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E4 Education

Building New Education Partnerships

With a number of our cities confronting staggering high school dropout rates we should find ways to better engage students in learning. Academic success in high school and beyond is critical for young Americans to be competitive in the global marketplace. One way to help boost student engagement is show students how what they learn in school can lead to real-world skills and good jobs down the road. To that end, we must revitalize academic and technical education programs in our high schools. New or redesigned programs can promote new and exciting career paths in emerging industries and give students the opportunity to explore those paths, whether they are going onto college or directly into the workforce.

The E4 Initiative focuses on helping schools, businesses, workforce development groups, and others work together to teach our students skills that they can use in our region's emerging industries. I introduced the Connecting Education and Emerging Professions Act of 2008 (CEEP), to provide grants, awarded on a competitive basis, to states and school districts to form education partnerships with state, regional, and local businesses, workforce development groups, postsecondary institutions, and other non-profit groups. The partnerships will help prepare young Americans for professions in emerging industries whether they enter the workforce directly or go on to postsecondary education after high school graduation.

Grantees that serve qualifying schools will receive a five-year competitive grant to work together to survey emerging local workforce needs and design academic and work-based programs to teach the skills necessary for success in these emerging industries.

The education partnership grants can be used for a number of purposes, including:

• Identify and promote emerging industries and the skills needed for success in those industries;
  


• Developing academic and work-based programs, including apprenticeships and internships;
  


• Aligning new curriculum and programs with existing state academic standards;
  


• Establishing professional development opportunities for educators, business partners, school counselors, and others;
  


• Developing opportunities for career exploration among students; and
  


• Conducting ongoing evaluations of the emerging industries curriculum or programs.

A major focus and goal of my legislation is to improve graduation rates so more students can improve their futures and move into successful careers or college after they graduate high school. To this end, it also directs the Department of Education to report to Congress on whether the CEEP partnerships were successful in improving student engagement and high school graduation rates.

The cost of this legislation is fully offset.