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Show Audit Report Released Placement Low, Costs High By TOM BUSSELBERG SALT LAKE CITY A legislative auditors' report chides the state's four area vocational centers including Davis for providing an expensive ex-pensive program, geared more : to adults than secondary stu-.; stu-.; dents as originally intended . with lower than planned gradu-; gradu-; ate job placement. j..' . PREPARED BY the Office ' of the Legislative Auditor . '-. General in Salt Lake City and released late last week, "A Performance of Area Voca- . ; tional Centers in Utah" noted ; 65 percent of Davis' students are adults while centers were designed primarily for high ; school student training with : only 49 percent job placement for adult completors, far below : the average at the other cen-j cen-j ters in Cache and Sevier coun-: coun-: ties and the Uintah Basin. . The report also notes high '. .. operating costs compared to : high school and technical ! school vocational programs : although Davis was listed at ; . closer to technical school costs ! " per full-time student. : "AS ORIGINALLY en- visioned," the report's intro-: intro-: " duction says, "Area centers were to serve primarily high school students. High school students from broad geographical geog-raphical areas were expected : to attend the centers and re- ceive vocational training more efficiently and economically than they could in high schools. We have found that while the centers haven't accomplished these objectives, objec-tives, they have become effective effec-tive but expensive adult vocational voca-tional training centers." Sixty-five percent of the Kaysville facility's students are listed as adults, with the average annual full-time student stu-dent cost listed at $4,472 for one year's training at the four area centers vs. $3,838 at Davis and $2,295 at Utah Technical College in Salt Lake City. THE REPORT went on to say "existing objectives (for the program) are not attainable" attain-able" as "area centers create diseconomies of scale, result in higher costs for the high schools, discourage them from sending students," including from other school districts that are supposed to be served by centers. It said 99 percent of the Davis Center's students come from within the county with none from Ogden and Weber districts, as intended. Some from Morgan County District were listed as attending, as intended. in-tended. "THE MAJOR purpose of the centers is to serve the needs of high school age youth. High school students are to receive prime time. ..adult students are to be admitted only after students from high school are served," the report notes. "Because centers were expected ex-pected to teach necessary vocational skills less expensively expen-sively than individual high schools, secondary students were to be primary beneficiaries benefi-ciaries of center training. The adult appropriation given to the centers subsidizes teaching high school students." stu-dents." IT GOES ON to say that "while high school students are given first opportunity to enroll, the major purpose of the centers has changed" to emphasizing adult and non-high-school age youth training, train-ing, with the State Supt. of Public Instruction indicating that resulted from increased legislative funding for adult training. "Centers don't train secondary secon-dary students for jobs," the report re-port continues. "While disagreement dis-agreement (on that point) exists, ex-ists, a consensus exists that those students aren't ready to make long-range career decisions." deci-sions." EMPLOYMENT training was listed as the original purpose pur-pose for the centers, with the state vocational education division di-vision staff agreeing that's still the goal for adult students. "District and high school officials generally feel placement place-ment standards are inappropriate inappropri-ate because most high school students aren't serious about seeking employment related to their center training," the report re-port continues, noting placement place-ment standards are being considered. cons-idered. "THE AVAILABILITY of vocational education in high schools discourages student participation," the report continues. con-tinues. "Larger schools all have vocational programs so aren't sending many students to the centers." Layton High School has a 2. 1 percent participation parti-cipation and less at other district dis-trict schools, it adds. The auditors recommend the legislature and state board for vocational education "revise "re-vise area centers' objectives for secondary students" and recommends the state board "clearly define expectations." IT NOTES placement information infor-mation is "either non-existent or unreliable" with a discrepancy dis-crepancy in reporting due to different definitions or methodologies metho-dologies used by the centers, including difference in the definition de-finition of placement. "Some centers counted as placement those students who obtained jobs or went on to school regardless of whether jobs or schooling were related to the vocational training they had received. We counted placement as only those who found schools or went on to school in areas directly related to vocational training." IT ADDED that the Davis Center was the only one where enrollment hadn't been "overstated," "over-stated," but went on to say, "The Davis Center is not placing plac-ing as large a proportion of its completing students as other centers, and currently it falls short of meeting the acceptable accept-able standard of effectiveness identified by professional vocational educators." It notes the DAVC's placements place-ments are low because of a "high proportion of referred students" who are "usually non-high school graduates and have a low expectation of and motivation for success. Because Be-cause Davis charges no tuition to non-high school graduates, social service agencies, former students and the Davis School District encourages enrollment." enroll-ment." OTHER CENTERS charge tuition, it notes adding, "The DAVC's placement rate indicates indi-cates they need help and the center's effectiveness needs close monitoring. Fifty percent per-cent of Davis adult full-time students are non-high school graduates vs. 15-26 percent at other centers." |