Originally published June 26 2005
Training and education online for low-income residents
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The New Jersey Online Learning Project for Single Working Poor Mothers began in 2001 and was run by the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development. After substantial success, the program has expanded to Passaic County and other New Jersey counties, hopefully spreading nationwide in the coming years.
Jackson is one of more than 100 women upgrading their job skills through a state program that provides laptops to working single mothers so they can take classes online at home.
The idea is that the Internet can deliver education to low-income women who find going to classes all but impossible because they often lack child care, transportation and free time.
"You can still maintain your lifestyle with your kids and your family, and go to school at the same time," said Jackson, of Paterson.
The program, called the New Jersey Online Learning Project for Single Working Poor Mothers, began in 2001 as a pilot program to teach workplace skills in seven counties, including Bergen and Morris.
It has expanded to Passaic County and other New Jersey counties, and the idea is being exported to other states.
Each county has leeway to choose the training software it thinks will lead to good jobs for its students.
For this reason, the length of the training varies, typically from four months to about 10 months.
The training is flexible, in part because it uses laptop computers.
That has benefited their children, who have used the computers for schoolwork the way middle-class kids do, according to Henry Plotkin, executive director of the state Employment and Training Commission, a private/public partnership.
"One thing I would do differently is that I would have them bring the computers in and have the consultant work on them," said Christmas, who works in adult education at Bergen County Technical Schools, which collaborated with county labor officials on the program.
A few years ago, she took a welfare-to-work class at Passaic County Community College that combined classroom time, on-the-job training and online classes.
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