NATIONAL OCCUPATIONAL INFORMATION COORDINATING COMMITTEE.

SEC. 408. NATIONAL OCCUPATIONAL INFORMATION COORDINATING COMMITTEE. (a) Amendment to Heading.— The heading for section 422 of the Act is amended to read as follows: “national occupational information coordinating committee”. (b) Amendment to Text.— Section 422 of the Act is amended— (1) in subsection (a)— (A) by inserting after “Coordinating Committee” the following: “(in this section referred to as the ‘Committee’)”; (B) by inserting after “Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs,” the following: “the Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education,”; (C) by striking “(Manpower, Reserve Affairs, and Logistics)” and inserting “(Force Management and Personnel)”; (D) in paragraph (2), by inserting before the semicolon the following: “, including regularly updated data on employment demand for agribusiness”; (E) in paragraph (3)— (i) by striking “conduct studies on” and inserting the following: “conduct studies to improve the quality and delivery of occupational information systems to assist economic development activities, and examine”; and (ii) by striking “and” at the end thereof; (F) by redesignating paragraph (4) as paragraph (6); and (G) by inserting after paragraph (3) the following new paragraphs: “(4) continue training, technical assistance activities to sup-port comprehensive career guidance, and vocational counseling programs designed to promote improved career decision-making by individuals (especially in areas of career information delivery and use); “(5) coordinate the efforts of Federal, State, and local agencies and Tribal agencies with respect to such programs; and”; (2) by adding at the end the following new subsections: “(c) (1) (A) The Committee, in consultation with the National Center or Centers for Research in Vocational Education, appropriate Federal agencies, and the States, shall establish a demonstration program to monitor educational outcomes for vocational education using wage and other records. The Committee shall develop procedures for establishing and maintaining nationally accessible information on a sample of wage and earning records maintained by States on earnings, establishment and industry affiliation and geographical location, and on educational activities. This information shall be collected on at least an annual basis. The program shall ensure that a scientific sample of vocational education students and nonvocational education students, local educational agencies, and States participate in the program. The Committee shall maintain, analyze, and report data collected under the program and shall provide technical assistance to States, local educational agencies, and others that wish to participate in the study. “(B) (i) Participation in the program described in subparagraph (A) shall be voluntary. The Committee shall enter into an agreement 104 STAT. 826with any State which desires to carry out a study for the State under this subsection. Each such agreement shall contain provisions designed to assure— “(I) that the State will participate in the study; “(II) that the State will pay from non-Federal sources the non-Federal share of participation; and “(III) that the State agrees to the terms and conditions specified in this section. “(ii) For each fiscal year, the non-Federal share for the purpose of this program shall be the cost of conducting the study in the State, including the cost of administering the assessment for the State sample and the cost of coordination within the State. “(2) The program shall provide for an independent evaluation conducted by the Office of Technology Assessment of the Congress to assess the validity, fairness, accuracy, and utility of the data it produces. The report shall also describe the technical problems encountered and a description of what was learned about how to best implement and utilize data from the program. “(3) The provision of wage and other records to the Committee by a State employment security agency shall be voluntary and pursuant to an agreement between the Committee and the agency. Such agreement shall take into consideration issues such as— “(A) reimbursing the State employment security agency for the costs to the agency of providing the information; and “(B) compliance with safeguards established by the State employment security agency and determined by the Secretary of Labor to be appropriate to ensure that the information disclosed to the Committee is used only for the purposes of this subsection. “(4) The Executive Director of the Committee, in consultation with the Secretary, shall ensure that all personally identifiable information about students, their educational performance and their families and information with respect to individual schools shall remain confidential in accordance with the provisions of section 552 of title 5, United States Code. The data gathered under this subsection shall not be used to rank, compare, or otherwise evaluate individual students or individual schools. No individual may be included in the program without that individual’s written consent. At least once every 3 years the Secretary shall remind participants in writing of their inclusion in the program. “(d) Of amounts reserved under section 451(a)(3)(A) to carry out the provisions of this section, the Committee shall use— “(1) to support State occupational information coordinating committees for the purpose of operating State occupational information systems and career information delivery systems, the greater of— “(A) an amount equal to the aggregate amount appropriated or otherwise made available for that purpose for the fiscal year 1990; or “(B) an amount equal to 75 percent of the aggregate amount appropriated or otherwise made available to carry out this section; and “(2) for purposes of carrying out subsection (c)— “(A) an amount equal to not less than 10 percent of the amounts available to carry out this section; or 104 STAT. 827 “(B) if the amount remaining after carrying out paragraph (1) is insufficient to provide the amount described in subparagraph (A), such remaining amount.”.