Assistant Secretary Brenda Dann-Messier, who heads the Office of Vocational and Adult Education, will visit Rhode Island Thursday, spotlighting high school redesign and promoting quality career and technical education programs.
At 9:30 a.m., Dann-Messier will tour William M. Davies, Jr. Career and Technical High School, highlighting the school’s efforts to promote educational excellence. At 10 a.m., she will meet with students, followed by a 10:30 a.m. roundtable with parents, teachers, business partners and educators to learn more about Davies’ activities.
The Obama administration is proposing $300 million for a new High School Redesign program, which would fund competitive grants to districts partnering with postsecondary institutions, businesses and nonprofits to help ensure that all students graduate from high school with college credit and career-related experience.
At 1 p.m., Dann-Messier will visit the Community College of Rhode Island where she will lead a roundtable discussion on the opportunities, challenges and goals related to the college’s $3.4 million federal Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant. The three-year award, largest in the school’s history, aims to produce pathways to career ladder jobs in the expanding industries of health care and information technology for trade-eligible displaced workers, military veterans and other unemployed or underemployed Rhode Island workers.
The TAACCCT Initiative is an historic $2 billion investment from the Obama administration that is administered by the Department of Labor in partnership with the Department of Education. More than $1 billion has been awarded to support community colleges in their development and expansion of evidence-based programs with a strong connection to industry. This initiative is part of a larger effort to achieve President Obama's national goal to once again lead the world in college completion by 2020.