John Cornyn: “this amendment supports the administration's request for second-year funding for the Community- Based Job Training Grant…”

“this amendment supports the administration's request for second-year funding for the Community- Based Job Training Grant Initiative. Although that is a mouthful, this goes to one of the most basic needs of our country, and particularly our growing economy. For those who are concerned about offshoring and outsourcing of jobs to other countries, for those who are concerned about American citizens who have not yet attained a living wage in their jobs, this is the answer to all of those challenges, and more. The primary purpose of the grants that are included in this program is to strengthen the role of community and technical colleges and train workers for the skills required to succeed in high-growth, high-demand industries. The amendment covers publicly funded institutions of higher education that grant associate degrees. Community-based job training grants are awarded to community and technical colleges that demonstrate they are engaged in a strategic partnership with business and industry. In other words, this is not just the teaching of academic subjects but, rather, working with industry to determine what sort of job skills they need for the good jobs they can provide, if they can find a sufficient number of trained employees to do them. Applicants for these grants are required to identify workforce challenges and their ability to implement workforce solutions for locally identified high-growth, high-demand occupations.…”