Education Week - August 21, 2013 - 19

EDUCATION WEEK AUGUST 21, 2013 www.edweek.org
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Advocates Split on Workforce Investment Act Rewrite
Sensitive issue arises
on transition to jobs
By Christina A. Samuels
A bill now pending in the U.S.
Senate that would reauthorize the
long-overdue Workforce Investment
Act has exposed rare points
of disagreement among organizations
that advocate on behalf of
people with disabilities.
The law, first passed in 1998,
provides funding for job training
and rehabilitation programs
housed in the U.S. departments of
Education and Labor. It includes
provisions for youth with disabilities
who are transitioning to the
workforce, and has been overdue
for reauthorization since 2003.
The Senate bill passed on an 18-3
vote in the Senate Health, Labor,
Education, and Pensions Committee
last month, and must now go to
the full Senate. The sponsors of the
bill said that it offers better coordination
of job programs and applies
one set of common performance
metrics to each workforce program
that is part of the act.
Among the provisions in the bill
is a section championed by U.S.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a cosponsor,
who said it would curtail
efforts to steer people with disabilities
into jobs that pay below the
federal minimum wage of $7.25 a
hour. The provision would enact a
series of worker protections, such
as requiring that a person has received
pre-employment transition
services, applied for vocationalrehabilitation
services, and worked
toward employment that pays a
competitive wage.
If those standards were met,
however, a worker could be placed
in a sub-minimum-wage job, as
long as a rehabilitation counselor
reviewed the placement every six
months to ensure that it was part
of training a worker for later employment
at competitive wages.
Divisive Provision
The Chicago-based Easter Seals,
which provides job opportunities
for more than 80,000 youths and
adults, supported the provisions of
the Senate bill that it said offered
better transition and employment
services for people with disabilities.
“One of the things we are fo-
cused on is the attention to transitional
services for youth, and giving
young people with disabilities
greater opportunities for work experience
before they leave school,”
said Katherine Beh Neas, the organization’s
senior vice president
for government relations.
But several disability groups
argue that the proposal does a disservice
to people with disabilities
by enshrining a path to a sub-minimum-wage
job in the bill, even if
such employment is supposed to
be only temporary.
The provision “purports to introduce
protections to limit the
number of youth with disabilities
who are placed in sub-minimumwage
employment, but will have
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the unintended effect of trapping
people with disabilities in deadend,
segregated, sub-minimumwage
jobs with the blessing of
the rehabilitation system,” said
Marc Maurer, the president of the
National Federation of the Blind,
based in Washington.
Christopher Danielsen, the director
of public relations for the
federation, said that part of the
dispute is between organizations
that are governed by people with
disabilities and organizations
that include job training as part
of their advocacy work.
“The sheltered workshops who
“
claim to be providing this great
training to people with disabilities
through sub-minimum-wage
employment opportunities, they
would love for the rehabilitation
agencies to be sending them workers,”
Mr. Danielsen said.
Other groups that oppose that
part of the bill include the Autism
Self-Advocacy Network and the National
Down Syndrome Congress.
But Ms. Neas, with Easter Seals,
said that while paying workers
below the minimum wage should
be considered a last-resort option,
such options have meant the difference
between being employed
and being jobless for some people.
“Our organization is about helping
people reach their own goals.
Our view is that one size does not
fit all,” she said.
Administrative Shift
The Workforce Investment Act
reauthorization also would move
the Rehabilitative Services Administration
from the U.S. Department
of Education to the U.S.
Department of Labor.
The RSA oversees grants to state
vocational-rehabilitation agencies
to provide employment-related
services for individuals with disabilities.
The proposed shift has
prompted a protest from the
Council of State Administrators of
Vocational Rehabilitation, which
says that the Education Department
is a better fit for an agency
that often works with young people
making the transition from
school to employment.
“We look at employment and
careers with a whole different
philosophy,” said Rita Martin, the
organization’s deputy director. “Ultimately,
we’re wondering if our
ability to provide significant supports
to a person will be eroded.”
”
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Education Week - August 21, 2013

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