United States Department of Education Update

The Workforce and Community Transition Training for Incarcerated Youth Offenders Program has been the subject of some Congressional attention. The Higher Education Act as and now passed by both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate included significant Program revisions. As of this writing, we are watching with great interest to see what provisions emerge from the conference committee process and become law.

This will be one topic of interest at the upcoming CEA Leadership Forum. I'm hoping to have definitive information about new Program provisions to share at that time. Steve Steurer has been tireless and persistent in working between the field and Capitol Hill on this and other issues - so I'm sure he will be looking forward to this year's Forum as a celebratory occasion. The Forum will also be an opportunity for CE administrative leadership and the professional association leadership to do business, network, and engage in some formal learning opportunities.

The Office of Correctional Education is proud to be sponsoring training sessions dealing with the utilization of post release outcome data to evaluate institutionally based educational services. The need for work in this arena was brought home again when, in mid February, the California Legislative Analyst's Office issued a report on education in California prisons, "From Cellblocks to Classrooms: Reforming Inmate Education to Improve Public Safety.' One newspaper account of the report led with the headline: "State prisoner education program gets failing grade." The reporter went on to say that the program cost $220 million a year but was not "tracking programs" to make sure they reduce recidivism. While that statement is not a fair reflection of the report, which was generally supportive of correctional education, the report did include language on the need to better track program participants and to obtain and utilize post release performance information. Correctional education programs face increased expectations that they routinely capture and use outcome data, including post release participant performance.

Leadership for our training session will be provided by Todd Ogle and Eric Lichtenberger of Virginia Tech's Center for Assessment, Planning and Educational Programming. Todd and Eric have worked for some years with Virginia's Department of Correctional Education, assisting to draw outcome data together from various public sources, particularly for the vocational education programs. They are developing resources for the correctional educator to assist in getting and using this post release outcome information, resources they will be sharing in print, and at the Forum in classroom style training. Eric and Todd's Forum presentation will be augmented by presentations by agency staff from Texas, Indiana and Florida to assure that we are looking at this topic in contexts that are relevant across systems.

Only a few weeks after the Forum, we'll be in New York City at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice for a two-day Prisoner Reentry Roundtable focused specifically on education. This forum is hosted by the John Jay Reentry Institute in cooperation with the Washington D.C. based Urban Institute. The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice have provided partial funding. These government dollars have been matched more than two to one by private contributions. This roundtable is one in a series on prisoner reentry conducted over a period of about ten years. (These are documented at the Urban Institute web site. Web search for "Urban Institute, Reentry Roundtable.")

Seven original papers have been commissioned on critical topics including special populations, technology, research evidence on program benefits, education for post release employment, and bridging the gulf between institutional education and post release educational programming. A distinguished group of discussants forms the round table - an interdisciplinary mix including educators, researchers, and correctional administrators. Highly respected John Jay College President Jeremy Travis will facilitate the two days of discussion. The research papers, a summary of the participants' dialog, and video highlights should all be available by the time of the CEA conference this summer, and I'll be looking forward to opportunities share these there.

Finally, spring of 2008 also holds additional promise as we see several technical assistance projects coming to fruition. These include the final version of the post release education guide for prisoners, a project on school performance reports, a report on community college partnerships with corrections, and resources related to obtaining and using post release outcomes (mentioned above with reference to the CEA Leadership Forum). Those with interest in any of these resources are invited to be in contact with me. (john.linton@ed.gov) We've had great help with all of these projects, not only from those performing the work, but also from many friends in the field who have generously shared information and insights. And finally, we eagerly await the release of two National Institute of Corrections resources partially supported by the Department of Education (ED). One is a print publication on establishing a workforce development culture in correctional settings based on an ED funded life skills demonstration project in Vermont. The other is a print publication accompanied by a DVD on establishing career resource centers in corrections. It will highlight practices developed in several ED funded life skills demonstration projects.

Copyright Correctional Education Association Mar 2008
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