MonticelloLive

The mission of the state Department of Workforce Education can be summarized easily. The agency helps prepare Arkansans for productive careers.

The department’s methods and responsibilities cannot be summed up nearly as easily, however, because it faces such a wide diversity of educational needs and special challenges.
Its Division of Rehabilitative Services has 530 employees and a budget of more than $59 million. It has 19 field offices that provide medical support, education and job training for people with disabilities. The division also operates the Hot Springs Rehabilitation Center.
Division staff help people who are deaf, or who have impaired hearing, and they help people with disabilities maintain independent life styles while holding down jobs. In all, about 20,000 people benefit from the services provided by the Rehabilitative Services Division.
The Department of Workforce Education is well known throughout Arkansas because of its Division of Adult Education, where people study for high school equivalency diplomas known as GED’s.
About 50,000 people enrolled in some type of class last year in the 51 adult education centers in Arkansas. More than 7,000 earned a GED. Another 5,000 took English classes because they are immigrants and their first language is not English. Others took specialized job training for specific business or industry skills.
A typical classroom at an adult education center is remarkable for the diversity of the students and their wide variety of challenges. There are teenagers who are not able to succeed at the local high school. There are older adults who want a GED to get a better job or a promotion, or who need to earn a GED in order to keep the job they currently have. Some already have a diploma but want specific training.
Some students have been referred by a local juvenile judge, perhaps because they were arrested for drug offenses. If those students skip class, the court is notified and the students face time in a detention center.
Over the course of a typical semester, an adult education teacher may see a student with cerebral palsy in the classroom, as well as students with learning disabilities and students from extremely poor families.
Many students are highly motivated; many are taking advantage of a second chance to succeed. They have a wide-ranging and ever-changing diversity of needs, skill levels, backgrounds and goals in life.
Workforce Education also administers the Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs in public high schools, which last year offered courses to about 70 percent of students in grades seven through 12. Students who participate in CTE classes have shown improvement in that greater numbers take college entrance exams and fewer require remedial education.
Thanks to the CTE, last year 3,600 high school students in Arkansas earned college credits at career centers at nearby two-year campuses.
During the 2007 regular session the legislature increased the Department’s budget from $68 million to $71 million.