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From washingtonpost.com :
Barely two years ago, Cristina Rodriguez and her three children were moored on the wrong side of the income gap.
Rodriguez attended a program called Per Scholas, which trains computer repair technicians in the nation's poorest congressional district, in the Bronx.
Like dozens of programs around the country built on a similar model, it evolved by working closely with employers in high-growth sectors of the local economy, tailoring its training to the precise entry-level skills that were most in demand.
In an ever-more-wired New York, Per Scholas places close to 80 percent of its graduates in jobs from Wall Street to tiny nonprofits.
"Sectoral training," as the approach is known, emerged from anti-poverty efforts in a number of communities upended by the loss of manufacturing jobs.
They prepare workers for jobs in industries as diverse as health care, diesel mechanics, information technology and food processing.
A study by the Aspen Institute of sectoral programs in the late 1990s found that median annual incomes of graduates rose from $8,580 before training to $17,732 after two years of employment.
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Posted on February 28, 2007 06:53 PM
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