Arkansas Department of Career Education

Marta Collier-Youngblood has been named executive director of the ASMSA Foundation at the Arkansas School for Mathematics Sciences & the Arts in Hot Springs. read more >

Kelly Lyon has been hired as a strategic planning and development manager for the Arkansas Department of Career Education in Little Rock, and Charles McAfee has been promoted to communications director. read more >

Through initiatives like WAGE, the state’s Adult Education Centers teach work readiness skills to the unemployed and underemployed. Last fiscal year, 2,000 Arkansans earned WAGE certificates. read more >

Charles Lyford of Little Rock has been hired as a managing attorney for the Arkansas Department of Career Education. read more >

Lisa Thompson has been named personnel manager of the Arkansas Department of Career Education in Little Rock. read more >

Joel G. Hargis has been hired to lead the bankruptcy and consumer advocacy practice of the Nolan Caddell Reynolds law firm in Fort Smith. read more >

The Adult Education Division of the Arkansas Department of Career Education will celebrate 50 years of adult education in Arkansas with a series of events during Adult Education Week. read more >

Specialized agriculture education in Arkansas will soon not be solely the purview of higher education. A measure approved in this year’s legislative session will create a pilot program for “agriculture schools” in the state. read more >

Gov. Asa Hutchinson drew the attention of educators and the tech industry when he ushered a bill through the Legislature requiring all high schools in the state to offer a computer science course. read more >

Over a year after state Sen. Jane English began her crusade to reform workforce education in Arkansas, Charisse Childers is poised to carry out what English thinks is the centerpiece of that reformation: Act 892 of 2015, signed into law last month. read more >

In the furor surrounding the final days of the legislative session, a couple of important worker education reforms could be overlooked. They shouldn’t be for two reasons: They promise to be effective, helping match businesses in Arkansas with capable employees (and capable employees with good jobs), and they demonstrate what bipartisanship can accomplish. read more >

Gov.-elect Asa Hutchinson has picked Leon Jones Jr. as new director of the Arkansas Department of Labor, and Charisse Childers as the new director of the Arkansas Department of Career Education. read more >

State Sen. Jane English has no use for the private option, the Medicaid expansion providing health insurance to the poor. But the Republican lawmaker from North Little Rock saw an opportunity and took it, and what began as an old-fashioned political horse trade — you get my vote, I get something for my constituents — appears likely to evolve into a governor-backed legislative package that next year will seek to transform workforce training in Arkansas. read more >

Former state Sen. Randy Laverty has been named the commissioner of Arkansas Rehabilitation Services. Laverty served in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001 and in the Senate from 2003 until this year. read more >