Vocational needs addressed

EL DORADO, Ark. — President Bush yesterday called on Congress to sharply increase standards at vocational schools and proposed redirecting $1 billion from an antiquated vocational education program into a new one that stresses math, science and English.

Mr. Bush also called for the establishment of a public-private partnership to provide $100 million in grants to low-income students of math or science.

“When kids are coming out of a vocational training program, they’re going to need to do more than just what’s taught at the vocational training level,” he told students, educators and business leaders at South Arkansas Community College.

“They’re going to need to be able to think. And we can’t let kids go through without raising the standards and raising the bar.”

In his fourth trip to a college campus in less than two weeks, Mr. Bush also proposed extending the National Assessment of Educational Progress testing program — now required only in the fourth and eighth grades for reading and every two years in math — to the 12th grade.

All three proposals, including the partnership that would grant $5,000 to 20,000 low-income students by imposing restrictions on Pell Grants, require congressional approval. None would require new federal spending.

The “conversation on job training and the economy,” as the White House billed the round-table event yesterday with six men and women from throughout Arkansas, came a day after Mr. Bush began to stress that Americans need better education for a new economy that has shed manufacturing jobs.

As an example, the president said jobs in the computer and mathematics-related fields will rise 60 percent by 2010 in Arkansas; health care and technical jobs will rise 40 percent.

“The question is, are people going to be able to fill those jobs?” Mr. Bush said.

Sen. John Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate, has hammered Mr. Bush over the loss of more than 1.8 million jobs since taking office in January 2001. Yesterday, the Massachusetts liberal’s campaign distributed e-mail criticizing the administration’s efforts on job training.

Citing the House Budget Committee Democratic Caucus, the Kerry camp said Mr. Bush’s proposed 2005 budget would trim employment training by $151 million as it consolidates four employment training programs into a block grant totaling $3 billion.

But the president said his proposal to transform the $1 billion Perkins vocational education program — created 87 years ago — into a secondary and technical education program will modernize job training nationwide.

The reauthorization of the Perkins program would require vocational schools that receive federal money to offer four years of English, three years of math and science, and 3.5 years of social studies.

“That’s not to cut back on their money. It’s quite the contrary,” Mr. Bush said. “It’s to make sure the money we are spending prepares these youngsters for the jobs of the 21st century.”