Today, the U.S. House of Representatives voted by voice vote without objection to pass H.R. 2353, the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act. The bill would reauthorize the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins) through Fiscal Year (FY) 2023. ACTE released a joint statement of support for the bill’s passage with Advance CTE. H.R. 2353 is very similar to the bill passed by the House of Representatives last year to reauthorize Perkins (H.R. 5587), and would make important improvements to the federal system of support for CTE. We also sent a letter to all Members of Congress supporting House passage and outlining our remaining concern with the secondary concentrator definition. 

After the bill’s passage, its cosponsors and other leaders from the CTE community held a press conference outside the Capitol. ACTE Executive Director LeAnn Wilson was pleased to participate in this event, and share our thanks for the bill’s passage. A Facebook live video of the press conference can be found at https://www.facebook.com/AdvanceCTE/videos/1314144092039071/.

Work on Perkins will now be focused in the Senate, where concerns around issues of Secretarial authority stalled discussions last fall. We are hopeful that the Senate will make Perkins reauthorization a priority in the coming months, and will be working with them to ensure a strong, bipartisan piece of legislation as the process continues.

06/22/2017  

Aligning CTE and Apprenticeships

A new report, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education and prepared by Advance CTE with support from Jobs for the Future, Vivayic and RTI International, describes how CTE and apprenticeship can align to the benefit of students. The research assesses eight secondary programs—one Registered Apprenticeship, one youth apprenticeship and six pre-apprenticeships—for their level of instructional alignment and articulation with full apprenticeship.  In-depth exploration of the eight study sites illustrates a variety of strategies, as well as trade-offs between narrower occupational training with strong links to apprenticeships and broader programs that are less articulated to apprenticeships but offer more exploration.  The authors derive many takeaways from the research, including:  

§  Students and parents are more engaged when postsecondary connections are promoted as part of the program.

§  Study sites use various funding sources, including local contributions, state secondary and postsecondary education formulas, and Perkins funding.

§  Tax credits can help to convince small businesses that participation would be at least cost neutral.

§  Transportation is an ongoing challenge, except for sites in urban centers.

§  Programs overcome legal barriers in various ways, such as relying on employer partners to explain relevant labor laws or extending school liability coverage.

This report is being released just as President Trump has signed an executive order promoting apprenticeships. However, this welcome attention to workforce development contrasts with the Administration’s FY18 budget proposal, which calls for a 15-percent cut to Perkins and a 40-percent cut to Department of Labor WIOA programs.