homemakers.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the Senate sponsor of the bill, said vocational programs finally are receiving the priority they deserve in the effort to rebuild the economy and make the work force more competitive.

Education Secretary Lauro F. Cavazos also praised the legislation, saying it would make the educational system better able to respond to the demand for skilled workers.

Math and Science Bill

Acting on Bush’s goal to make U.S. students first in the world in math and science by the year 2000, Congress passed a bill to improve elementary students’ abilities in those areas and to increase the number of people obtaining advanced degrees in math, particularly women and minorities.

One of the major objectives of the bill, which has been sent to the President for his signature, is to establish a national network of regional centers to bring a state-of-the-art science and math curriculum to the nation’s elementary and secondary school classrooms.

The legislation establishes fellowships and traineeships; a national clearinghouse for science, mathematics and technology education materials; a program to give underserved urban and rural areas more access to math and science material, and scholarship programs for students who show promise in these areas.

To increase the number of people studying for advanced degrees, the money available for the National Science Foundation graduate fellowship program has been doubled.

“The science scholarships will encourage our young people to excel in science and math,” said Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), who originally proposed some of these programs. “They are a partial antidote to our popular culture’s depiction of scientists as eccentric old men while it deifies lawyers, rock stars and certain cartoon characters.”

Omnibus Education Bill

The third piece of major legislation was a combination of several bills, including literacy bills offered by Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) and Rep. Thomas C. Sawyer (D-Ohio) and a teachers training act offered by the Bush Administration. The Omnibus Education Bill died at the end of Congress because there was not enough time to resolve funding disputes.

But David W. Carle, Simon’s press secretary, and John Gadd, a Sawyer aide, said similar legislation will be introduced when Congress returns next year.

The Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee has reported that 23 million Americans are illiterate. Another 45 million adults read with only minimal comprehension. Jonathan Kozol, author of “Illiterate America,” estimates that the United States ranks 49th among 158 nations in its illiteracy level.

“If you can’t read, write and do basic math, you just cannot be a truly productive American. It’s just that simple,” Sawyer said.

“American jobs are placing greater demands on employees. The average American worker today must have skills at the ninth-grade through the 12th-grade levels, not the fourth-grade level typical after World War II,” a Senate Labor Committee report said. “The growth occupations have increasingly shifted to the service and retail sector, which require high-level problem-solving, communication, reading, writing and math skills.”