EDUCATION AND JOB TRAINING:

PREPARING FOR THE 21ST CENTURY WORKFORCE

HEARING

BEFORE THE 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS 

OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND 

THE WORKFORCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION

HEARING HELD IN ANGOLA, INDIANA, MARCH 22, 2002 

Serial No. 107-53 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education 

and the Workforce 

81-206 pdf 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC area (202) 512-1800 

 Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001
ii

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin GEORGE MILLER, California 

MARGE ROUKEMA, New Jersey DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan 

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina MAJOR R. OWENS, New York 

PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

HOWARD P. “BUCK” McKEON, California PATSY MINK, Hawaii 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas TIM ROEMER, Indiana 

JAMES C. GREENWOOD, Pennsylvania ROBERT C. “BOBBY” SCOTT, Virginia 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan 

CHARLIE W. NORWOOD, JR., Georgia RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas 

BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado CAROLYN McCARTHY, New York 

FRED UPTON, Michigan JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

VAN HILLEARY, Tennessee RON KIND, Wisconsin 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

JIM DeMINT, South Carolina DENNIS KUCINICH, Ohio 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia DAVID WU, Oregon 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HILDA L. SOLIS, California 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania SUSAN DAVIS, California 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota 

 RIC KELLER, Florida 

 TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska 

JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas 

VACANCY

Paula Nowakowski, Chief of Staff 

 John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director

 SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21st CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS 

 HOWARD P. “BUCK” McKEON, California, Chairman

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia, Vice Chairman PATSY MINK, Hawaii

JOHN BOEHNER, Ohio JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware RON KIND, Wisconsin 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina DAVID WU, Oregon 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan 

FRED UPTON, Michigan BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas 

TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska 
iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................................................................. i 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. “BUCK” MCKEON, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, D.C..................................................................................................................... 2 

OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE MARK E. SOUDER, SUBCOMMITTEE 

ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE 

WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. ..................... 4 

STATEMENT OF DR. EARL BROOKS, PRESIDENT, TRI-STATE UNIVERSITY, 

ANGOLA, INDIANA .................................................................................................................... 7 

STATEMENT OF STEVE GRILL, PRINCIPAL, ANGOLA HIGH SCHOOL, ANGOLA, 

INDIANA ....................................................................................................................................... 9 

STATEMENT OF CRAIG ADOLPH, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNITY 

RESOURCE OFFICER, COLE FOUNDATION AND PLASTICS TECHNOLOGY CENTER, 

ANGOLA, INDIANA .................................................................................................................. 11 

STATEMENT OF TRAVIS KENZ, FORMER STUDENT, PLASTIC TECHNOLOGY 

CENTER, ANGOLA, INDIANA................................................................................................. 13 

STATEMENT OF STEVE CORONA, PRESIDENT, JOBWORKS, FORT WAYNE, INDIANA

...................................................................................................................................................... 24 

STATEMENT OF JON L. RUPRIGHT, VICE PRESIDENT AND CHANCELLOR, IVY TECH 

STATE COLLEGE, FORT WAYNE, INDIANA........................................................................ 26 

STATEMENT OF TIM HOLCOMB, VOCATIONAL COORDINATOR, FOUR COUNTY 

AREA VOCATIONAL COOPERATIVE, GARRETT, INDIANA............................................ 28 

STATEMENT OF RON FLICKINGER, AREA 14 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

COORDINATOR, ANTHIS CAREER CENTER, FORT WAYNE, INDIANA ........................ 29 

STATEMENT OF DICK BOYD, DIRECTOR, EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, DEKALB 

COUNTY CENTRAL UNITED SCHOOL DISTRICT, WATERLOO, INDIANA................... 31 

APPENDIX A -- WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. 

“BUCK” MCKEON, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. ........................................................................... 43 
iv

APPENDIX B -- WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE MARK E. 

SOUDER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, D.C................................................................................................................... 47 

APPENDIX C -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF DR. EARL BROOKS, PRESIDENT, TRISTATE UNIVERSITY, ANGOLA, INDIANA........................................................................... 51 

APPENDIX D -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF STEVE GRILL, PRINCIPAL, ANGOLA 

HIGH SCHOOL, ANGOLA, INDIANA ..................................................................................... 65 

APPENDIX E --WRITTEN STATEMENT OF CRAIG ADOLPH, ECONOMIC 

DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNITY RESOURCE OFFICER, COLE FOUNDATION AND 

PLASTICS TECHNOLOGY CENTER, ANGOLA, INDIANA ................................................. 73 

APPENDIX F -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF TRAVIS KENZ, FORMER STUDENT, 

PLASTIC TECHNOLOGY CENTER, ANGOLA, INDIANA ................................................... 81 

APPENDIX G -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF STEVE CORONA, PRESIDENT, 

JOBWORKS, FORT WAYNE, INDIANA.................................................................................. 87 

APPENDIX H -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF JON L. RUPRIGHT, VICE PRESIDENT AND 

CHANCELLOR, IVY TECH STATE COLLEGE, FORT WAYNE, INDIANA ....................... 97 

APPENDIX I -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF TIM HOLCOMB, VOCATIONAL 

COORDINATOR, FOUR COUNTY AREA VOCATIONAL COOPERATIVE, GARRETT, 

INDIANA ................................................................................................................................... 105 

APPENDIX J -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF RON FLICKINGER, AREA 14 VOCATIONAL 

EDUCATION COORDINATOR, ANTHIS CAREER CENTER, FORT WAYNE, INDIANA

.................................................................................................................................................... 109 

APPENDIX K -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF DICK BOYD, DIRECTOR, EDUCATIONAL 

TECHNOLOGY, DEKALB COUNTY CENTRAL UNITED SCHOOL DISTRICT, 

WATERLOO, INDIANA........................................................................................................... 127

TABLE OF INDEXES ............................................................................................................... 140
1

HEARING ON 

EDUCATION AND JOB TRAINING: 

PREPARING FOR THE 21ST CENTURY 

WORKFORCE

__________________________________________

FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2002 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:16 a.m., at Angola High School, 755 South 

100 East, Angola, Indiana, Hon. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon [chairman of the subcommittee] 

presiding.

 Present: Representatives McKeon and Souder. 

 Staff Present: Whitney Rhoades, Professional Staff Member. 

Chairman McKeon. The quorum being present, the subcommittee on 21st Century 

Competitiveness will come to order. 

 We are meeting here today to hear testimony on preparing the workforce for the 21st 

century. First of all I would like to apologize for being late. This administration is really trying to 

be on time, but I'm not used to the snow, I guess. Southern California. 

 I would like to thank Angola High School for hosting this hearing today. I'm pleased to be 

here and I appreciate your hospitality. I'm eager to hear from our witnesses. But before I begin, I 

ask the unanimous consent the hearing record remain open 14 days to allow member statements 

and other extraneous material referenced during the hearing to be submitted in the official hearing 

record. Without objection, so ordered. 
2

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. “BUCK” MCKEON, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE 

ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Chairman McKeon. I especially want to thank Mr. Souder for hosting his congressional district 

today. I have a brief statement, and then we'll yield to Mr. Souder for his statement. 

 Good morning. I would like to welcome all of our guests and witnesses to the 21 Century 

Competitive Subcommittee Hearing on Education, Job Training, Preparing for the 21 Century 

Workforce. We want to thank you all for attending here today. 

 I would especially like to thank Congressman Souder for requesting that we hold this 

hearing in order to learn more about successful technical education programs and successful job 

training programs here in Northeastern Indiana. It is my first time here. I arrived last night after 

the sun went down and I didn't get to see a lot of it. However, I have seen some beautiful things 

this morning. 

Mr. Souder is a vital and involved member of our subcommittee since his election in '94. 

We have worked together on this subcommittee and I have really valued his insights and 

leadership. He knows I have always gone to him when we have important matters to discuss 

because I really value his wisdom and his understanding of the issues. He has been very reliable in 

passing important legislation in the subcommittee and the full committee. You are to be 

commended on having such a great representative here in your district. 

 The purpose of this hearing is to discover how vocational and technical education and job 

training work together to better prepare workers for the 21st century workforce and to learn about 

successful educational and job training activities and initiatives taking place here in Indiana. Our 

witnesses today will share with us their knowledge about the role that local vocational-technical 

education and job training programs have played in better preparing Indiana workers to meet the 

challenges of the emerging new economy. 

 The main federal law that authorizes and funds many vocational and technical education 

programs is the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Law and Technical Education Act of 1998. The 

Perkins Act currently funded at $1.18 billion provides federal assistance for secondary and 

postsecondary vocational education. In the last authorization of the act in 1998, students were held 

to higher standards in both their technical skills and academic skills. 

 We all agree that technology skills are the key to a successful future. To maximize these 

skills, students must have strong academic skills to support the technology skills. To accomplish 

this, the act strengthens the academic components of vocational-technical education by asking 

states and local school districts to describe in their state and local applications how they plan to 

improve the academic and technical skills of students participating in vocational-technical 

education.
3

 The act also requires that states describe how vocational-technical education students will 

be taught the same challenging academic proficiencies as all other students. With an increased 

emphasis on academics and technology, vocational education students will be better prepared for 

extended educational and employment opportunities. 

 In my congressional district back in California our local community college, the College of 

Canyons, has been a leader in the vocational education arena and has made a concerted effort to 

train workers for the various companies in the local industrial center. If the companies say, for 

example, that they need workers who are proficient and work a particular machine, then COC will 

train workers for them. 

 I think it's vitally important we continue to highlight these successful endeavors. We must 

also seek public input from the secondary schools, community colleges and adult education on 

what the federal role is in closing the achievement gap between low- and high-income students and 

that we explore what works in high schools, adult education programs and community colleges to 

increase graduation rates, decrease dropouts and work toward successful employment. 

 In addition, in 1998 Congress passed the Workforce Investment Act to integrate the nation's 

job training system that formerly was fragmented, contained overlapping programs and did not 

serve either job seekers or employers well. 

 WIA seeks to integrate employment, education and training services at the local level in a 

more unified workforce development system. The system operates through one-stop career centers 

at which numerous programs must make their services available. The one-stop centers are local 

centers that offer job preparation and placement services to job seekers and opportunities for 

employers to find workers. The 17 mandatory partners include vocational education, veterans' 

employment and training, welfare to work and Wagner-Peyser employment services, vocational 

rehabilitation, unemployment insurance, trade adjustment assistance and adult education just to 

name a few. In addition, direct WIA services also provided to dislocated worker, adults who are 

mostly low-income individuals seeking better employment, and youth. WIA services for workers 

include core services such as successful job listings and assistance with job search, intensive 

services such as one-on-one career counseling and skills assistance and job training. WIA also 

provides rapid response employment services for workers who are laid off. 

 WIA also created a stronger role for the private sector in the workforce system. Local 

workforce investment boards, which are required to have a majority of their members representing 

business, direct all WIA activities. 

 I just got word yesterday that the President had in his budget cut WIA, but now in the 

supplemental that he sent to us, he has replaced the money and put in an increase, which is great 

because when we are in a recession it's not time to cut back these kind of services. We need to 

have more opportunities for people to find jobs and improve in their current jobs. 

Again I want to thank Congressman Souder for his desire to host this hearing on these 

issues and thank the witnesses for testifying before this subcommittee here today. And I would 

now turn the time over to Congressman Souder for his opening statement. 
4

WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. “BUCK” MCKEON, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – SEE APPENDIX A 

OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE MARK E. SOUDER, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE 

ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. Souder. First I would like to thank the chairman for coming in to Northeast Indiana, staying 

at the beautiful Potawatomi Inn on Lake James last night to at least this morning. 

 Congressman McKeon has been the leader in all of the workforce development job training, 

vocational education issues since the Republicans became a majority and has been very concerned 

as I have, and we have talked numerous times that now is not the time to reduce spending in the job 

training side. So I'm glad to hear the President is addressing that and the emergency is clear. We 

are going to have to address it one way or another because it's one of the proudest achievements of 

the Republican Congress is how we have remembered these programs. And the last thing we want 

to do is try to streamline and make them more efficient, to cut them back in a time we are 

struggling economically. So I thank him for his leadership and persistence and willingness to come 

here.

 We do occasional field hearings as well as in Washington. It's good to see the 

comprehensive nature of the interaction with the programs. I believe that here in Steuben County I 

have talked with Assistant Secretary D'Mico and others because I believe this is an unusual 

integration of wall-to-wall programs here in this county, particularly for a small-size county. 

 And a number of the people we have here today testifying come from Fort Wayne and 

larger communities as well. But this is an unusual integration of programs that individuals and 

communities do not think of their job training programs based on how we in government have our 

subcommittee assignments and what is authorized and what is appropriated. What they think is we 

have people who need training and to try to see the type of integration we have done and then see 

how it's actually implemented here at the grassroots level between labor department, education 

department and others. 

 At the Angola Plastics Technology Center we have seen a comprehensive approach. I think 

the secretary of education and the secretary of labor realize that there needs to be more integration 

between the different programs. We're going to hear some of that today. 

 On the first panel we have representatives from the unique vocational education and job 

training system focusing here in Steuben County. Tri-State has developed an impressive 

partnership with Angola High School to provide advanced technology training for students.

Students can earn college credit for joint courses as they prepare themselves for careers in 

technology. I think that Dr. Earl Brooks, President of Tri-State, is here as well as Mr. Steve Grill, 
5

the principal of Angola High School, the witnesses from these institutions. And Tri-State through 

the enthusiastic and talented leadership of Dr. Brooks has plans that we are working with and 

hopefully we can get additional funding for the technology center and other advancements as this 

premier long-time engineering business school advances and leads the way here. Steuben County 

is at the intersection, and you could see last night, of I-69, which is the primary way through 

Indiana from Michigan south and the Indiana Toll Road that is 80 and 90 connecting to the eastwest systems of the United States. 

 That plus the natural lake system has been a strong growth area and has tremendous 

potential for future growth both for soft technology in addition to the kind of manufacturing base 

we have. So these two institutions have been a leader. 

Mr. Craig Adolph and Mr. Travis Kenz are here from the Angola Plastics Technology 

Center. The center received a $514,000 grant from the Department of Labor to train 1000 workers 

including 900 in the plastics industry and 100 displaced from other fields with 100 plastics firms 

within a 30-mile radius of the center. The Angola facility will train employees to meet the needs of 

the community and help keep a viable workforce here in Steuben County. 

 On our second panel we're going to take a broader look at vocational education and job 

training at Northeast Indiana. We'll hear from Mr. Steve Corona, President of JobWorks out of 

Fort Wayne, Indiana. I think that Steve was here when the first plant moved into Northeast Indiana 

around 1850. 

 Steve is the most experienced person in job training. He is also on the Fort Wayne School 

Board and has seen the plant role here, the Plastics Technology Center and Steve is our expert 

because of his longevity and persistence. Many people tire and he has not tired and I appreciate his 

leadership.

 We also have Mr. Tim Holcomb with the Four County Vocational Cooperative and Mr. Ron 

Flickinger with the Anthis Career Center in Fort Wayne. Mr. Holcomb represents Vocational 

Education programs in Lagrange, DeKalb, Steuben and Nobel County as the four northern, 

northeast counties in the State of Indiana. And Mr. Flickinger represents Area 14 Vocational 

Program. They will highlight the successes they have seen. 

 Finally we have Mr. Dick Boyd, the director of Central United High School District. In 

November of 2000 a 1.75 million dollar grant was awarded to Northeast Indiana to train workers in 

computer networking. Mr. Boyd has been involved in training students with this grant money. We 

expect to hear from these witnesses how they've been successful in preparing people for work.

Through both vocational education, job training and an innovative combination of the two, 

communities can help train workers to keep businesses in this area. 

 We not only have to recruit new businesses, but we need to upgrade and keep our current 

businesses at the technological cutting edge. I would like to thank the witnesses for taking time to 

testify before our subcommittee, both for their insights and what works in training the 21st century 

workforce and what the Congress needs to do to further improve and refine the programs. I thank 

the chairman again for coming and look forward to the testimony today. 
6

WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE MARK E. SOUDER, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – SEE APPENDIX B 

Chairman McKeon. Thank you. 

 We will hear first this from Mr. Earl Brooks. Dr. Brooks is president, as Mr. Souder said, 

of Tri-State University of Angola, Indiana. He previously served as the Executive Vice President 

of Wesley College, in Dover, Delaware and Senior Vice President at Lincoln University in 

Harrogate, Tennessee. Dr. Brooks is a graduate of the University of Tennessee where he earned his 

master's and doctorate degrees. 

 Talking about all these universities I want to congratulate you on last night. I confess I had 

Duke. But I am sure I wasn't alone in Indiana. Did a great job. And that was a fantastic game. I 

got to see the highlights after the game, but you are to be commended for a tremendous job. I am 

now for Indiana to go all the way, except for Kansas. 

 Next we'll hear from Mr. Craig Adolph. Mr. Adolph is the economic development 

community resource officer of the ELOC Foundation Plastics Technology Center in Angola, 

Indiana. Prior to this position he served as chief executive officer of venture capital funding 

Breeden YMCA and was an Indiana State Trooper for 17 years. 

 Then we'll hear from Mr. Steve Grill, principal of Angola High School in Angola, Indiana, 

our host here. He has served as assistant principal, teacher and coach at several Indiana high 

schools for over 30 years. Mr. Grill earned a bachelor's degree from Manchester College and a 

master's degree in secondary education from Indiana University. 

 And finally we will hear from Mr. Travis Kenz. Is that how you pronounce that? 

Mr. Kenz. Yes. 

Chairman McKeon. Mr. Kenz is a former student of the Plastics Technology Center Program in 

Angola, Indiana. 

 And in Washington we have these fancy little lights that come on, and a green light comes 

on and tells you that you have five minutes. And when it gets down to one minute left, a yellow 

light comes on. When your time is up, that trap door opens. I don't think we have those here. I 

believe Whitney is going to hold up something to tell you when your time is getting close to the 

end.

 But we will insert your full statements in the record. And anything else that you care to 

add, as I mentioned earlier we will keep the record open. So the time is now yours, Dr. Brooks. 
7

STATEMENT OF DR. EARL BROOKS, PRESIDENT, TRI-STATE 

UNIVERSITY, ANGOLA, INDIANA 

Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Souder. First of all, let me say thank 

you for being here this morning and allowing us the opportunity to testify at this hearing. Mr. 

Chairman, particularly you. We welcome you to Indiana on such a fine, spring day. So we are 

glad to have you with us. 

 It is my pleasure to share with you some of the partnerships and collaborations that are 

going on not only locally but also throughout Northeast Indiana. To give you a brief background, 

Tri-State University is an institution I would say that is entirely devoted to people. It has a 118-

year history of providing a quality higher education for students of a limited income, an institution 

whose faculty and staff conduct meaningful public service, and certainly an institution that reaches 

well beyond its campus boundary to promote the region's development. And it's much of that this 

morning that we would like to share with you. 

 Our total campus enrollment is 1475 students. Of those, 1250 are on the main campus here 

in Angola. We do have a non-traditional student population of 350 students, which is equal to 

about 24 percent of our overall enrollment at Tri-State University. As an intuition we have about a 

48 million dollar impact in Northeast Indiana and the local economy. That's very significant not 

only in Steuben County but for the entire Northeast Indiana area. 

 Our programs are primarily promoted towards professional development in engineering, 

business and education. As Congressman Souder mentioned, we do have a movement afoot to 

move into technology centers and I'll address some of them. 

 Before I get into that, I would like to talk a little bit about our program with the Angola 

High School, which we defined as the Tri-State University Middle College Partnership with 

Angola High School. It's been a six- or seven-year partnership that again allows us to bring 

students from the high school to our campus for half a day of classes, also partnering with local 

businesses and corporations in conducting internships. We are looking to expand that beyond what 

we have done here at the high school to more of a county and Northeast Indiana basis. We do have 

some funding considerations and proposals out to help us expand that. I would say that all of those 

courses do carry dual credit options. So it gives the students an opportunity to have an advanced 

leg up on their higher education. 

 We also are looking at a number of first generation college students on our campus, and we 

are serving a number of first generation college students with the middle college program as well. 

 There are four core courses that they take here. We do have a scholarship component 

available which provides courses to high school students at a 50-percent discount. And certainly 

we think that has been very encouraging and certainly has contributed to the success that we have 

had over this in the last seven years. 

 Also as you are well aware in Northeast Indiana, Northwestern Ohio, Southern Michigan 

we serve a top manufacturing area related to automotive and various other constituencies. By us 
8

providing a high number of top quality graduates in engineering, and sciences and technology, we 

have a significant number of alumni that is connected to that region. 

 So the next partnership I would share with you is one that has developed over the last two 

years. It's a partnership with the local Plastics Technology Center here in town. That partnership is 

a result, and I'm sure Mr. Adolph will talk more about it, of again more regional work. But it's an 

effort where we share our resources to integrate with workforce training, retraining, and as well as 

conferencing. But we also to take it from a basic skills level on into higher education. As a result 

of the work with them, we have expanded some of our programs into associate degree programs in 

the plastics area and some in engineering. 

 We think there is a three-fold effect here in what is occurring in that we are taking students 

from the high school level into middle college concept, getting them started early. We are also 

taking employment and workforce and working with plastics and then we are bringing those folks 

in, doing some retraining there. So we are taking it from basic skills, vocational, high school level 

and also hopefully turning some of those folks on to higher education in the process, but certainly 

contributing our resources and knowledge base to expand those offerings. 

 As the congressman mentioned, a lot of our efforts now are centered to support that. With 

the core technology center, that would be a major component of our campus. In addition to those 

things I mentioned with regard to workforce training, it also would assist us in serving the 

engineers in the technology base for our curricular activities on the campus. That turns out to be an 

11 million dollar project that is a part of our new capital campaign. We roughly have a third of 

those dollars committed or in ask points at this point that we hope to move forward with. 

 So the partnership I think between Tri-State University, Angola High School and the Plastic 

Technology provides us an opportunity to maximize the strength and build on the resources of each 

institution. Rather than us trying to be in a fragmented approach and do our own things 

independently, we are able to share the resources of our laboratory, our equipment, our 

technologies, our classroom, our space, our library and our faculty. And I truly believe what is 

occurring here in this collaborative effort is a model that serves all of higher education very well, 

that of vocational basic skills as well as that of high school students and particularly students that 

attend Tri-State University. 

 Again we thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning and have an opportunity to 

share with you what has taken place in Steuben County in the Angola area. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF DR. EARL BROOKS, PRESIDENT, TRI-STATE UNIVERSITY, 

ANGOLA, INDIANA – SEE APPENDIX C 

Chairman McKeon. Thank you very much. Mr. Grill. 
9

STATEMENT OF STEVE GRILL, PRINCIPAL, ANGOLA HIGH SCHOOL, 

ANGOLA, INDIANA 

Mr. Grill. Welcome, Chairman McKeon and Congressman Souder, to Angola High School and 

the Metropolitan School District of Steuben County. It is a privilege for us to host you here today 

and to share with you some of the experiences that we have been very fortunate to have in this 

community.

 I am speaking on behalf of the school board when I welcome you, and our superintendent 

Dr. David Goodwin, our assistant superintendent and former principal Dr. Rex Bolinger who 

shared a lot of expertise in developing this testimony and has had a great deal to do with the 

leadership and the initiatives that we have followed. And we have others in attendance, Dr. 

Studebaker and members of faculty and staff, are very important in the work that we do. 

 We have been very fortunate to receive a number of honors and I even brought some visuals 

along that I will share so the audience can participate a little bit. 

 Along with the potential testimony, I have submitted a statistical report that we produce 

annually. As you can see we report every year about the data that we have been able to collect on 

the progress our students are making. Also there are some flyers on the, some of the collaborative 

efforts that we have developed for the community. 

 We have been very fortunate to receive several honors along the way and including two 

years ago being designated by the US Department of Education as a New American High School, 

being nominated as a Blue Ribbon School in the state of Indiana and a National School Work 

Model that was awarded to us by the University of Minnesota whose Big Ten team is no longer in 

the tournament along with most of the others. And to tell you the truth, the development of my 

presentation today was halted somewhere along the line in the evening when I got caught up in 

Hoosier hysteria like everybody else in the state, I think. So we are very proud of what happened 

yesterday and wish them well. 

 But just to give you a little bit of background of some of our experiences, we could not have 

been named a New American High School or a number of the other awards if it hadn't been for the 

partnerships that we have with our community, Dr. Brooks representing Tri-State University, Mr. 

Holcomb with the Vocational Cooperative in this area, our many business and professional people 

in the community who share with us Breeden YMCA and Learning Center, the Plastics Technology 

Program Mr. Adolph will be talking about, and above all, the hard work of our students and staff. 

Our faculty comes committed every day to achieving the mission that we say we have which is to 

help every student be successful. I really believe we do that. 

 We began studying research in best practice in a number of areas. Our corporation has had 

a real commitment to studying data and using that in empowering staff development and things of 

that nature. We came to the conclusion at Angola High School that at some point restructuring 
10

might allow us more flexibility, and we feel like it has. 

 We adopted in 1995 a four-by-four block structure in our schools; 90-minute class periods 

in which we believe we can delve more intensively into studies and help our students become more 

successful in meeting and exceeding standards. 

 One of the things we also looked at is how you expand the curriculum. And we began 

looking around our community at important skills and things of that nature that we needed to serve 

our community. 

 And we realized that schools and jobs require similar skills. And so our development led us 

to a number of partnerships as we expand in our community. I notice on here typical vocational 

offerings. Dr. Brooks has talked about our school/college connection. We have the community 

learning center concept with our Y and with our Plastic Technologies Center.

 I want to talk just briefly about workplace orientation and workplace participation, some 

things that we have developed that are kind of unique here, I think. For one thing we get some real 

good support to help us financially at workplace orientation because that's for students who don't 

have transportation. I see Mr. Carl Swift here representing Ivy Tech State College and tech prep 

initiatives. He has been very helpful in that regard. But regarding just a number of things that have 

culminated with internships and things of that nature. 

 I brought a brief description of what workplace participation is like. I have many other 

things that I would like to share with you, however my time is fast fleeting because I got my signal 

a moment ago. But let me show you that we do have data that supports the kind of work that we 

have done. And of course I included many aspects of that in our annual statistical report. 

 But one of the things we have done is study everything related to career education and look 

at two different categories. Our grade point improvement for all of our seniors during their high 

school experience once they became involved in one of our career options, our attendance 

improvement once they became involved after the freshman or sophomore year in those kind of 

options and the statistical report will highlight numerous other data. 

 Let me say this again in closing. Dr. Bolinger was privileged to be a part of a commission 

on the senior year that was developed by the US Department of Education and that made a report 

last year. In it they reported on several things: the AAA concept: Alignment of the curriculum; P, 

meaning pre-K through year 16 as opposed to thinking about a high school as being four years, be 

totally controlled within this building; achievement, high standards, and the highest level possible, 

college prep type curriculum. We hope some day that will become the default curriculum at the 

high school level. That is one of our goals, alternatives and expanded experience of the career 

pathways and all the connections that we are talking about today, opportunities to learn in our 

community.

 In a few extra minutes here I have been able to share with you what I enjoy being a part of 

every day and have been for a number of years. One of our students said, "Boy, in just a few weeks 

I'm finally going to graduate. And I will be out of school." And he was talking about the senior 
11

year, which we sometimes look forward to seeing the end so we can move on. And I said, "You 

know, I have now been in school for almost 50 years. I'm not sure when I'll get out or if I even 

want to yet." 

 So thank you again. We are privileged to host you here and we wish you the best in your 

work.

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF STEVE GRILL, PRINCIPAL, ANGOLA HIGH SCHOOL, 

ANGOLA, INDIANA – SEE APPENDIX D 

Chairman McKeon. Thank you very much. 

 Those slides we didn't get to see, will they all be in the record so we can get a copy of that? 

Mr. Grill. They are in the statistical report I have submitted. 

Chairman McKeon. Thank you. Mr. Adolph. 

STATEMENT OF CRAIG ADOLPH, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND 

COMMUNITY RESOURCE OFFICER, COLE FOUNDATION AND 

PLASTICS TECHNOLOGY CENTER, ANGOLA, INDIANA

Mr. Adolph. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning Mr. Chairman and Mr. Souder. Thank 

you for allowing me to be before the subcommittee this morning. At the outset I would like to say 

a hearty thank you to Mr. Souder. He has been a leader in Congress and done a fine job for us in 

bringing all the abilities that we have here today. 

 My purpose today is to focus on the development of the Plastics Training Center and how it 

meets the community needs and how it retrains our current workforce for the 21st century. We 

appreciate the support that Congress has given our project through the United States Department of 

Agricultural, Indiana Workforce Development, the Carl V. Perkins Act and the US Department of 

Labor.

 We have been very fortunate to have several grants given to us through our due diligence, 

and we have been allowed to train over 375 students and adults and the last 17 months. 

 The Plastics Technologies Center and Steuben Cisco Academy are both a 501c3 non-profit 

system run by the ELOC Foundation. The facility the systems are in were completed and occupied 

in October of 2000 and the purpose of the center as we said before is to provide affordable 

education for people at all levels and technology training we need to move forward. The facility 

consists of four classrooms, 6000 square foot laboratory and processing room. The four classrooms 

are all fitted with computer systems and have had Paulson Software that the company in 

Connecticut completely donated to our Plastics Technology Center with all other future updates. 
12

So we have the most updated software in the country for our plastics processing companies. 

 The other program we started is very successful Steuben County Cisco Academy. We were 

the only two counties, LaGrange and Steuben County that were not represented. So we saw a need 

and started that program for the last school year. We have also started the new Microsoft MOUS 

program that the entire office sweeps or the administrative offices for all these companies, for their 

administrative assistants to go through the training. 

 When we started the Cisco program, we hoped that opportunity would be a part of the 

plastics center also. With our federal grant that we have landed with the help of Steve Corona for 

the $514,000, we felt we have transcended several different boundaries of state lines which are 

invisible to us by bringing in Ohio workforce, Michigan workforce and as well as Indiana 

workforce.

 And in our partnership with this federal grant, we gave people the opportunity to become 

educated in plastics-related manufacturing, and the technological innovations will keep us moving 

in the digital world. 

 The partnership with Tri-State University is twofold. They allow us to have college credits 

not only for our high school students in the vocational program of plastics but also Cisco. But we 

have children who are in there as juniors who come back as seniors who take elevated levels of A 

Plus and other programs involved in technology as well as plastics and have college credit while 

they are still in high school. 

 The associate's degree program is very attainable for our students. Dr. Brooks has made it 

such as part of the college program. 

 Our Cisco Academy has gone through a different level. We now know that in the United 

States of America we use tangible results to measure success. Our students have a zero dropout 

rate for Cisco Academy. We have some of the highest average test scores of any program in the 

State of Indiana and we have also met two separate goals already in our program. One of going to 

the vocational trades programs, building trades where homes are being built by other vocational 

students. Our Cisco students are now running the wire for the PV, for the phone systems and for 

digital community systems within these new homes. 

 A self-induced economic development picture, our students are now helping build homes, 

wire homes and bringing us into the new technology where people are coming into our community 

for the jobs. They find the homes already connected. Our kids are making our economy better. 

 Our Cisco program is also going to a new level. They will be contacting the Habitat for 

Humanity program and will start wiring all Habitat for Humanity homes for the very same things 

they are doing for the building and trades and now gives all socioeconomic levels the chance and 

opportunity for all levels of students from kindergarten through 12 that opportunity for the digital 

world. We are very pleased with our progress. We still have a long way to go. But we are 

reaching out that if we successfully train one student who gets a job, we have done what we set out 
13

to do. 

 We would like to thank you for allowing our testimony today, to come to our community 

and also to give you an opportunity to ask us questions. Our due diligence we need to work on to 

be very critical of our efforts to where we can go to the next level. Thank you very much. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF CRAIG ADOLPH, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND 

COMMUNITY RESOURCE OFFICER, COLE FOUNDATION AND PLASTICS 

TECHNOLOGY CENTER, ANGOLA, INDIANA – SEE APPENDIX E

Chairman McKeon. Thank you. Mr. Kenz. 

STATEMENT OF TRAVIS KENZ, FORMER STUDENT, PLASTIC 

TECHNOLOGY CENTER, ANGOLA, INDIANA 

Mr. Kenz. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. I'm pleased to be here 

to testify this morning before the subcommittee. My name is Travis Kenz. I'm a former student of 

the Plastics Technology Center, the Plastics Program. I graduated 2001 from Hamilton High 

School in Hamilton. My purpose today is to request the subcommittee to aid in its expansion 

center. It's my opinion expanding the center will benefit the public for education. At the center the 

student also learns how the machine works, maintenance basics, plastics process. 

 As a prior student enrolled in the Plastics Technology Center, I have learned how to 

recognize the difference between the different types of plastics. I have also learned how to set up 

injection mold machines and how to keep it running. The knowledge and experience I have 

obtained through the Plastic Technology Center has allowed me to obtain a job straight out of high 

school to work in the plastics factory as a mold technician. 

 After I was in the factory, even though we did not get hands-on experience with some of the 

stuff that was in the factory, it became pretty easy because I had learned most of it on the software 

that we had there. 

 At the job I got started out making 12.40 an hour that I thought was pretty good out of high 

school. Although I was only employed there for three months, I felt it was not impossible if it was 

not for the center. The reason I was employed there for three months is because of an injury I 

obtained in a car accident and I was discharged while on medical leave. 

 At the center I believe improvements could be made in the areas of more machinery and 

more variety of machines. I also believe that another teacher along with the ones we have right 

now would be beneficial so one teacher could focus on more areas than the other. 

Thank you. 
14

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF TRAVIS KENZ, FORMER STUDENT, PLASTIC 

TECHNOLOGY CENTER, ANGOLA, INDIANA – SEE APPENDIX F 

Chairman McKeon. Thank you very much. 

 Are you okay now? 

 What is the population here in Angola? 

Mr. Grill. As far as the city is concerned? 

Chairman McKeon. No. The population of the Town of Angola, the City of Angola. 

Mr. Grill. Steuben County has about 30,000 residents throughout the county. And there are in 

terms of high school organization, four different high schools that serve some or all of the county. 

The city's population probably is approaching 10,000 I would guess. Our mayor is in the audience. 

Mayor, correct me if I'm wrong. 

Mr. Souder. I think he left. He was here just a little bit ago. 

Mr. Grill. That's a pretty good estimate. 

Chairman McKeon. So about 30,000 in the county and 10,000 in the city. 

Mr. Grill. Close to. 

Chairman McKeon. Wow. 

 And what is the population of the school, high school? 

Mr. Grill. We have 873 students we started this school year. And it is growing. We have grown 

150 students in the last ten years. A little more probably. But it is a manageable growth. 

Chairman McKeon. I was on a high school board in our community for nine years. At the time 

we had three high schools. We now have four and we are building a new one. It's a rapidly 

growing part of the county, a city of about 150,000. And not one of them had a facility like this. 

This is really nice. You are fortunate to have this kind of a facility. 

Mr. Grill. We are very appreciative of that. It's a demonstration of the kind of support that the 

community has for something they feel is important, education of our youth. 

Chairman McKeon. How old is the school? 
15

Mr. Grill. We have completed 12 years in this building. And I still call it the new high school. 

And we want to keep it that way. We appreciate it. 

Chairman McKeon. It looks new. That's great. 

Mr. Grill. Thank you. 

Chairman McKeon. Did I understand I think in the opening statement you mentioned 30 plastic 

businesses within this area? 

Mr. Adolph. Yes, sir. 

Chairman McKeon. About how many employees work in those 30 businesses? 

Mr. Adolph. I would venture to say probably the plastics companies here are in the average of 

about 50 to 100 employees apiece, and in our entire tri-state region there is a little over 100 plastics 

processors within about a two-and-a-half hour radius of this community. 

Chairman McKeon. Did one company start and then others came? 

Mr. Adolph. General Motors, Chrysler and Ford, all are within two hours of a circle of our entire 

environment. And anywhere from General Motors moving to Fort Wayne, like they have with the 

big truck and bus plant, to the expansion of some of the plastics industry programs outside of 

Willow Run, they all came here in the '70s when Michigan was raising taxes and Indiana was 

reigning well, and away they came. That's how we started the plastics. 

Chairman McKeon. That's great. 

 So in this partnership to train, you have the university, the high school and business all 

working together. And you apply together for the grants that you have received. How many 

people did you say you trained? 

Mr. Adolph. 375 in the last 17 months. 

Mr. Grill. Of all ages. 

Mr. Adolph. All ages. High school, all the way up to workers who have lost their jobs. I believe 

some of them are in their late 40s, early 50s. 

Chairman McKeon. So you have been able to retrain people from other fields into, in that 

training process to get them a job in the plastics business. 

Mr. Adolph. Yes, sir, that's what part of the program, is for, 100 workers that are displaced, to be 

trained under that federal grant for the plastics environment, yes, sir. 
16

Chairman McKeon. In the voc ed, Mr. Grill, you talked about the students and I forget the exact 

number, but it looked like the ones that were in the process of working along with the education, 

their grades went up?

Mr. Grill. Yes. What we tried to do is study any number of offerings that we have that could be 

considered to have a career orientation to them that would mean experiences outside the classrooms 

in our building. And a part of that is vocational education. 

 We are going to hear some reporting about that later. But that includes building trades.

That includes health occupations. We happen to have a growing class in that area. But it also 

includes our workplace orientation and participation classes. And Mr. Sniadecki who is in here has 

helped develop that. 

 And that's a job shadowing kind of situation for our ninth and tenth graders. It's one hour. 

We bus them to different workplaces that work with us as partners and they develop a curriculum 

for student to be exposed to. For juniors and seniors it's two hours. So a variety of things under 

that umbrella we are looking at. Of course we included in there our partnership with Tri-State 

University because we think it's extremely important to offer the complete spectrum of students the 

opportunities that will help them take that next step after high school. 

Chairman McKeon. So the ninth and tenth graders are just kind of exposed. And then the eleven 

and twelfth, it's more independent and they actually spend time working. 

Mr. Grill. Right. I can describe for instance one type of program. We have some industry here 

that might have a student for nine weeks. We have nine-week terms. And each week they would 

move from one department to another in that industry and we have a mentor who would help them 

understand the kind of education you need, the kind of job opportunities there are, whether it be 

accounting or shipping and receiving or production or management. You know, all those kinds of 

things they get exposure to. We also have a small business rotation, a banking rotation, and 

different banking institutions share in that experience. So there are just a wide variety of 

opportunities.

 We are small enough that if we find someone who has some kind of unique interest, we are 

going to try to plug them into one of our partners in the community. Believe me people have been 

most supportive. 

 It has been more difficult in the last few months because of the economic downturn we 

went through and the fact that industry has had to pay attention to the bottom line and may not be 

able to make quite as much time available to us. But we have still been able to maintain. So we 

really appreciate that from everybody in our community. 

Mr. Adolph. Chairman, a real life experience with this was a student that went through the initial 

program in the workplace participation and decided he wanted to go into accounting. He ended up 

going to Tri-State University and because of his grades was allowed to pretty much go on a full 

ride and got an internship as a freshman out of Tri-State University with the federal government 

and got hired by the federal government as a sophomore at Tri-State University. So it works and it 
17

works very well here. 

Chairman McKeon. Great. In my district we have some very rural areas. I am picking Inyo 

County, which is the second largest county in the state, area-wise, huge. But population of the 

whole county is about 17, 18 thousand and Mono County about the same thing. And then where I 

live at home now, we are cramped. We are moving in to temporary classrooms, just overflowing. 

We passed a bond issue to get more schools built in one county. I met with all the school 

superintendents up there. One of the school superintendents has one school; he's the 

superintendent, the principal, and the bus driver. One superintendent has Eastern Sierra. He has 

500 students over about seven schools. He has a school that was built for 100 kids. He has 60 in it, 

and they are worried about declining enrollment. 

 I just bring that up to show you I heard this was a rural area. And I want you to know there 

are a lot more rural areas and people spread out in our country. Back there is a lot of desert. You 

drive and you see just sagebrush and nothing else for miles and miles. This is all pretty country 

here. I was telling the congressman before we started, I got up this morning and looked out the 

window and there was this beautiful lake. It looked like more water than in my district. I 

understand you have a lot of lakes. 

 This is a beautiful place. I really appreciate what you are doing because this is tremendous. 

People in my area heard about it, you would probably have an influx of people. So I'm not going to 

go home and brag about you. We can't afford to lose any more out of that area. 

Mr. Souder. 

Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. Let me say a couple different things. First that it's good to 

hear that Tri-State is looking at how to bring this to Prairie Heights and Hamilton and Fremont. 

Angola is a cosmopolitan center of a rural area to the degree that in Indiana we are overly 

cosmopolitan. I wouldn't exactly put that on the label. 

 But that it's important to make sure that all students in this county have that opportunity 

because growth is clearly around the intersection of the interstates. But there is a large reservoir of 

hard-working people that can be tapped into and need to have the economic opportunities the rest 

of the county has, too. Angola certainly pioneered the school not only with the awards that Mr. 

Grill talked about. They almost beat my old alma mater in basketball this year in Leo. I couldn't 

resist. 

Mr. Grill. You would have to bring that up. 

Mr. Souder. But they have probably the most extraordinary school violence awareness program 

that I have seen. I talk about it frequently. That at the time right after Columbine when the other 

schools, we were looking at it in the education committee. We had some hearings. We had the 

kids in and the principals from all those schools and we were having in much of the district false 

alarms and so on. That did not happen in Angola, partly because they had been three years before 

that already having peer counseling among the kids here at school, talking, and then when the kids 

group is out, they went to the counselor and then through the system. This is a not only a proud 
18

community, this county is. It used to be that people could bring guns right into school and nobody 

thought about it. They would go hunting afterwards. But there was a way to sort through what is 

safe on school grounds, how things are changing in this community and elsewhere and how to 

avoid the abuse that leads into school violence. And they did a terrific job with that, the computer 

technology; the band here at this high school has won repeated awards. When you strive for 

excellence it's amazing how it spreads through a system. That's one of the commitments and 

bragging on the school I went to, because it is clear that for this size of community, it is an 

extraordinary opportunity. We want to see that spread through the rest of Indiana and examples in 

the rest of the county. 

 I also wanted to illustrate the diversity. My understanding is there are kids from 23 

countries represented, something in that order? 

Mr. Grill. We have a population that is changing. Some of those students would probably be 

students who are exchange students, who are involved in foreign exchange programs as opposed to 

families who have moved in. But certainly over half of those numbers are families that reside here 

now. And we have always had some important additions to our student population because of TriState University's location here and the diversity that that brings. 

 I was fortunate to be asked to work with the Department of Education in Maryland last fall 

for a while in terms of their work on school improvement. They had a number of teams in. So we 

shared the kind of districts they had. And I know that they have bigger problems than we do in 

terms of that, in terms of diversity, and that that's true in other places. But I also said this: That 

they have benefits from that, you know. We are a little bit isolated here, and I'm not sure that that 

is in our best interest either. I think it's important to have that diversity and the influences that can 

be very positive from that. 

Mr. Souder. The chairman's state has been flooded with Mexican-American and Hispanic 

immigrants as well as Asian immigrants. We are seeing rapid growth here without necessarily the 

language training and the intermixing that that challenge presents. But the unusual thing that TriState and possibly Dr. Brooks is talking about this a bit is the Middle Eastern influence that has 

come in. I was told one teacher in Angola could speak Farsi, which, by the way, is more than we 

have in the entire border patrol that protects our country. But the historic contribution Tri-State 

brings is a very diversified population. That makes this unusual as well. As you know business 

engineering is also for the auto, electronics and defense industries. 

Mr. Brooks. We have had as many as 275 students of the international population. It's down 

somewhat here in recent years, but currently I think we're represented by about 17 countries. We 

also mentioned partnerships in the community of what is happening between Tri-State and the high 

school with regard to Steuben County Literacy Counsel. When you speak about the Hispanic 

population influx, particularly in Northeast Indiana, that's certainly a strong component that the 

university is working with, too, as part of a partnership to serve again another need in the 

population here. 

Mr. Souder. The chairman is also very active in the armed services area. Because of our 

electronics cluster and plastics also related to truck and auto we have also been in the origination 
19

out of Magnet Wire out of Fort Wayne which led to a lot of electronic industry. This area is the 

largest defense contracting area in Indiana because of ITT Aerospace; Raytheon used to be and 

multiple other companies such as USSI, Moelmer who originated the handheld calculator. Mostly 

classified electronics. And that has an engineering base in this region that even though we have a 

lot of our manufacturing base, big challenge we have in job training is that we may not in the future 

have as many eight to ten dollar, twelve dollar jobs, but the engineering centers to the degree we 

can keep upgraded as to how to do the plastics technology, how to do the radio technology, and 

wiring.

 There are a lot of specialty skills that we could still dominate because of the nature of the 

region in the cluster manufacturing. The goal of this type of integration is to figure out like 

Michael Porter's cluster theory. The chairman and I are both unusual because we are both business 

guys in Congress; both came out of retail business. I want to make sure we have those charts 

because the one he and I could relate to very strongly was one of the attributes of school and 

attributes of work because almost every businessman who knows the job training knows you need 

the technical skills. But many of the skills you have up there are really the toughest things to teach.

Every successful job-training program I have seen in this country has fundamental questions like 

do you show up to work on time? How do you respond? And I'd like to hear both comments on 

that chart and maybe Dr. Brooks has any comments on how we can also continue to develop this 

region of the state in the coming age. 

Mr. Grill. One thing I might relate is that several years ago and we may have some staff numbers 

out here that remember that. One of our staff development days, some of our corporation 

schedules several of those, some half days, a couple full days; all of our staff numbers were put on 

school buses, went out to various industrial sites and business sites and listened to supervisors and 

personnel managers talk to us about what they hoped our students would learn. Then we came 

back and shared that. And number one was good attendance, number two was the ability to work 

with others in a productive way. And we sell that every day with our students because that is also 

very important in the classroom. To be as successful as possible, it is extremely important to have 

that positive relationship and to be there. So this is just something I wanted to share. 

Mr. Brooks. One strong component particularly of our engineering, science and technology 

programs that we still pride ourselves in is we have a very strong component still in internships and 

co-op opportunities for the majority of those students. For a lot of those students this becomes a 

fifth year for them. We have a 95-percent placement rate of graduates within six months following 

that. There is a reason for that. It's because of that long history of providing quality, hands-on 

graduates. Those are the folks who are going out in this region and serving the automotive industry 

and the other folks in the region and they come back here for a reason. It's some of those skills and 

training that you are able to integrate as part of their education that expands again beyond the 

traditional classroom setting. And that's certainly going to be a continuing factor for us as we 

continue to send folks out. 

 So what we are looking at doing not only at that level, but I think at the level working with 

the high school and Plastic Center is becoming comprehensive in our efforts at Tri-State. It's 

known while we talk about first generation college students, and Mr. Adolph gave a fine example 

of one a minute ago, coming through the plastic center, then coming through Tri-State but higher 
20

education is not necessarily for everybody. While we are in that business, naturally we are a 

promoter and advocate of that. But also what we do is we have an obligation and service to go well 

beyond that to make sure that educational goals are attainable at whatever level. 

 Again, I think the model that we discuss here of combining all of our evidences, in an 

earlier question you asked about how do we approach in terms of funding opportunities, I think we 

approach together. Because one of the beauties of this collaboration and partnership going on is 

that we are maximizing and utilizing the strengths of each entity and institution here to make us 

more efficient in providing skills and education at all three levels. I think that is really a strength 

and attribute of what we are trying to accomplish here. 

Mr. Adolph. One of the things we need to look at in our projects we have done is we need to be 

very self-critical and reevaluate so we can continue to retool also because technology can get stale.

After 18 months you have no idea what you had yesterday. But the other concept is we need to 

make sure we regionalize our efforts. We start small. Then we start going out. We have already 

done that with a grant that has transcended state lines. Ivy Tech has a two-plus-two program with 

Ball State University and their plastics. Ball State is looking at building a new plastics technology 

center and new incubator. IPFW is looking for an incubator in Fort Wayne. Purdue has their 

incubator. IU has a school of informatics. 

 The world is becoming smaller every day. We need to make sure we form good partners 

through Indiana. Through the broadband opportunities, the program meeting and the Congress is 

promoting well we hope to be on the cutting edge and for other grants with the help of Steve 

Grown (phonetic) and others. We don't worry about the lack of capacity for teachers. We have 

connectivity. 

 So those are some of the areas we can continue to grow. 

Mr. Souder. Thank you. I would like to make this point, which I'm sure we'll have variations of. 

But one of the most innovative things that Indiana did is when we were really struggling in the 

early '80s, and the big joke in Fort Wayne was last one out please turn out the lights, was thenMayor Win Moses working with Steve Corona developed Indiana Northeast Development where 

we actively went out as alluded to earlier. I went out and recruited businesses from the states 

around us. Steuben County was among the most active. In fact at the inn where you stayed last 

night we started there, where we started in with the targeted industries who fit the clusters in other 

states, and we could create and try to have locations and a plane that could fly over and see those 

locations.

 In the Town of Orland, at that time I started working with Dan Cotes on economic 

development. In the town of Orland, seven businesses came in. Little tiny town from Michigan, a 

man said in unemployment comp he could pay for his building in Indiana seven years ago. And we 

use our tax incentives in our hard-working workforce as incentive to bring them in. Fremont here 

in Steuben County had a secondary goal. He had tried to get businesses where they could stay 

invested in the school system and be in the community. 
21

 One of the big challenges we have is that we built much of our replacement growth on 

saying, okay, we are cheaper, and then we are going to try to get people in the local community. 

Now the question is how can we try to continue to keep the technology edge as the world changes 

almost monthly. As you and I heard when we were doing the workforce bill, remember this one 

gentleman from California said one of the problems is he put equipment in there when the things 

are stable and the kids come out of job training and they are not ready. He was talking and I 

remember that hearing, one of the first ones. It was dramatic. The guy said, "Look, they have to be 

prepared for what we are faced with." It's good to hear there is a commitment to you to upgrade 

that. Thank you very much. 

Chairman McKeon. Are you doing anything with distance learning? 

Mr. Adolph. That's what we are doing with broadband on a school connectivity project with TriState and the four school systems here and also looking at a footprint for all nine counties in 

Northeast Indiana. 

Mr. Brooks. We currently have two branch campuses, one in Fort Wayne and one in South Bend 

in search of more non-traditional-based population. We do have our first offerings we started this 

past year with online course offerings and are looking now to expanding our video conferencing 

capabilities on campus. That's really a bigger piece of this middle college concept with the high 

schools, and although Angola is convenient to our campus, that perhaps as we expand this to 

Fremont and Hamilton and Prairie Heights and some of the other campuses in this county, that 

we'll be able to have that video conferencing capability to assist that with us as well. 

Mr. Grill. In terms of distance learning, we have explored that, even become part of it. And until 

we get something developed locally, it's quite expensive for the number of students that can take 

advantage of it. That was our experience. So we just need more exploration, but we're surely 

looking for more opportunities in that area. 

 We are connected, as I know Tri-State is, with the Indiana Higher Education's Television 

System. So we have a number of people, adults who are taking classes with that. We have used it 

at the high school level. We don't currently need it because our staffing is fairly complete. But I 

think there are a lot of opportunities out there in that area. 

Chairman McKeon. Our committee used to be named Postsecondary Education Training and 

Lifelong Learning, which I thought was great, because that's still our message. But this Congress, 

the name was changed a little. We did little changes with the committees. It's now 21st Century 

Competitiveness. But we still have the same mission from the old one, too, because you mentioned 

non-traditional students. As I go around visiting schools, universities, I find the average isn't 18, 19. 

It's 29, 32, and 35. 

 And when we re-authorized the Higher Education Act in '98, one of the things that we 

struggled with was the distance learning because we were trying to free up schools to be creative 

and do things, and there are still people who want to, you know, keep a lid on. And we'll be going 

into that re-authorization again in the next Congress. We'll continue working on that. 
22

 Have you heard of our Fed Up Initiative? 

Mr. Brooks. No, I have not. Just to comment, though, on what you are talking about with nontraditional. I think the average age in our non-traditional program is 27, and most of those are in 

the older working adult population coming back and doing it in an evening or again non-traditional 

type of format. 

Chairman McKeon. When I was in high school the important thing was to get a girlfriend and to 

get a car. Not necessarily in that order. 

Mr. Brooks. That's not changed a whole lot. 

Chairman McKeon. And in those days, you got a car. You could fix it yourself. And if you got 

out of school and you had a car and you had car payments, you had a girlfriend, that lead to 

marriage, and then you maybe went to work in a garage working on the cars. And you could do 

that. Nowadays that option isn't available because if you don't have certain knowledge of math and 

computer skills, you can't work on a car because it's just gotten so much more complicated. So 

education is just so important. 

 And continuing education is important because I think of my grandfather who spent his 

adult whole career working as a custodian in the LA City School District. And he retired and lived 

a couple years and passed away. But people don't spend their entire adult lifetime now living and 

working for one company. They don't work for one field because the companies sell off. They get 

rid of people. Industries change. 

 Right now you know what is big in plastics may be something else five years from now. 

 And as Mr. Adolph mentioned, you have to constantly be looking for the next thing. And 

education is the way that that would happen. And I commend you on what you are working on and 

the things that you are doing. 

Dr. Brooks, if you will go to the web site and look up "Fed up." It's an initiative we are 

working on to cut federal regulation for higher education. And we instituted this program early this 

year. We set up a web site, and we are encouraging the schools to go to the web site. If there is 

any regulation you want to change, you put in the regulation. You just have to fill in the blanks and 

why you want it changed and how you want it changed. And we have had over 3000 responses.

We are moving to make those changes and corrections. Some of them the secretary will be able to 

correct and change. And some will take legislation and we'll have a bill in the next couple of 

months to address a lot of those issues. And some of them are distance learning and some of them 

are just to take the wraps off and let you do your job. 

Mr. Brooks. Sure. 

Chairman McKeon. I appreciate Mr. Adolph opening himself up for criticism, to critique. I 

would not even presume to try to tell you anything. I appreciate your openness for that. But you 

know more what you are doing than we do coming out of Washington or out of California or 
23

somewhere. Drop down here from a plane and tell you how to do a better job than what you are 

doing. No way. 

 But I think it's good to constantly be looking at what you are doing yourself and find ways 

to improve because if we sit around and pat ourselves on the back and say we are doing a great job, 

even though we are, we are not looking for ways to improve. We'll fall behind. So that is very 

important. It's good to keep an open mind and be acceptable of any kind of critique or ways to do 

better. 

 But what we are trying to work on in this committee and in Washington is to get the power 

out to you, get the decision making out to you because you are on the firing line. There is no way 

we can know in Washington how you can do your job better. We just want to make it easier for 

you, better for you so you can do a better job of training your students and your workers so that 

they can do better. And that's how the country is going to get better. 

 Do you have anything? 

 Thank you and we'll let you leave and let the next panel come up. We appreciate your 

comments.

 All set? 

 We'll hear first from Mr. Steve Corona. Are you at that end, Steve? 

Mr. Corona. Yes, sir. 

Chairman McKeon. Mr. Corona is President of JobWorks in Fort Wayne, Indiana. JobWorks 

operates employment and training programs in nine counties. Previously served as president of the 

US Conference of Mayors and Employment and Training Counsel and is a television journalist. 

Mr. Tim Holcomb okay. I'll go to Mr. Rupright first. 

Mr. Rupright is vice president and chancellor of Ivy Tech State College in Fort Wayne, 

Indiana. He served as an instructor in Ionia, Michigan and Fort Wayne Community School System 

and Indiana University. Had a good night. 

 He has also been an executive for several companies including Firestone, International 

Harvester Company, United Technologies and General Electric. Had a busy career. Mr. Rupright 

holds a bachelor's and master's degree from Huntington College and St. Francis College. 

 Then we go to Mr. Tim Holcomb who is the vocational coordinator of the Four County 

Area Vocational Cooperative in Garrett, Indiana. 

 Then we have Mr. Rob Flickinger who is the Area 14 Vocational Education coordinator at 

the Anthis Career Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He has worked as an assistant principal, 

guidance counselor and teacher at the elementary, middle and high school levels for over 30 years. 
24

Congratulations. Mr. Flickinger holds a bachelor's and master's degree in elementary education 

from the University of Montana and Indiana University respectively. 

 Finally Mr. Dick Boyd. Mr. Boyd is the director of education and technology in the 

DeKalb County Central Unified or United District in Waterloo, Indiana and an instructor of 

computer science for Indiana Purdue Universities, Fort Wayne. Previously he served in computer 

applications and computer programming at DeKalb County General United School District. Is 

United School District one that has elementary, high school, all in the same district? 

Mr. Boyd. It's a K through 12 schools. 

Mr. Souder. The reason they call it "United" is it was consolidated. Waterloo and Auburn is 

consolidated.

Chairman McKeon. In California we have unified districts that are K-12. 

Mr. Holcomb. All of our schools are K-12 here. 

Chairman McKeon. K through 12. 

Mr. Corona. Yes. 

Chairman McKeon. We have elementary, high school and unified districts. This is the beauty of 

traveling around the country. You learn there are lots of different ways to do things. That also 

shows the problem of trying to do things one way down in Washington. 

 Neither of us supports that philosophy. We are trying to get the decision making out of 

Washington.

Mr. Boyd holds a bachelor's and master's degree from Central Michigan State and Indiana 

University.

 Okay. First will be Mr. Corona. 

STATEMENT OF STEVE CORONA, PRESIDENT, JOBWORKS, FORT 

WAYNE, INDIANA 

Mr. Corona. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Souder, thank you for this invitation. I know at the 

outset you mentioned your loyalty is to Duke. 

Chairman McKeon. It wasn't really loyalty. I just thought they were going to win. 
25

Mr. Corona. From this side of the stage that beautiful red tie looks like it has the IU insignia on 

it. So I like the tie. 

Chairman McKeon. That's exactly what it was. 

Mr. Corona. Our organization, Mr. Chairman, JobWorks was the organization that wrote the 

grant applications that you are hearing a little bit about, both the labor grant that helped fund the 

activities for plastics training at the center, and then in November of 2000 Congressman Souder 

and I were very happy to announce receipt of a second labor grant for $1,750,000 under the H1B 

Program. So we have used both of those grants to underwrite those activities. The congressman 

knows we are now, will be submitting a third grant to Labor next week, another H1B grant and 

again to focus on skill gaps in our local labor market and this time in health care. 

 In my written testimony I have four suggestions or thoughts for you and your committee 

with respect to the nation's workforce system. But first of all, I wanted to commend you and 

Congressman Souder for both supporting the current workforce system in funding at current FY '02 

appropriation levels. I know that the administration is seeking a reduction of about $655 million in 

our system. And I know awfully well that the security of our country is important, but I would 

submit to you that the economic security of our nation is just as important. If those funding cuts 

are made, it would really undercut our efforts to help a number of people in Northeast Indiana. 

 The administration is also seeking to eliminate the skill training grants paid for by 

employers under the H1B visa program. OMB claimed these training programs are ineffective. I 

would submit to you that they are wrong. I would respectfully disagree with that and ask you to 

gather your own data and draw your own conclusions. We were a recipient of one of those grants, 

as I previously mentioned. I am pleased to announce that we have surpassed our pledge to 

Secretary Chao by 50 percent in the number of people that we are training under that program. 

 I also wanted to give you these four specific points about our workforce system. And they 

are in detail in my written testimony. But the four points are these: Signal an end to the 

philosophy of workforce and replace it with a firm belief in skill training, not only with the 

Workforce Investment Act, but with TANF re-authorization that comes up before Congress in 

perhaps committee this year. 

 Follow the example of one of our friends to the north just a couple of miles from Angola, 

and that's Michigan's Governor John Engler embraced the principle of local decision making by 

providing additional support to workforce boards and local elected officials. You have talked 

about that several times this morning. 

 I would submit to you that local decisions are the best decisions. When the state ran jobtraining programs, they didn't have an office in this county. Our county commissioners and Mayor 

Hickman of Angola wouldn't permit that. If we did not have local school boards and state school 

boards managed education, we would not be sitting in an auditorium of this magnitude. So I would 

again urge you to resist any efforts to undercut the support in the construction of workforce 

investment boards in this country. 
26

 At the very least as we take a look at re-authorization of both TANF and WIA I would urge 

you to grant WIBs the authority to expend TANF employment and training funds. That specific 

pot I think is most important. Governor Engler has done more, but I think that would be a terrific 

start.

 The third issue would be to mandate a more equitable approach to support the operational 

costs of one-stop centers and what I call one-stop freeloading. We have a number of agencies there 

that don't pay their rent or their fair share of expenses. 

 And finally I would ask you to consider putting workforce boards on a diet. Make them 

lean and mean by having them shed a few members. I was talking to my colleague from Lake 

County where the cities of Gary, Hammond and East Chicago are located. Initially they had a 

workforce board with 105 members on it. They have reduced it to 65. But I would submit to you 

that that is still very, very unwieldy. 

 Let me get back to the final issue. And I guess it is this whole concept of local control and 

workforce boards. I think it resonates a broader thing consistent with local communities, and that 

is local control. My wife and I recently refinanced our mortgage on our house, and I deliberately 

chose a lending institution, a credit union that was locally owned and locally managed. And I just 

believe that that concept of local decision-making is very, very important. And I would hate to see 

changes made that would undercut what we now do. I mean, the reason that we are here today I 

think is to talk about workforce boards as the glue that has brought together secondary education, 

postsecondary education, and training for workers, both incumbent workers and dislocated 

workers. And we have done that in a true partnership as Craig Adolph mentioned, not just in 

Indiana. We have been working with five workforce boards in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. So we 

really see workforce boards as the glue and the local managers of a system that we think is very, 

very good. And I appreciate your time. And go Indiana. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF STEVE CORONA, PRESIDENT, JOBWORKS, FORT WAYNE, 

INDIANA – SEE APPENDIX G 

Chairman McKeon. Thank you. Mr. Rupright? 

STATEMENT OF JON L. RUPRIGHT, VICE PRESIDENT AND 

CHANCELLOR, IVY TECH STATE COLLEGE, FORT WAYNE, INDIANA 

Mr. Rupright. I too, Congressman Souder and Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to 

come before you this morning. It's very rare that we get this kind of opportunity and a point that 

we haven't really heard discussed up until this point is the one I want to make right now. And that 

is another statistic. In the numbers that we have indicated, that Northeast Indiana will lose 

approximately 100,000 employees to retirement over the next ten years. In losing those 100,000 
27

employees to retirement over the next ten years, fewer than 30,000 workers will be available to 

replace them. Now, where in the world will the difference come from? That's a major, major 

issue.

 We submit a couple of things. One will be advanced technology that will need to be put in 

place to take up that gap. The other will be retraining. And with those two, we are still going to 

have to scramble to just keep even with the board. 

 Now, in regard to something about the college, Ivy Tech, that's the acronym that we are 

commonly known by, was only started a few years ago. We are very, very young compared to 

postsecondary institutions. We were formed by an act of the general assembly in 1963. We came 

to Fort Wayne and Northeast Indiana in 1968. So we have been here since that time. 

 We offer associate degrees, one-year certificate programs, apprentice programs, and I'm 

going to make another comment about apprentice programs in just a few moments, certification 

programs, full semester courses and continuing education seminars that are held by the college. 

 We have one department that I would like to emphasize, and that is corporate and 

community services. And this is a department that works with business and industry and will go 

out and specifically customize, design training programs to fit their needs and will offer training to 

them onsite if they so desire, or they can come to the campus, and we try to meet their needs and 

meet their demands. 

 We have also worked with several major corporations in the last few years. You heard in 

your previous testimony General Motors being one of them. General Electric has not been 

mentioned, but that had a significant impact in Fort Wayne and Northeast Indiana for several years. 

It still has an impact. There are currently approximately 4000 employees in the General Electric 

Corporation, and we would like to see that continue into the future. 

 I would like to speak to you specifically about another kind of training that we offer and 

that is ISO 9000, QS 9000, total quality management and statistical process control. 

 Now, in mentioning those, you can see that that is totally serving the manufacturing 

industry for the most part here in Indiana, but there is something that is needed before you get to 

that level, and that goes all the way back to my first comments about the numbers of employees 

that we'll be losing over the next ten years. And we need to have training in soft skill areas as well 

as in areas of, to prepare this workforce so that they can perform at a secondary level. And that's 

the homemaker for a large part that will be in that workforce makeup. 

 Last comment I would like to make is concerning apprentice training programs. And we 

are working not only with industrial apprentice training programs, but the building trades and craft 

apprentice training programs. We have a program that is spanning the state, and we feel that that is 

an extremely important issue. 

 Thank you very much and I appreciate the opportunity. If my mouth doesn't dry out in the 

process to get these words out, thank you very much. 
28

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF JON L. RUPRIGHT, VICE PRESIDENT AND CHANCELLOR, 

IVY TECH STATE COLLEGE, FORT WAYNE, INDIANA – SEE APPENDIX H 

Chairman McKeon. Mr. Holcomb. 

STATEMENT OF TIM HOLCOMB, VOCATIONAL COORDINATOR, FOUR 

COUNTY AREA VOCATIONAL COOPERATIVE, GARRETT, INDIANA 

Mr. Holcomb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman. Thank you also for the opportunity. I 

think what you'll hear from my testimony is that the partnerships, and I'm proud to say all of these 

folks here are partners of ours and how we get things done through partnerships. Although Ron 

and I serve the same role in different areas, we are uniquely different. But I think the thing that is 

very much the same is the rubber meets the road with us. We are down where the training takes 

place, very proud of the vision of our Four County superintendents, ten superintendents that 

establish and support our cooperative. They have designed the cooperative for vocational training 

for the youth, the high school students in these ten participating schools. We administer programs, 

which include machine trades, welding, cosmetology, industrial maintenance, automotive, marine 

mechanics, CAD drafting, health occupations, and certified nurse's assistants and criminal justice. 

 These programs range from one-semester courses to two years in length. All programs lead 

to national, state certifications or licensure. Those certifications include ASE, Associated Builders 

and Contractors, MIC, which is marine industry certification. 

 You talked about the lakes. We are the only program in the state that offers a marine 

mechanics program, and we are the only or were the only program to be, high school program to be 

certified, national certification or licensure in the cosmetology area, certified nurse's assistants and 

so on. 

 Programs provide competency-based education. I think that is probably one of the most 

important things that we do in this state, and our vocational districts is those competency-based 

education programs lead to skills. And those skills are identified through a portfolio, and we were 

pleased to be a part of the tech prep initiative with Carl and Ivy Tech State College in providing a 

pilot program for electronic portfolio which we have developed and will implement for all students 

next year. 

 We have in excess 300 students taking these specialized programs. These programs are 

based around high skill, high wage, and high demand. That's our criteria. Ron uses the same and 

our vocational districts do as well. 

 Co-op has been blessed with many, many partnerships in business and industry. In that area 

we have put in more than $2.6 million worth of new equipment, supplies for our students in these 

programs. That could not be done without partnerships. All of our programs lead to, as I said, 

some type of certification. But the majority of our programs lead to dual credit, college credit with 

our friends at Ivy Tech State College, up to 15 credits for a 2-year program such as welding and 
29

automotive. That is a big savings to the consumer and also gives our students a head start in 

establishing that postsecondary goal of theirs to move forward. 

 The integration of academics and technical vocational education, you alluded to that earlier 

in one of your questions. And I want to assure you that we certainly do that and have offered what 

we call a tech-ademic workshop to try to get both vocational teachers and academic teachers to 

blend those things together so that we can do that. And we know that research has told us that 

applied learning is the best learning for academic and vocational students. 

 I guess in closing what I would like to say to you is many initiatives have been money well 

spent in our area. Tech prep, school to work, many of which I have read have been wasteful 

spending. I can assure you that they have not been wasteful spending here. Ron and I and many, 

Carl, Heads Up, the Tech Prep, we meet monthly. We make sure that we are not taking those funds 

where we shouldn't be putting them and use them where they are going to affect kids and benefit 

kids most. 

 Talked about workers, placement. Many times we get calls about our placement office. 

And I will say to you we have no placement office, because we don't need one. Our students can 

be placed if they wish to go to work through our instructors. And many of them, especially this 

area, machine trades and welders are all placed by February for May graduation. I think that 

speaks very well of what we do and how we do it. 

 Again, thank you for the opportunity. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF TIM HOLCOMB, VOCATIONAL COORDINATOR, FOUR 

COUNTY AREA VOCATIONAL COOPERATIVE, GARRETT, INDIANA – SEE APPENDIX I 

Chairman McKeon. Thank you. Mr. Flickinger. 

STATEMENT OF RON FLICKINGER, AREA 14 VOCATIONAL 

EDUCATION COORDINATOR, ANTHIS CAREER CENTER, FORT 

WAYNE, INDIANA 

Mr. Flickinger. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Souder, I also want to thank you for this great 

opportunity, not only to speak, but to write more extensive comments that can be put into the 

record.

 My area of responsibility includes, we call it Area 14 which is the largest county in Indiana, 

Allen County, the largest urban district in Northeast Indiana, Fort Wayne, plus two small 

communities, Churubusco and Columbia City, Indiana. My office's main function is to administer 

the funds that come through Area 14 through the Carl W. Perkins Act of 1998. We use those funds 

to serve all young people in our area. Those young people go to 21 different high schools, 23 

middle schools, and approximately 85 elementary schools. And we also take care of home-
30

schooled students as well. 

 In terms of formal vocational education programs, we have a secondary regional vocational 

school called the Anthis Career Center, which offers 33 career majors in 12 programs. Plus I also 

oversee a variety of vocational education programs in 14 of the 21 high schools. Although middle 

schools, elementary schools and home schools have no formal career and technical education 

programs, my office has been active in serving as many of their educational needs as this law 

allows. Career and technical education, which traditionally has been called vocational education, 

has been many years considered by the leadership both by the educational and political 

communities as an alternative program for the academically deficient. We reject that notion, quite 

the contrary. We see career and technical education as being the leader in both school reform and 

being the foundational preparation for a globally competitive workforce. 

 Our research into the career opportunities for young people who will be working in the 21st 

century convinces us the educational product we produce, not only the educational product we 

produce but also the educational products we use put our graduates well ahead of their peers in 

terms of postsecondary success. Our area has been highly influenced by the research and writing 

of Dr. Ken Gray of Penn State University. We have used his concept of career maturity as the 

basis of our collective vision. Career maturity is the response Dr. Gray suggests to overcome the 

traditional educational path given to all students in America. I use the word "overcome" because 

his research is pretty conclusive that current educational processes, the ones that say one size fits 

all, tend to restrict students, not expand them from making appropriate preparations for the 

demands of the 21st century workplace. 

 Using the philosophy of career maturity, we have developed activities, initiatives that 

totally support the entry of today's students in the challenges of the 21st century. Time, of course, 

won't let me share them all. I would like to mention briefly five of them. 

 First as already has been mentioned are dual credits with local colleges and universities. 

Last school year, 2001 and 2002, Ivy Tech State College awarded 652 college credits to Anthis 

Career Center high school students. Those credits represent 26 different courses in ten different 

departments. We are currently in talks with Indiana Purdue University in Fort Wayne and ITT 

Tech for the same kind of program. What this means is that career and technical education students 

can successfully experience postsecondary success in the realities of 21st century job training well 

before graduating from high school. 

 Second area I would like to mention is middle school. Often it's about presecondary 

training. But we have taken the leadership in our area to move the middle school industrial 

technology program into the 21st century. Nine of our middle schools have high-tech computerdirected modular systems set up and that allows all students, and I want you to read into that girls, 

all students access to high-tech experiences. Sixth, seventh and eighth graders routinely 

experience, again they don't read about, but experience things like architectural drafting, 

engineering structure, plastics technology, residential wiring and plumbing just to name a few. 

They do this before thinking about a four-year high school plan. We want all middle school kids to 

get a real flavor of exactly what they need to prepare for. 
31

 Third area would be we share in all school reform. Our office has placed the premier 

Internet development program into every high school, middle school and branch library in the area. 

Career maturity, that concept which makes school relevant is our school for all kids, and 

bridges.com, this program is a major tool in having it develop. 

 Besides Bridges, Anthis Career Center, using it as a school reform tool, models and 

presents to all our schools the concept of contextual teaching and learning. 

 The fourth area I would share is school community partnerships. Now, the crown jewel of 

the many school community relationships we have are our advisory boards. Each career and 

technical education program has an advisory board made up of practitioners from the community. 

This board dictates our curriculum. Therefore our programs are as up to date as they can possibly 

be. One quick example, in December of 2001 the information technology board told the 

department that one of their computer programming languages was getting out of date. The 

department changed the curriculum and by January of 2002, one month later, they were teaching 

the new language. 

 The 21st century is now; therefore students need 21st century training now. Since 

technology doesn't stand still, we don't think schools should either. 

 Last but not least is our movement towards students earning state and national certifications 

while still in high school. Certifications and licenses are offered in nine of 12 programs. As you 

are well aware, the 21st century workplace is skills based. Certifying many of the needed skills is 

done in our secondary career technological education programs. 

 And I want to thank you for letting us share these ideas. We think we have made great 

strides in both school reform and technology education in Northeast Indiana these past few years.

And those strides we think are translated into more and more students entering the world of the 

21st century well prepared for whatever awaits them. Thank you. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF RON FLICKINGER, AREA 14 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

COORDINATOR, ANTHIS CAREER CENTER, FORT WAYNE, INDIANA –SEE APPENDIX J 

Chairman McKeon. Thank you. Mr. Boyd. 

STATEMENT OF DICK BOYD, DIRECTOR, EDUCATIONAL 

TECHNOLOGY, DEKALB COUNTY CENTRAL UNITED SCHOOL 

DISTRICT, WATERLOO, INDIANA 

Mr. Boyd. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Souder, I thank you for being here today. The bad thing 

about going last is you have heard it all. And so it's kind of emphasizing some things. What I'm 
32

going to focus on are some of the things that DeKalb Central School District and what I have seen 

within our community for adults are available. 

 One of the things that we have noticed with more laws, that everything is going to change 

within the next 18 months. At DeKalb Central we see that we are in constant change. And the 

change that we are looking at right now is dealing with technology, and dealing with as Ron was 

saying certifications, with technology. Four years ago we started our first Cisco Academy class. 

And we, with that Cisco Academy class we graduated, out of the 14 students that took it 12 of them 

became certified Cisco engineers. 

 Then Mr. Corona came by and said, "Can we help you expand that?" We had the 

opportunity maybe coming up where we could do that. And we said we would love to be able to 

expand it. So what we are able to do is to increase our class to a block class, which would allow us 

to bring area schools in to take the same course that they could not offer because of equipment or 

staffing or some other reason. 

 And not only that, we were able to increase that from the Cisco Academy class to A Plus 

training. And A Plus training is the training for the repair of computers. 

 With that we have been able to place students from high school directly into area businesses 

as computer repair people plus working with the telephone companies, taking our Cisco Academy 

students and placing them into the telephone company and not at a starting level because they have 

the certification. They are beyond that starting level coming out of high school. 

 Some of the other certifications that we are working on right now are the WOW 

certification and the WOW certification the web master, the worldwide web master certification. 

We have had a web design class for several years. Now the web design class is going into a 

situation where it can be certified as they come out of high school. 

 Along with as I have mentioned before the MOUS exam, there are plenty of other ones 

available. You are limited by staffing and by costs of what you can do. Microsoft has all kinds of 

certifications that students can get if you have staffing and funds available. Novell Network.

There are just all kinds of things that used to be taught at the college level or independently that 

now can be done within education or K through 12 education. 

 We are fortunate enough where we have had interest like Mr. Corona helping us out 

financially as well as local foundations with the Dekko Foundation, the Zollner Foundation, the 

Lilly Foundation, you know, state and local governments and the national government that we have 

been able to get funds in and be able to offer more than a lot of other districts and we have been 

trying to open those up. 

 As far as adults are concerned, because of Ivy Tech being, offering the continuing education 

courses, Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne also offers continuing education courses as well as the 

Freedom Academy. All of those offering courses available to adults or students who wish to take 

them with the same things that we are doing in school. They offer the MOUS exam. They are 

working with our instructors to be able to cover Cisco Academy to the adults. I know Leo High 
33

School is offering Cisco Academy to the adults. 

 So a lot of those things that are done within K through 12 schools are being opened up to 

the adults because of those types of organizations as well. 

 One of the things we have to keep in mind is Dr. Willard Taggert mentioned in a speech out 

in Washington School District, and he was saying that in the year 2005 there will be one million 

jobs that will not be filled. 

 Dealing with technology, half of those have not been invented yet. And with that in mind, 

we have got to continue to change, continue to take a look at the needs of our students and do 

things necessary to move them into the 21st century. And as you said earlier, we can't sit on our 

laurels. If we sit on our laurels, we are just going to fall farther behind. 

 Thank you for the opportunity. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF DICK BOYD, DIRECTOR, EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, 

DEKALB COUNTY CENTRAL UNITED SCHOOL DISTRICT, WATERLOO, INDIANA – 

SEE APPENDIX K 

Chairman McKeon. You said quite a bit for having everything been said before you started. 

 That's scary. I have heard similar statistics. I hadn't heard that one, that a million jobs are 

unfilled. 

 Last year I was out in Silicon Valley and we met, one day we met with 16 of the companies 

there. And at that time they were short about 50 to 100 thousand jobs. Now since then we have 

had some major cutbacks and probably wouldn't be quite the same now. But that is just one small 

area. And I'm sure that a year from now they'll probably have that many at least unfilled. 

 They told us of one company that had gone to an engineering school, hired a whole 

graduating class. Everybody. 

Mr. Corona, I don't know if you heard, but at the start I mentioned that we have sent a letter. 

Mr. Corona. Yes, the "Dear College" letter. 

Chairman McKeon. It was to the administration saying that they shouldn't be cutting these funds. 

And I did get notice yesterday that in the supplemental that the President is asking for, he is asking 

for a 750 million increase. 

Mr. Corona. Terrific. Thank you. 

Chairman McKeon. And I don't have all the breakdowns of all those now, but I think you recall 

that others have been heard. And it's not the time to be cutting the programs. It's a time to be 
34

adding to. When you need people trained, you don't cut back their opportunity to get the training. 

 So I was very happy to hear that. I'm sure you are, too. 

Mr. Corona. Yes, very much so. Our communities appreciate that. 

Chairman McKeon. TANF and WIA, we are in the process right now of re-authorizing welfare 

and TANF as part of that. And next year we do WIA. We are looking at trying to marry those up a 

little bit where we ask the TANF recipients to join in the one-stop shops where they can come and 

at the same time as they are getting their help, they can also get their voucher, get training, get 

additional help. But that's one of the things we'll be looking at as we go through this process. We 

have been holding hearings. We had Governor Engler's top guy at our hearing last week, and he 

told us some tremendous things he did, and he was really good. And I'm sure we will be looking at 

their ideas as we go through this. 

 We share responsibility for child-care and some of the welfare responsibilities with Ways 

and Means. So we are working with them to try to get a bill out. When we come back, we'll draw 

up a bill the week that we come back from this break and hope to have one on the floor and get it 

passed, get a welfare reform passed, hopefully out of committee by May. So we are trying to get 

this done. I don't know what is going to happen on the Senate side. They are coming to kind of a 

screeching halt with everything over there. So that is a real problem for us. 

Mr. Corona. I appreciate and I concur with your thinking about co-location of TANF services 

within one-stop centers. And I understand that it's the government's prerogative to designate the 

state agency as to where those TANF funds flow. 

 I think those are important. I would go that additional step further and provide incentives to 

authorize workforce boards to contract those dollars out because what we now see are really 

parallel systems in which grants are issued by county welfare departments and then by workforce 

boards. And I guess I would also submit that I would hope that if there is any bringing together of 

those dollars, that it is invested in business-led boards rather than agencies that are more social 

service in nature and is not focused with the needs of business. 

Chairman McKeon. That was one of the changes we made when we passed WIA was eliminate a 

lot of those federal duplicate programs and block that money out to the workforce municipal boards 

and they are business led. I appreciate your comments about some of them are way too large. 

 The problem has been implementation. The governors do have a lot to do with this. And 

my particular state California has just been held up. We have some one-stop centers that are doing 

well. But a lot of them are not functioning. And as a result, about five states had not spent much 

money. And that's why the administration was looking to cut back on the funds because there is a 

lot of money out there that hasn't been spent yet. I met with a lot of these organizations and they 

say, you know, the way our accounting works, we are on programs that are performance based. 

And so somebody is in a job-training program and we are not, we have committed the funds. We 

haven't paid the funds until finish of the program. 
35

Mr. Corona. Yes. 

Chairman McKeon. So while it looks like they have money in the bank, most of it is committed 

with the exception of some of these states like California. 

 So I understand why the administration was holding back some of the funds when they 

looked and they still see they have a lot that they haven't spent. But I think we are working through 

that. And we need to get all of these states doing the job. Like you said Michigan did a fantastic 

job. Wisconsin, some of these states have really performed and some of them haven't. And it 

makes it hard to get the money out to do the job when some of the larger states haven't performed, 

haven't even used the money that we have given them already. 

 But I really appreciate your comments on the workforce boards. And we worked fairly hard 

on getting this bill passed. And I mentioned to Congressman Souder as we were listening to you 

talk about vocational education, not all students are going to go on to university. There should be 

something else for them. 

Mr. Corona. Right. 

Chairman McKeon. We got beat up pretty good by trying to be more expansive, and we had to 

cut back and didn't get as much done as we wanted to do in WIA. 

 One of the criticisms we had was that we were trying to place children, kindergarten age on 

track where they would end up being a plumber. And I remember one of the people we talked to 

with criticism of this I don't even know what they were talking about because that wasn't what we 

were doing. It wasn't what our attempt was. It wasn't what we were trying to do. 

Mr. Souder. All the documents. It was an incredible battle. Most of you are aware of some of 

the flack we took and I still take in the district for backing the job training programs because the 

things you face when we are talking to these people, it was a tough fight inside. 

Chairman McKeon. It was crazy because the things that were being said weren't true. They said 

you got together with Hillary and Ted Kennedy and you came up with this deal. And I hadn't even 

met Ted Kennedy at the time. 

 And they said we picked some Chinese formula, three-legged stool or something and you 

follow the German formula. So later I met with a business leader from Germany and I said, "How 

does your system work over there?" And he explained to me how it worked. Students went 

through the tenth grade and then they went on different tracks. They could go to university or they 

could go to vocational training. And I said, "Who makes that decision?" He said, "The mother." 

 I thought who cares more about the child than the mother? Who knows the child more than 

the mother? 
36

 So I mean, we weren't following that program, that even the criticism that we received 

about that program was inaccurate. 

 I think we need to somehow get this resolved so that the young people who want to go in 

one direction don't get thwarted and turned off about getting the help that they need because 

somebody thinks they should be going somewhere he doesn't want to go. 

Mr. Corona. I think this community's voice of reason will be very supportive of what you are 

doing not only for students but also for adults. I think what you are hearing today as we talk about 

training and specifically in this case the Plastic Technology Center is that I think it exemplifies two 

important principles. One is that the concept of skills training which we just have to, have to 

enforce. Secondly, the notion of convenience with respect to learning. It's 45 miles down I-69 to 

Chancellor Rupright's primary campus. That's too far away for residents of Angola. So as we 

really, as this community has done with the help of the ELOC Foundation and others to create the 

Plastic Technologies Center, it in essence is in more generic terms a community-learning center 

that attacks what I think are the three issues of convenience. It's close to home and work, with 

federal grants like the one we have obtained making it affordable. Lastly, those institutions like Ivy 

Tech and Tri-State examine the scheduling, the pacing, and the length of training. And I think 

those are very, very critical and important. What you are hearing today is that we believe in skill 

training and we are making it community based. 

Chairman McKeon. I just have one more comment. And that is that you are very fortunate in 

having the congressman that you have. Not all districts are as successful at getting those grants as 

you are. So you forged a good partnership here. And I hope you keep sending him back many 

more years in the future. He is one of the best. 

Mr. Corona. I hope so, too. 

Mr. Souder. Thank you. Most of you are aware of what a fight we have had on the workforce 

boards, that the first time through some of these pieces of legislation there is certainly gubernatorial 

bias in some of our conference and we have the second bend in the road with the former governor, 

and I expect we'll have some of the similar type of discussions this time. And we'll do the best we 

can.

 My belief is local decision making is best. I didn't go to Washington to move more things 

to Washington. I didn't also go to Washington to move things from Angola to Fort Wayne to 

Indianapolis. The goal is to drive the level of government down to the closest. The local level 

needs to be not the padding of the boards. They need to be reflective of the community. Some of 

the big major cities of our country have driven some of the changes. But we'll probably fight that 

battle again. 

 Also to H1B visas that we in the committee, we want to make sure that American citizens 

have the ability to apply for these. But the plain truth of the matter is Northeast Indiana, is that 

corporations are coming to me all the time asking for more H1B visas because we are not meeting 

the needs they have in this area. And we are not going to hold these major manufacturers of 

Northeast Indiana if we can't get some people in to cover these jobs so they don't move to 
37

California or other places and/or overseas. And that much of what you are doing is trying to fill 

that gap so that long-term we may not need the H1B visas. But I hope people understand in job 

training that if you don't have this technical capacity, if we don't keep you all current and you all 

are trying to keep current, that every major company in Fort Wayne has told me they are on the 

verge of transferring out if we can't meet a lot of their educational needs because they are very 

concerned about our ability to keep up in Indiana and Fort Wayne in particular and to keep the 

pressure on. And that needs to be supported by elected officials, to keep that pressure on because 

we are in dire straits. 

 One thing I also just want to say before I ask questions is in the congressional districts, as 

we go around the country, are so diverse and you are in the kind of heart of the manufacturing zone 

of America. And some of the eastern states because of their tax structure and other regulations lost 

a lot of industry. This area is in transition and we have seen lots of manufacturing jobs move to 

Mexico. But I believe we are either fifth or seventh in steel manufacturing. We are second or third 

in foundries. Number one in pickups. Number one in recreational vehicles. We make the pistons, 

axles. Even though we have lost Dana jobs, we have more Dana jobs in this district still than in 

Toledo where they are headquartered. We have all sorts of plastics manufacturers because every 

vehicle has multiple types of equipment. Now, we have moved to pick up some of the defense 

manufacturing. The largest employer in Allen County is Verizon. Last year it was the largest nonschool employer. This is so different from most states. We have 300 government employees total 

in this congressional district, whereas when you go to a lot of the western or southern states 

between the parks and different governmental services, they have lots of government employees. 

They have lots of tourism. We have some tourism in Steuben and some in DeKalb because tourism 

is often locally generated, circulated dollars. So tourism is a minor potentially growing industry. 

But what we do is make things and service the things that are made. As that type of industry 

changes, it's our big challenge and we have more at stake in job training and trying to adjust than 

many areas because the things we have historically done are so radically changing and each of 

these gentlemen are in different parts. 

 It's been unusual today because we have been mixing rural and urban. I would like to 

particularly ask Mr. Holcomb and Mr. Flickinger if you could contrast. I know you have, Mr. 

Flickinger, also at Churubusco and some in Whitley County, but more typically what you would 

see in the Anthis Career Center, some of your challenges. Then, Mr. Holcomb, if you could kind 

of draw some contrast. You have some midsize cities like Auburn and Kendallville and here in 

Angola. But most of your territory is either rural kind of little housing developments scattered in 

the middle because we have water everywhere. They're scattered in the middle. There are 

sometimes more people in these developments outside of the town than there are in the town. And 

yet they aren't really suburban either. And the kids who come to those and the challenges they face 

or similar ways in how they are run, but that they are different. 

Mr. Flickinger. We still fight the age-old issue of there being two types of kids. There is the 

intelligent kid that goes to college and the other kid that doesn't. 

 And when you talk about local decision-making, one of the things that American education 

has done and right up to the presidential campaigns where they campaign we want every kid to go 

to college, that's not what they mean. That's not what people hear. What they mean is we want 
38

every kid to be capable of postsecondary education of some sort. That's what we ought to be 

saying. People think college. They think IU, Purdue, and Ball State. And what we try to 

communicate to school people is saying we ought to let parents and kids decide what is in their best 

interest for the social system. 

 And how do parents and kids decide if they aren't given information? In my particular area, 

there is maybe one or two days a year where they would have a career day where kids go into an 

auditorium and spend ten minutes talking to two or three people. And the school now has given 

them information on how to make a career. An example, we found out nationwide 52 percent of 

engineering students drop out in the first semester. When you think about what it takes to get into 

an engineering school, these are not dummies. These are great kids. But what research says is they 

didn't know what engineering was. They just knew they were good in math. Some counselor said, 

"You are good in math. You ought to go to engineering school." That kid might be better suited to 

be in tool and die trades, construction, fixing BMWs making $200,000 a year, whatever they take 

to fix those cars. Nobody has ever given that kid the opportunity or that parent the opportunity to 

in-depth look at what are your aptitudes, what are your interests, what is the society going to hold 

for you, the labor market going to hold for you. 

 The number one career major most kids are in, in my area is marine biology. I wonder how 

many jobs there are in marine biology in Fort Wayne, Indiana? Not too many. Watch two or three 

TV shows. That's why I think this career maturity idea of even going down to the elementary 

school and actually before that. Our long-term vision goal is to meet pregnant women in the 

hospital and say: Have you thought about what you want your child to do with the rest of their 

lives? It's going to happen like this. And have a systematic program that allows parents and kids to 

look at who they are and what's available, and also to emphasize the fact that work is honorable 

whether a plumber or company president. That's the challenge we face and that's what we try to 

push all the time with those kinds of ideas. 

 One of our most effective programs Tim mentioned is cooperatives and internships. The 

kids that go into internships, and one of the leaders is going to be your alma mater Leo because we 

have supported greatly their career center concept, a lot of money and time with that. So every kid 

from Leo will have in-depth career experience while in high school, freshman through senior year.

So they could do what we call making a postsecondary plan that has a high probability of success. 

 Kati Haycock of the Education Trust in Washington says the college dropout rates in 

America are worse than the worst urban high school in any geographic high school area. What Dr. 

Gray says is the reason that is, is because we prepare kids for academics but not career maturity. 

That's the challenge we face. The biggest resistance comes from school superintendents and school 

educational leaders because they are not judged on career maturities. They are judged on ACT 

scores, they're judged on SAT scores and they're judged on four-college entrance. 

Mr. Souder. Before we go to Mr. Holcomb, I know we are going over our time a little here, could 

you tell us the challenges that are different in involving a significant African-American population, 

Hispanic, Burmese population in the United States now in Fort Wayne and some of those 

challenges, particularly even Leo is now specifically suburban, whereas Mr. Holcomb's area is 

going to be much more rural where the kids are? It's a different kind of non-college tradition and 
39

known even dedicated career pattern. 

Mr. Flickinger. The same issues only more intensified because those two groups have been on the 

outside. And when we talk to particularly African-American and Hispanic leaders and we say you 

ought to have your kids looking for technical areas to take some of the jobs these H1B visas are 

doing and see what are some areas, the pay and the internal satisfactions are. Life is more than 

money. We don't push money all the time. But what we get from the African-American and 

Hispanic leaders is: We have been on the outside for years. You are trying to get us on the outside 

more. It's the college educated. So it's really been that hard sell for us in that area as well. We are 

almost accused of keeping them down when in fact that's not the case whatsoever. Best research, 

Taggert's research and Gray's research say the vast majority of opportunities in the future are going 

to be high tech, high skill, high wage. And if we can't provide kids to go to the places to get that 

training, they are going to go to somebody else. Or they are going to move that company out of the 

Northeast Indiana area and work where they are providing those things. So it is a real challenge for 

us to do that. 

Mr. Souder. Mr. Holcomb. 

Mr. Holcomb. Mr. Souder, the big difference for us is you heard me talk about partnerships. Ron 

has a building, Anthis Career Center, nice facility. But we own nothing. All of our buildings are in 

buildings that are owned by business and industry or a friend of education. So we own nothing in 

bricks and mortar. We pay basically cold storage if anything for some of our facilities. They look 

like business and industry, and business and industry embraces that. And the students then begin to 

understand what this career is going to look like. If I'm a welder I'm going to be in this type of 

facility, this is what the environment is going to be. 

 So the school issues have gone away. I think that has been a big, big advantage for our coop. I'm not sure that that was intended in the beginning, but it came out that way. 

 My biggest difference is really the complete opposite of what my friend and colleague Ron 

has. That is as you said this is a pretty much blue-collar area. And that doesn't make it bad. But 

when we developed the dual credit with our friends at Ivy Tech, it has really been a good plus for 

our programs. And I'll tell you the same thing I tell everyone and my own children. Reputation is 

everything. And our reputation has been good in what we do. But it hasn't always been an easy 

sale to say you ought to be getting your dual credit because they may be the first person that has 

ever taken a college class or gotten a college credit. 

 So we have also had many, many students that have benefited from getting those college 

credits through our programs that have become enrolled at Ivy Tech. And Ivy Tech, you know, 

Steve was saying something about 45 miles is too far. They have tried to correct that and the 

Ashley campus, which has been a great plus for us, which is just a few miles down the road now.

And we have tried to partner with them in helping with adult education in that area. So there are a 

lot of things. Again, those local decisions and how we work together. 

 You heard Ron take a poke at the guidance counselor and what was your profession, Ron? 
40

Mr. Flickinger. Guidance counselor. 

Mr. Holcomb. I didn't need to point that out, did I? 

 We have learned a lot together. He came on after I did. He learned a lot in his job. But I 

have learned a lot from him from his perspectives as being a guidance counselor. Partnerships are 

everything for us. And I speak I think for Ron as well. That's how we have made it. You know, 

all the way from the buildings to our partners in the postsecondary that have helped us provide 

avenues for kids to move on. So does that explain the difference? 

Mr. Souder. Yes. And I would like to ask one last question. And this doesn't directly go to Mr. 

Boyd, but we appreciate your technology and leadership. And what has happened in DeKalb and 

what is really exciting is to see it move beyond just the urban centers because Auburn has always 

bragged about the auto industry in Auburn. But to keep it technologically advancing because much 

of our manufacturing base is actually scattered outside Fort Wayne and that's been our strength all 

up and down I-69 in other communities. I'm glad to see DeKalb has taken that. 

 I wanted to ask my last question for Mr. Corona and Mr. Rupright because this, we talked a 

little bit about this in Steuben County. But clearly in Fort Wayne there is a big challenge of how 

we deal with the change in population in minority populations. And it is a tough issue as Mr. 

Flickinger said. You don't want to trap people and not make sure everybody has the opportunity to 

choose. In America we can believe, and let me put it another way, I never thought I would be a 

congressman. I hardly know any member of congress who thought they would be congressmen. I 

knew many people in high school who should have been congressmen and they haven't. People 

change their career paths. Our goal is to give you basic training that is specific training and you 

wind up exactly how you want it. 

 But in the minority community, I have a couple of questions. Because a lot of people didn't 

understand we have the largest Burmese population in the United States in Fort Wayne now. We 

have the largest Macedonian, although older, population in the United States. We have expanding 

Bosnian and Balkan populations. Chief Davie in the Fort Wayne Fire Department says the number 

one problem is the language problems with Bosnians because we don't have language speakers or 

materials with that. They have dealt some degree with the Spanish language. But when you start 

to hit this diversity we have, I believe the figure was 1200 Asian-Indian and 800 to 1000 and 

Pakistani now in Fort Wayne. They are challenges. We thought foreigners were French and 

English, not Germans. 

 Steve, you have been involved in this a long time, obviously a small and active Hispanic 

population. But one of the things I constantly hear is the language barrier that they feel that they 

know speaking English is important. It's also important to remember that my church spoke in 

German until Hitler's abuses, and the daily newspaper was in German in the '30s yet. It is always a 

process of assimilation. How do we factor that assimilation in with the diversity, and how does 

that relate to the job training in vocational education for the very numbers that are coming in as 

they may come in to meet our needs? When we are at 2 percent unemployment, then people pour 

in. Now the factory people who are in Fort Wayne and Northeast Indiana may or may not know 
41

how to tap into your programs. 

Mr. Rupright. And your question is? 

Mr. Souder. What are you doing to try to address that and how great a problem do you think it is 

at this point? 

Mr. Rupright. We are trying to address it in several ways. It all relates to one issue and that's 

communication.

 We have to get out there among those groups, whether Burmese, whether they are 

minorities, Hispanics, black minorities. Whatever the minority is, we have to be there among them. 

So we encourage all of our faculty members. And that's really where the rubber meets the road as 

far as I'm concerned, when you get your faculty members involved and have them thinking in those 

terms of reaching out and being of help in the community. 

 We have all of the normal vehicles that everyone else has as Steve knows. We do a lot of 

advertising. We get a lot of press coverage. But it really has to come down to individual 

interaction. And I don't know what more to say about that because nothing can replace it. We have 

to be there and in those communities where that is needed. 

Mr. Corona. I would offer two thoughts, one with adult learners. I think that the initiatives that 

you have been particularly interested in with faith based may offer some answer to that. That if we 

can work through congregations through their respective religions that we may be able to help 

break through those issues. Specifically there was, there has been discussion with the Burmese 

about working with their temple or religion in discussing not only language issues, but also then the 

issues of work. 

 If I could put my school board hat on and talk about students in high school. We are trying 

very hard with English as a second language programs. But with over 30 languages spoken in our 

32,000-school population, that represents a terrific challenge and right now our allocation per 

student for ESL instruction in this state is very, very low. And so we are having to move some of 

our general budget fund to support that activity which is very, very important because as we begin 

to find shortages in our labor market, they represent a terrific opportunity for employers because 

many of those cultures have started with very strong work ethics which employers prize and desire.

But the barrier remains language. 

 So again, I would say that with respect to, with secondary education, ESL programs, and 

faith-based initiatives you have been championing might offer two solutions. 

Mr. Souder. Thank you. Unfortunately California doesn't have that problem. 

Chairman McKeon. No. 

Mr. Flickinger. May I make a comment? We did an activity in Churubusco, getting the entire 

business community and the teachers together. And the education community asked the business 
42

community if we could do one thing in the schools that would make things better for you, one 

thing, what would it be? And they said teach conversational Spanish from kindergarten through 

grade 12. That was the business community. It's a two-way street. I am wondering if some of our 

educational system shouldn't be doing some sort of conversational, not academic Spanish, but 

conversational. Their goal was to make assimilation easier for the Hispanic population. 

Mr. Souder. Churubusco? 

Mr. Flickinger. Yes. 

Mr. Souder. That's a town of about 100,000 not that far from Fort Wayne. 

Chairman McKeon. Some schools are doing that. I have a niece in Utah that was put right in, 

starting first grade, all of her education was in Spanish. And 30 languages we have a school in my 

district, an elementary school that has 26 languages and many more dialects in one elementary 

school. Those are fun things. 

 I would like to sit here all day and talk about this because it's been immensely helpful. But 

I've got to get on a plane. And thank you very much. 

 Thank you, Congressman, for doing this. And we will keep the record open if you want to 

submit more to the record. 

Chairman McKeon. And if there is nothing else at this time, then we'll adjourn this 

subcommittee. Thank you. 

 [Whereupon, at 11:38 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned. 
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TABLE OF INDEXES 

Chairman McKeon, 1, 2, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 

36, 41, 42 

Mr. Adolph, 11, 15, 16, 20, 21 

Mr. Boyd, 24, 31 

Mr. Brooks, 7, 18, 19, 21, 22 

Mr. Corona, 23, 24, 25, 33, 34, 35, 36, 41 

Mr. Flickinger, 24, 29, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42 

Mr. Grill, 9, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21 

Mr. Holcomb, 24, 28, 39, 40 

Mr. Kenz, 6, 13 

Mr. Rupright, 23, 26, 41 

Mr. Souder, 2, 4, 14, 17, 18, 20, 24, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42