Earlier this month, Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Todd Young (R-IN) and Doug Jones (D-AL) introduced the Jobs Plus Recovery Act (S. 2642). The bill, a first-of-its-kind pilot program, allows WIOA-funded training programs to provide support services to people challenged by substance use disorders and integrates addiction treatment and recovery with workforce training. The bill also aims to support individuals in work-based learning by providing pre-employment, early employment and continuing employment services. Senators Kaine and Young are co-chairs of the Senate CTE Caucus, and Sen. Jones is a member of the caucus

In a press release, Sen. Kaine pitched the bill by highlighting workforce training as an important way to invest in the community to combat the opioid epidemic. Similarly, Sen. Jones asserted job training to be an integral part of supporting individuals throughout their recovery. Sen. Young told a story about an individual in Indiana who beat addiction and continues to be a successful employee at a manufacturing firm.

ACTE has endorsed the Jobs Plus Recovery Act as an innovative approach to support student success and ensure program participants are equipped with the services they need to succeed in the workforce.

Less than a week after the introduction of the Jobs Plus Recovery Act, Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA), the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, introduced a full, comprehensive bill to address the opioid crisis that incorporates some of the elements of the Jobs Plus Recovery Act. The bipartisan bill, the Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 (S. 2680), is co-sponsored by Sens. Kaine and Jones, along with another Senate CTE Caucus co-chair, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). The bill would make regulatory changes impacting drug manufacturers, boost opioid grants for states facing the most severe epidemics, and improve treatment options and access to them. There are also several provisions related to CTE.

The Alexander-Murray opioid bill would provide grants to address the economic and workforce impacts of the opioid crisis, using WIOA as the infrastructure through which training and employment services would be offered to individuals challenged by the opioid epidemic. That training would include, among other things, using the career pathways framework to lead individuals to "high-demand, high-wage jobs." To improve job retention rates during the first few months of employment, the bill specifies that services may include "a continuation of skills training and career and technical education." Additionally, the bill includes grants to establish or operate "comprehensive opioid recovery centers" that would serve as resources, providing "job training, job placement assistance, and continuing education assistance to support reintegration into the workforce." The bill also provides loan forgiveness to "masters level, licensed substance use disorder treatment counselors."

In addition to the full text of the bill, a summary can be found here. The HELP Committee held a hearing on the bill earlier this month and is expected to mark it up soon.

CTE students exhibit key non-cognitive skills that lead to positive education and labor market outcomes, according to a new report from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

AEI researchers Collin Hitt and Albert Cheng begin their analysis with a synthesis of CTE research showing that, on average, high school students who take more CTE courses have lower test scores in math and reading, but have positive outcomes when it comes to high school graduation, employment and earnings.

Given these lower test scores, what propels CTE students to labor market success? What skills and abilities do CTE students have that is not captured by these tests? Hitt and Cheng analyzed several measures of non-cognitive skills related to conscientiousness and found that CTE students performed higher on these measures than their non-CTE peers. These measures include teacher reports of attendance, attentiveness in class and homework completion as well as how much effort students put into completing tasks. (The researchers previously demonstrated that students and adults who take more care in accurately and completely filling out forms are more likely to achieve better education and labor market outcomes).

This research adds to a growing body of information on the connection between CTE and cross-cutting skills that lead to success in the workplace and further education.

ACTE applauds the 38 Senators who are working to champion federal funding for CTE! In a recent letter, this broad coalition of CTE supporters on Capitol Hill called for a big increase for Perkins as part of the Fiscal Year 2019 funding bill. This great boost for CTE in the Senate comes on the heels of the record-breaking support that a similar Perkins funding letter received in the House of Representatives last month. Indeed, more Senators signed this letter than did in FY 2018! We again extend our appreciation to Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) for leading this effort. A complete list of the Members of Congress who signed the letter is available here.

New information on how CTE is offered in public school districts was released today by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). According to the data, which was collected in spring 2017, 98 percent of public school districts provided CTE programming to high school students in the 2016-2017 school year

Public school districts described a diverse delivery system for CTE: 83 percent of districts offer CTE in comprehensive high schools; 43 percent offer CTE at part-time area career centers; 35 percent provide CTE for high schoolers on postsecondary campuses; and 12 percent offer CTE at full-time CTE high schools. About one-third of districts reported that all of their CTE programs align with postsecondary programs, and another one-third reported that most of their programs align with postsecondary.

Many school districts offer students in CTE programs the opportunity to earn college credit (73 percent) and academic credit (61 percent). While 77 percent of districts provide on-the-job training, internships, practicums, clinical experiences or cooperative education, only 20 percent of districts reported that all or most of their CTE programs require work-based learning.

Finally, districts reported that the most significant barriers to offering CTE programs are funding (50 percent of districts); recruiting and retaining teachers in high-demand fields (44 percent); and facility limitations (43 percent). When it comes to barriers to student participation, 25 percent of districts reported scheduling restrictions; 23 percent reported difficulty finding work-based learning opportunities; and 20 percent reported issues with transportation for work-based learning.

This report contributes to a growing body of data on CTE and career readiness, including recent NCES data on non-degree credentials and new nationwide Perkins performance data from the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education. Check out the full report at https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2018028.

In state legislatures and across the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, policymakers are exploring and imposing new work requirements on public assistance programs. While work requirements already exist in some programs, like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), they would be new in others.

“Work requirements” condition public assistance on individuals' working, actively seeking work, or participating in some type of job training or other allowable activity. There are exceptions usually built in to these requirements to exempt individuals who are sick, have a disability or are elderly. However, opponents to these requirements contend that the exemptions do not adequately reflect legitimate reasons individuals may not be employed.

In January, the Trump Administration, for the first time in the program's history, allowed states to impose work requirements on their Medicaid recipients. Medicaid provides health care coverage to low-income individuals and people with disabilities. Consequently many states have either imposed the requirements or are exploring doing so.

In addition to work requirements as they relate to Medicaid, President Trump issued an executive order earlier this month directing federal agencies to review their work requirement policies and to develop recommendations. These could include expanding work requirements to other programs.

In legislative branch activity, House Republicans recently introduced their 2018 Farm Bill, which includes making major reforms to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as "food stamps." The bill imposes work requirements on SNAP recipients, which can be satisfied with at least 20 hours of workforce training per week to maintain public assistance. While the bill would provide an additional $1 billion annually for these workforce programs, it falls far short of the estimated $15 billion it would take to fully fund what would be a drastic increase in workforce development participants.

Work requirements impact the CTE community because the requirement can often be satisfied through job training activities. The goal is to encourage individuals to increase their earning potential by pursuing career-focused education, which would theoretically lead to a smaller population of people eligible for public assistance, thereby reducing government expenditures. However, as structured, job training requirements sometimes limit economic opportunities. For example, TANF limits CTE programs to only counting as a work activity for 12 months, thereby making it exceedingly difficult and infeasible for participants to earn longer-term credentials like associate degrees that are more highly correlated with upward economic mobility.

ACTE believes any changes to current law that would result in increased enrollment in job training programs should be met with the financial resources necessary to serve these new populations. Additionally, eligibility to qualify for public assistance programs through any new or existing work requirements should allow for workforce training of at least 24 months so that participants are allotted sufficient time and flexibility to earn meaningful credentials that could actually increase participants' earning potentials and catalyze upward economic mobility.

ACTE is interested in learning more about how new work requirements across public assistance programs could impact your CTE program. To share your thoughts, comment below or email us at jnagurka@acteonline.org.

Congress returned from recess this week to a full agenda, but with little certainty as to which pieces of legislation would rise to the top of its priority list. With just over 6 months until the mid-term elections, the pace of legislative activity is likely to slow even further as partisanship and the campaigns take center stage. However, there are still some legislative issues getting attention. At the macro level, infrastructure is expected to receive some action, although questions remain about how comprehensive any effort will be. Congress is also expected to move forward with a package to address the opioid abuse crisis. Funding for the federal government for FY 2019 is one of the few “must pass” pieces of legislation before the midterms. With appropriations work on FY 2018 finally wrapped up, work shifts to FY 2019, and Appropriations Committees are in the midst of a flurry of hearings on a wide variety of topics related to funding.

More specific to education, discussions continue on both the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act and the Perkins Act. While neither has been at the forefront of congressional attention in recent weeks, behind-the-scenes work is occurring. On Perkins, Senate staff continue to look for a path forward and ways to address underlying differences of opinion, particularly around Secretarial Authority, that have stalled work. Recently there have been new internal conversations among education committee staff, and language and ideas are being exchanged to prompt discussion. These initial ideas are not formal bills or proposals, but a starting point and just one part of the negotiations before action is taken. While some of the ideas we have heard are not aligned with ACTE priorities and would present significant concerns, we remain engaged in the process and are working with Hill staff to address these issues.

All members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee are open to and remain engaged in receiving feedback from constituents on Perkins and CTE generally. As soon as there is formal language to respond to, we will send a legislative alert and let you know it is time to take specific action!

This week, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) announced that he will not seek reelection to the House of Representatives this fall. While the speaker will serve out the rest of his current term, he will retire from office at the end of the year and will not return to Congress when it reconvenes next January.  Ryan assumed the office in October 2015, following the surprise resignation of former-Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). The position of speaker is the highest-ranking elected official in the House of Representatives, with a range of institutional and administrative roles, and serves as the leader of the majority party in the chamber. The House will vote to select a new speaker after the midterm election in November.

During his nineteen years in the House, Ryan has had little direct experience with education and workforce development policy. He most recently served as the chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee and was the Republican nominee for vice president in 2012. However, he led the House when Congress passed the landmark overhaul of federal K-12 education policy through the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015. He also oversaw the House passage of the Perkins reauthorization bill—the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act—in 2016 and 2017.

Speaker Ryan also had a major impact on federal funding for education and training programs. Last month, Congress passed a $1.3 trillion funding bill that included a $75 million increase for Perkins with Ryan’s support. Despite championing budget austerity during his time as House Budget Committee chairman, Ryan worked alongside Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) in 2013 to secure the passage of a budget agreement that raised discretionary funding caps and helped reverse the across-the-board cuts that occurred under sequestration. Tax legislation was another major priority for Speaker Ryan—that measure was signed into law last December.