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Big Sandy Community and Technical College re-dedicates building on Mayo CampusNew UPS Facility to Bring 700+ Jobs to KentuckyGovernment Is Criticized on Oversight of Head StartColleges Face New Demands for Accountability, Conference Speakers SayReport Warns of Pell-Grant DeclineStronger oversight urged for Head Start programsLouisiana System Seeks to Woo Back Dropouts
Paintsville Herald Big Sandy Community and Technical College re-dedicates building on Mayo Campus
Fifty years ago Building A on the Mayo Campus of Big Sandy Community and Technical College (BSCTC) was dedicated for the first time. Following extensive renovation, the beautiful new 11,000 square ft. office and classroom facility was re-dedicated on Monday, March 14, 2005.
Dr. George D. Edwards, President of BSCTC welcomed a standing room only crowd of alumni, community leaders, dignitaries and citizens to Mayo Campus’s new Building A foyer for the dedication ceremonies. The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Finetta Mullins from the Daughters of the American Revolution and a former student of the old Mayo Vocational School. Clayton Case, a student at the college, sang the National Anthem.
Roger (Tucker) Daniel, Johnson County Judge Executive and Doug Pugh, Mayor of Paintsville, brought greetings from the county and city. They talked about the unity of the Mayo campus with the community and the contribution it has made over the years to the citizens of the big Sandy area. Mayor Pugh cited the new Kentucky Highlands Entrepreneur Center as a prime example of the complex partnership between BSCTC, the city of Paintsville and Johnson County Fiscal Court. He said, “Together we are working to bring new businesses to this area.”
Vice President Bobby McCool introduced two very special people who related memories and stories of the history of the Mayo campus to a hushed crowd. Ninety four year old Escom Chandler, Chair of the Mayo Advisory Board for 30 years and former Mayor of Paintsville spoke about the old Mayo Normal School, where teachers were trained to teach and the beginning of the Mayo Vocational School and the great men and women who dedicated their lives to bring education and training to the citizens of east Kentucky. He told of the years when the United States was at war and this school changed lives by providing the skills needed to work, earn a living and prosper. Chandler said, “Before Mayo school was founded there was little hope for our people. Here on this campus they were able to get training and learn how to make a living.”
Bronelle Skaggs, former Vocational Region Eleven Director came to the podium to talk about education and the changes that the college has been involved with in the Big Sandy Region. He related how the Mayo campus has grown and the many changes it has gone through over the years. He told about the little vocational school, with a handful of dedicated teachers that grew to include 3 college campuses and 5 area centers which formed the old Vocational Region Eleven. Big Sandy Community and Technical College was formed from the consolidation of those campuses with Prestonsburg Community College. Skaggs said, “Education is the key to success, I believe it and I have seen the results. I know this to be true.”
Dr. Michael McCall, KCTCS President, sent greetings with a message read by Dr. Edwards, “Enhancing technical education at all KCTCS colleges throughout the state has been one of our organization’s top priorities. Technical education is vital to Kentucky’s ability to compete in the New Economy and Building A will allow us to provide both educational and economic opportunities for the citizens of this community.”
Inspirational music for the event was provided by Laura Ford Hall, BSCTC employee,
and the Big Sandy Singers, a new musical group made up of students from the
college. Refreshments were catered by Nellie Baldwin and Carla Perry from BSCTC
food services.
New UPS Facility to Bring 700+ Jobs to KentuckyUPS has announced it will integrate its new heavy freight operations into its existing network with a major expansion of its Louisville cargo operations. The new $82.5 million, 700,000-sq.-ft. heavy freight facility is expected to bring 720 new jobs to Louisville with an estimated annual payroll of $12 million. At its launch in Louisville, the operation is slated to have 120 new full-time positions and 600 part-time positions. Several other states also were considered as bases for the heavy air freight operation, but a decision by the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority to extend tax incentives to UPS was instrumental in bringing the operation to Louisville. The authority approved the project for up to $20 million in incentives to attract at least 400 new full-time jobs over the next 10 years. Prior to the new operations announcement, UPS had already announced plans to hire an additional 200 pilots to support the growth and expansion of its air business. The company’s flagship air hub, Worldport, is located in Louisville. The company’s latest personnel announcement brings the total number of UPS’ new pilot hires to 300 when combined with the 100 new pilot hires the company announced in October. UPS expects to complete its hiring process by the end of the year. Once hiring is complete, the company will have nearly 2,800 pilots, the majority of which will be based in Louisville. UPS’ international route structure continues to grow with 12 new China flights. In addition, the company expects delivery of 13 A300s and 11 MD-11 aircraft during the next two years and is also acquiring 10 Airbus A380s, which it plans to begin flying in 2009. Though still under development in Europe, the A380 will be the largest commercial
aircraft in the world. The aircraft will be able to carry a maximum payload
of 330,000 pounds and its range will permit it to fly nonstop about twice as
far as other large aircraft. Officials at Louisville International Airport are
reviewing the aircraft’s operational requirements to determine if any changes
will be necessary to accommodate the A380.
Government Is Criticized on Oversight of Head StartThe government's efforts to weed out financial mismanagement in Head Start, the federal preschool program for poor children, are too spotty and ineffective to prevent blunders or abuse, even among providers known to be out of compliance with regulations, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.More than three quarters of the federally supported preschool programs that were reviewed by the government in 2000 had some form of financial irregularity, the report said, and sometimes more than one. Yet even after they were judged to have problems, more than half the programs continued to have financial inconsistencies over the next three years, it said, in part because the government did little to resolve them. House Republicans, who provided a copy of the report, have been demanding an overhaul of the program in recent years and narrowly passed a bill in 2003 to allow eight governors to take over Head Start in their states. The legislation never made it through the Senate, but lawmakers seized upon the report yesterday to renew their call for change. "We will never have academic accountability in Head Start if we do not have basic financial accountability," said Representative John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, who was among those requesting the G.A.O. report in 2003. The financial improprieties "must be dealt with decisively to protect children," Mr. Boehner said. Head Start provides educational, health and other services to almost one million poor children around the nation, and throughout most of its 40-year history, it has enjoyed bipartisan support. When the program was up for reauthorization in 2003, the Bush administration sought major changes, like handing over control of Head Start to individual states. Supporters of Head Start countered that the proposals were a precursor to cutbacks and a possible dismantling of the program, while lawmakers pressed their case by publicizing instances of financial abuse by preschool providers, inciting a bitter battle between the two sides. House Republicans have pointed to a dozen instances in which they say an "unacceptable share" of Head Start money has been "lost to financial abuse, mismanagement, impropriety or outright theft." The cases they cited yesterday include the indictment of the Head Start director in Maryland on charges that she stole $335,777; the prosecution of a South Dakota woman on charges that she embezzled $185,000 from an organization providing Head Start and other services; as well as other accusations that Head Start programs overpaid their executives and collected federal money for children they never served. One accusation, which lawmakers did not mention, revolves around Windy M. Hill, the chief of Head Start programs for the Department of Health and Human Services. Before taking that job, Ms. Hill was executive director of an agency that runs Head Start centers in Texas. Head Start providers contend that audits show Ms. Hill mismanaged $140,000 and improperly received $30,000 in bonuses and perquisites while there. The department has called the accusations baseless and says Ms. Hill herself asked its inspector general to look into the matter. Despite these cases, the National Head Start Association, which represents providers, said that instances of financial abuse were rare and were often exploited by critics to justify scaling back preschool services. While the accountability office report made it seem that most providers were plagued by mismanagement, the association said, the vast majority of infractions were for minor bureaucratic glitches akin to "a page missing from a report." "It is hugely misleading to equate 'parking ticket' offenses with a tiny number of actual problem situations," said Sarah Greene, the association's president, adding that other reviews had found "serious problems" in 15 percent of cases or fewer. "The G.A.O. makes a whopper of an error." When financial problems with Head Start centers do arise, the department does little to correct them, the report said. Rather than scrutinizing centers to ensure that their records are orderly and accurate, the department allows them simply to declare that they have fixed the problem, with few controls beyond that. The process can take up to two years, during which time the centers continue receiving money. "We agree that we need to make improvements in our overall oversight of local Head Start programs," said Wade F. Horn, assistant secretary for children and families in the Department of Health and Human Services, pointing out that the agency has taken steps to examine preschool programs more closely. "This is not a war between the federal government and Head Start programs," Mr. Wade said. But he also argued that "it doesn't do the children of Head Start any
good for the federal government to turn its head."
The Chronicle of Higher Education Colleges Face New Demands for Accountability, Conference Speakers SayLawmakers and the public are starting to demand that colleges be held accountable for preparing their students for 21st-century work, a panel of speakers who included the next head of education for the United Nations said on Friday during the American Association for Higher Education's annual conference here. Colleges need to realize that they are beginning to face the same scrutiny that elementary and secondary schools do under the No Child Left Behind Act, said Peter Smith, who will leave the presidency of California State University-Monterey Bay this summer to become assistant director general for education of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. "We're not doing all that well, and we're not being honest if we don't admit it," Mr. Smith said. "The latest research shows that 18 to 20 out of 100 ninth graders have at least associate degrees 10 years later." he said. "How can we have political awareness" of the value of higher education, he asked, "if 4 out of 5 people don't have a positive experience? This isn't the way to build a significant coalition for the future." The panel's other members were Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, and Craig Swenson, provost of the University of Phoenix. Mr. Callan said his organization would release its first study on how much college graduates are actually learning in the next couple of months as a follow-up to "Measuring Up," its annual state-by-state report on higher education. The "Measuring Up" report grades the states on a number of scales, but Mr. Callan's group is now concentrating on finding ways to measure "educational capital" -- how well states are doing at developing a pool of well-educated people prepared to succeed at jobs in an information-based economy. Financed by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the new study sets benchmarks for the literacy level of college graduates, including not just reading comprehension but also the ability to understand graphics and mathematical problems; how well colleges are educating students to enter the professional work force, measured by licensing results, postgraduate admissions tests, and teacher-preparation exams; and the communications and problem-solving skills of all college graduates. Researchers got data from Illinois, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nevada, and South Carolina. "State policy makers are asking the question, Why is the state in the higher-education business?" Mr. Callan said. "The answer is, to increase the knowledge and skill level of the population." Mr. Swenson, of the University of Phoenix, said that colleges are not used to answering those sorts of questions, but that they will need to if they are to justify the state and federal funds they receive. His institution receives neither. "We have a black-box mentality in higher education," he said. "We think that the important things can't be counted, and the things that can be counted aren't important. We believe attacks are coming from opponents who are anti-intellectual. But the black box is not nearly as big as we think it is." Professors own a "cottage industry" of designing curricula for individual courses, he said, and "you're never allowed to ask whether the curriculum meets the overall objective" of making sure students can take responsibility for their education. At Phoenix, a for-profit university, the constant oversight from state agencies, regional accrediting bodies, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Securities and Exchange Commission had "made assessment a way of life," he said. The overall objective at Phoenix, Mr. Swenson said, was getting answers of "yes" to the following questions: "Do our students know what they're supposed to know? Can they do what they're supposed to do? Can they value what they're doing appropriately? And is what they're learning making a difference in their lives and careers?" Buzzwords flew freely in the session of the AAHE conference, which drew more than 800 academic administrators and student-affairs personnel from across the country. Monterey Bay, Mr. Smith said, has focused on "outcomes-based education" in designing its curriculum, which is based on developing the "four scholarships" of the late Ernest L. Boyer: discovery, integration, application, and teaching. The only president in Monterey Bay's 11-year history, Mr. Smith said the university constantly measured how well it was meeting five goals: diversity, access and retention, learning, and support of learning. On some scales it is succeeding, he said, but not on others. He noted in particular that the campus struggled to retain sophomores. "You need to be candid about your problems to get the political capital to deal with them," he said. All three speakers said that colleges needed to do a better job of assessing and demonstrating how well students are learning, and that they needed to be open to new ways of educating students if those methods were better than existing methods. "Right now, we've got the idea of, we want to get those little critters in there, charge 'em, and keep 'em five or six years," said Mr. Smith, who is also author of The Quiet Crisis: How Higher Education is Failing America, published last year (see an excerpt that appeared in The Chronicle.) "We've got to come up with an educational process that allows you to accumulate learning over time. It can't be an either/or; it has to be both" a continuous curriculum and one that allows students to step out into the work force and step back into college. The growing demand for accountability in higher education was a theme of many of the conference's sessions, which featured as speakers Raul Yzaguirre, former president of the Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group; the civil-rights activist Derrick Z. Bell; James B. Hunt Jr., a former governor of North Carolina; and John Merrow of the Public Broadcasting Service's Merrow Report, who has a documentary to be broadcast this spring titled "Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk." In higher education, "we have the resources and talent to resolve the
crisis" in accountability, said Clara M. Lovett, president of the AAHE.
"The challenge, though, is that (a) we have to recognize where the hot
spots are, and (b) we have to have the courage and the imagination to say that
the way we did things 20 or 30 years ago won't work. We need more people inside
higher education saying that we are not getting where we need to be, in terms
of the outcomes and the number of people we're educating."
The Chronicle of Higher Education Report Warns of Pell-Grant DeclineThe maximum Pell Grant will cover only a quarter of the cost of attending a four-year public institution by 2010, 10 percentage points less than it does now, according to a study by the Center for American Progress, a think tank in Washington. The Pell Grant program, which was created by Congress in 1972, provides low-income students with annual grants ranging from $400 to $4,050 to help defray educational costs. The decline in the purchasing power of the Pell Grant will come even if Congress approves President Bush's plan to increase the maximum grant by $500 over the next five years, the report predicts. By 2010, when the Pell Grant would reach $4,550 under the president's proposal,
the gap between college costs and the maximum grant would have grown to $13,150,
2.5 times more than a student can currently earn through federal work-study
and a minimum-wage full-time summer job.
Washington Times Stronger oversight urged for Head Start programsHundreds of Head Start preschool programs have financial irregularities, a government watchdog agency says in calling for tougher oversight of the 40-year-old anti-poverty program. Between 2000 and 2003, 838 Head Start grantees were found to have one or more errors in the way they managed their program, finances or bookkeeping, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released today. "The next time those grantees were reviewed, 440 -- or 53 percent -- were
cited again for problems in those same areas," the GAO report said. These findings, plus other evidence of mismanagement, show that the Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families (ACF) "has not implemented a well-integrated monitoring system to oversee the Head Start program, including its financial management," the GAO said. Without change, the report added, "ACF will be unable to ascertain how widespread the problems are." Wade F. Horn, HHS assistant secretary for ACF, said in a statement in the report that his agency would "take the necessary steps" to improve its collection and assessment of Head Start data. Rep. John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said the GAO report confirms that the $7 billion Head Start program has "serious problems." "We need to support the many honest [Head Start] grantees and shut down the bad ones," said Mr. Boehner, whose committee plans to release a compilation of press reports in 17 cities that show millions of dollars in Head Start funds have been diverted, squandered, embezzled, awarded to insiders and spent on excessive salaries. Mr. Boehner's office also said a Senate-House hearing on the GAO report is planned for April 5. Sarah Greene, president of the National Head Start Association (NHSA), which represents the 1,700 Head Start grantees, said the GAO report is "fatally flawed" because it uses "twisted" data from ACF. Some Head Start grantees might have had minor "parking-ticket" violations in 2000, but "very few had serious problems," she said. Moreover, a Head Start report to Congress in 2000 showed that "roughly nine in 10 programs were found to have no major fiscal management issues of any kind." The federal Head Start program is up for a five-year renewal, and the Bush administration and its allies in Congress want to set up a system to give selected state leaders a role in overseeing its programs. NHSA has rejected such reforms, saying they would "dismantle" the program. The GAO report faulted ACF for allowing data discrepancies in enrollment, income eligibility and teacher education, and not independently verifying information from grantees. GAO researchers also noted that ACF didn't try hard enough to replace "poorly performing" grantees, and even gave a New Mexico program a new $2 million grant while it was being investigated for defrauding the program of $526,000.
Community College Week Louisiana System Seeks to Woo Back Dropouts
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