Box 3, Folder 12, Document 37

Box 3, Folder 12, Document 37

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3 Economic Opportunity Report May 13, 1968

JOB CORPS SEEKS PROPOSALS FOR INNER-CITY CENTIERS

Job Corps is seeking proposals from local communities for the new Inner-City Job Corps
Centers to be initiated in fiscal 1969. Since initiation of the new centers depends on
whether or not Job Corps gets the funds it has requested from Congress, Job Corps head-
quarters has not yet contacted most cities, but a joint task force composed of represen-
tatives of HEW's Office of Vocational Education, the Labor Department and the Job
Corps, has been created to evaluate proposals as they are received.

The 1967 amendments to the EO Act directed OEO to "enter into one or more agreements
with state educational agencies to pay the cost of establishing and operating model com-
munity vocational education schools and skill centers''. The Bureau of the Budget, in
the President's FY 1969 budget request, agreed on a program) plan of four or five such
centers. Preference will probably be given to those cities where Job Corps had urban
centers in operation or planned, such as Baltimore (planned as a residential center for.
unwed mothers) and Detroit (planned as a Public Health Center) where Job Corps already
owns property. Baltimore has already submitted a proposal which will probably be
accepted and Job Corps hopes to initiate that center as soon as possible after July 1.
Eight or ten other cities have submitted proposals which are in various stages of detail
and about four of them are acceptable.

Job Corps has established no "guidelines" for the program, but will rest on the criteria
established in the legislation.- This will allow the individual communities to have the widest
latitude for developing innovative proposals within the legislative limits, but the center
must not duplicate any existing MDTA or other manpower training programs. The prin-
ciple of residency versus non-residency will probably be tested, ,and the school system
should have the widest possible involvement in the project.

The 1967 EO Act amendments provided that:

"In order to determine whether upgraded vocational education schools could eliminate or
substantially reduce the school dropout problem, and to demonstrate how communities
could make maximum utilization of existing educational and training facilities, the
Director, in cooperation with the Commissioner of Education, shall enter into one or
more agreements with State educational agencies to pay the cost of establishing and
operating model community vocational education schools and skill centers. Such facili-
ties shall be centrally located in an urban area having a high dropout rate, a large
number of unemployed youths, and a need in the area for a combination vocational school
and skill center. No such agreement shall be entered into unless it contains provisions
designed-to assure that:

1) a job survey be made of the area;

2) the training program of the school and skill center reflect the job market needs as
projected by the survey;

3) an advisory committee composed of representatives of business, labor, education,
and community leaders be formed to follow the center's activities and to make periodic
recommendations regarding its operation.

4) arrangements have been worked out with schools in the area and the administrator
of the skill center for maximum utilization of the center both during and after school
hours; and,

5) such accounting and evaluation procedures as the: Director and the Commissioner of
Education deem necessary to carry out the purposes of this project will be provided.