JOBS Program

Re “GAO Says JOBS Plan Not Working,” Dec. 19: I could have told the GAO years ago that the JOBS program was not working. I have been working as a school counselor/administrator with JOBS participants in Ventura County since 1986, when Greater Avenues for Independence was first implemented. (GAIN is California’s name for the federal JOBS program.) And believe it or not, some of the GAIN students attending school this year have been bouncing in and out of the program since 1987. So to all the politicians who pen the policies, here are some suggestions from a “street-level bureaucrat.”

* Make the program voluntary! Enormous amounts of human and fiscal resources are wasted on tracking down and sanctioning individuals who do not want to participate.

* GAIN funding for service providers is administered through county departments of social services and Private Industry Councils, as well as from Sacramento. Eliminate the middleman and allow the state to contract directly with schools, mental health providers and businesses. * Allocate more money toward mental health services and job training. JOBS participants often enter this program with an extensive history of problems.

* Make public education available for children at age 3 instead of 5. Then, require the same credentialing of preschool teachers as that of other public schools.

* Make vocational education a required part of every child’s curriculum, not just those who are not bound for college.

KAREN GORBACK

Thousand Oaks

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Re “If Finance and Trade Can Be Global, Why Not Workers?,” Commentary, Dec. 19:

For the better part of this decade both blue- and white-collar workers have been bludgeoned with the threat of low-cost foreign competition. While corporate profits went up, jobs disappeared in the workplace, but the intimidated survivors were expected to pick up the slack. Middle-class workers are not stupid. The quality of their lives has diminished along with their paychecks, and they know where their jobs are heading unless something is done.

BILL VanDENBURGH

Fullerton