May 16, 2006

Please urge your Members of Congress’ education staff to attend ACTE’s forum and discussion on Career and Technical Education’s Role in High School Reform. This event, jointly sponsored by ACTE and the American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), will be held in Washington, DC on Friday, May 19, 2006, from 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. in the CapitolBuilding, room HC5 (with a Continental breakfast at 9:00 and the forum starting at 9:30). Congressional staff can easily sign up to attend the event by emailing their contact information to aypf@aypf.org.

The forum will provide insight and awareness of the strengths and resources that career and technical education (CTE) can contribute to high school reform efforts to ensure that American high schools prepare students to succeed in postsecondary education and the 21st century workforce. A panel of CTE professionals will inform the audience about how CTE can help students to learn core academic subjects in a real-world context, and provide tangible examples of CTE’s effectiveness at the local level.  This forum can help your Members of Congress to better understand the value of CTE in Academics.

Here’s what you can do:

• Invite your Members of Congress’ education staff to the forum by calling or e-mailing an invitation via ACTE's Legislative Action Center.
  
• Remind them to RSVP by emailing their contact information to aypf@aypf.org.
  
• Inform them that high school reform is an important issue in your community and the integration of your state’s CTE programs in high school reform efforts can strengthen student’s engagement and motivation and improve relevance of course work.
  
• When your Members and their staff are in town, invite them to see your CTE programs in action to reinforce messages from the briefing.
  
• Let ACTE know if any of your Members of Congress’ staff plan to attend.