{"id":7597,"date":"2018-02-21T00:30:31","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T05:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/?p=7597"},"modified":"2018-02-21T00:30:31","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T05:30:31","slug":"are-higher-education-officials-effectively-preparing-students-of-post-secondary-schools-and-colleges-for-the-workforce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/2018\/02\/are-higher-education-officials-effectively-preparing-students-of-post-secondary-schools-and-colleges-for-the-workforce\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Higher Education Officials Effectively Preparing Students of Post-Secondary Schools and Colleges for the Workforce?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Returning from recess, the Higher Education and Advancement Committee opened the floor to Keith Norton, the Acting Executive Director of Higher Education in the State of Connecticut. This office is responsible for serving individuals of higher education, including postsecondary career schools and colleges that finances and programming Connecticut State scholarships and aid. In the Public Hearing, Norton reflected on the passing of Senate Bill 142, Senate Bill 145, House bill 5135, and House Bill 5136. His proposal, on behalf of the Office of Higher Education, acknowledged the agreement to take on responsibilities given by the new changes. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Specifically, the changes made to Senate Bill 142: An Act Concerning Acceptance of Institutional Accreditation of Private Occupational Schools by the Office of Higher Education were a primary concern of the senators and representatives of the committee that were present. As a result to the changes, the Office of Higher Education is granted \u201cthe ability to provide assistance to students and school administration to help facilitate solutions to\u2026problems in the context of Connecticut\u2019s own standards\u201d if a postsecondary school already established accreditors lack effectiveness of assistance. The newly recognized responsibility of the Office of Higher Education is \u201cto ensure that students and families are able to access the high-quality education they expect from an approved Connecticut school.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Democratic Senator Bye questioned Norton and the idea of post occupational education with skepticism. Bye asked \u201cWhat is the completion rate of these schools?\u201d and later, \u201cHow do we know that students are not being scammed out of their money and are receiving an education that will benefit their careers?\u201d Her concerns were met with Norton\u2019s uncertainty to be able to provide the answers that would instill confidence in Bye to believe in postsecondary occupational education and his agency as he could not provide figures of completion rates or demonstrate that students after graduation were successful in their respective fields. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bye, however, was not the only Senator in attendance to have concerns. Representative Mushinsky also directed many unanswerable questions towards Norton. She questioned Norton on the actual success rates of these postsecondary educational schools as she raised concerns with the preparedness of the students to enter the workforce. Norton responded that the students would learn to the test to ensure that the students would have the skills necessary to be able to pass the test to gain their certifications in their respective fields. Muchinsky continued to ask whether this type of schooling may just be setting students up for failure and how beneficial it truly was to attend this school if they were not prepared to enter the workforce post graduation. Muchinsky also demanded that Norton communicate with the Department of Labor for at least four times a year to ensure that the fields of the schools were proportional to job availability post graduation. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This meeting demonstrated the difficulty in providing the best, effective policies for higher education.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To learn more about the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee, click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cga.ct.gov\/hed\/\">here. <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To read Senate Bill 142, click<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cga.ct.gov\/2018\/HEDdata\/Tmy\/2018SB-00142-R000220-Norton,%20Keith%20M.,%20Acting%20Executive%20Director-Office%20of%20Higher%20Education-TMY.PDF\"> here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/files\/2018\/02\/IMG_6088.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-7600\" src=\"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/files\/2018\/02\/IMG_6088-300x225.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/files\/2018\/02\/IMG_6088-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/files\/2018\/02\/IMG_6088-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/files\/2018\/02\/IMG_6088-1024x768.jpeg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Inside of Legislative Office Building Room 1E.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/files\/2018\/02\/IMG_6089.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-7601\" src=\"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/files\/2018\/02\/IMG_6089-225x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/files\/2018\/02\/IMG_6089-225x300.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/files\/2018\/02\/IMG_6089-768x1022.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/files\/2018\/02\/IMG_6089-769x1024.jpeg 769w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Outside of Room 1E.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Returning from recess, the Higher Education and Advancement Committee opened the floor to Keith Norton, the Acting Executive Director of Higher Education in the State of Connecticut. This office is responsible for serving individuals of higher education, including postsecondary career schools and colleges that finances and programming Connecticut State scholarships and aid. In the Public &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/2018\/02\/are-higher-education-officials-effectively-preparing-students-of-post-secondary-schools-and-colleges-for-the-workforce\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Are Higher Education Officials Effectively Preparing Students of Post-Secondary Schools and Colleges for the Workforce?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[117],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7602,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7597\/revisions\/7602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}