Both the House and Senate were in session this week, but progress continues to be slow on key pieces of legislation. The Senate is still negotiating a national security supplemental bill, which is expected to be released soon. The House passed a bipartisan bill to extend a number of business tax cuts and expand the Child Tax Credit, but it faces an uncertain future in the Senate. On the appropriations front, congressional leaders have reportedly agreed on how to divide the overall allocation among the 12 subcommittees so that work on final bills can begin, although those allocations have not been made public. This week also marks the start of CTE Month, celebrated in the bipartisan resolution that Reps. Thompson and Bonamici, co-chairs of the CTE Caucus, introduced on Thursday, and the similar one that will be introduced in the Senate soon! Don’t forget to ask your Members of Congress to co-sponsor these resolutions. 

• Thompson, Bonamici Recognize February as Career and Technical Education Month: On February 1, Reps. Thompson and Bonamici, co-chairs of the CTE Caucus, introduced the bipartisan 2024 CTE Month Resolution,  recognizing February as National CTE Month.
    
• Diversifying the CTE Educator Workforce This week, ACTE and Advance CTE released a report titled, “State and Local Strategies for Diversifying the CTE Educator Workforce.” It examines common challenges in diversifying the educator workforce and practices to overcome these challenges.
   
• More Workforce Funding Expected for Community Colleges from Energy Department The U.S. Department of Energy plans to release $24 million in grant funding for community colleges, trade unions and labor management partnerships to establish Industrial Assessment Centers to expand workforce pathways. Be on the lookout for applications later this spring.
   
• Colleges Won’t Get FAFSA Data Until March, Delaying Aid Offers: This week, the Department of Education announced a delay in data transfer from the FAFSA to schools. This delay could impact student access to federal student loans, work study and Pell Grants for low-income students. Congruently, the Dept. Of Education announced earlier this week they had received over 3 million FAFSA forms that had been submitted successfully.
   
• House Education and the Workforce Committee Approves College Cost Reduction Bill: This week, the House Education and the Workforce Committee approved the partisan H.R. 6951, the College Cost Reduction Act, by a vote of 22-19. The bill focuses on price transparency, college accountability for student debt repayment, and a new funding approach based on student outcomes. House Democrats released their own plan to improve access to postsecondary education as a counter proposal to the bill.      

The co-chairs of the House CTE Caucus, Reps. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), are once again leading the House’s annual CTE Month resolution marking February as CTE Month. These representatives are currently circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter asking their colleagues to cosponsor the resolution.  

CLICK HERE to ask your Representative to cosponsor this year’s CTE Month resolution. 

The resolution raises awareness about the many benefits associated with high-quality CTE programs. By requesting support for the resolution, you are continuing to elevate the benefits of CTE to policymakers at a critical time for CTE advocacy. Please contact your representative today! If you have a direct contact in your representative’s office, we urge you to call or email them directly. 

*If you haven’t responded to last week’s alert and asked your Senators to sign on to the similar Senate CTE Month resolution, please click here to reach out to them as well!

ACTE has released CTE: Developing the Aerospace and Defense Workforce, the latest in our revamped series of Sector Sheets describing CTE’s role in growing the workforce for vital industry sectors. The Sector Sheet series is published with support from ACTE’s long-time partner Pearson.  

These revised Sector Sheets include job opportunities in each sector and descriptions of how CTE prepares learners for the workforce in each sector, all in a new format featuring more streamlined text and additional graphics to make these advocacy tools even more effective.

This Sector Sheet describes how CTE supports the aerospace and defense workforce, which employs more than 2.2 million people nationwide and supports commercial, military and national defense activities. It also shares information on occupations, earnings and credentials that enable individuals to enter and progress within fields such as commercial aerospace, cyber systems and unmanned systems. Finally, the Sector Sheet demonstrates the importance of CTE in developing this workforce by describing how CTE prepares learners through courses, industry credentials, work-based learning, career and technical student organizations and more.

As we move forward with the revamped Sector Sheets, both the newer and older Sector Sheets will remain available on the ACTE Sector Sheet webpage for download and use. We encourage you to share these tools with students, families, counselors, policymakers and others to spread the message about CTE and its benefits for learners and the workforce.

While 51% of secondary CTE concentrators were learners of color in 2021–22, only 13% of CTE educators in public schools were people of color in 2020–21. Today, ACTE and Advance CTE released a new report, State and Local Strategies for Diversifying the CTE Educator Workforce (full report and executive summary), that presents common challenges to diversifying the educator workforce, identifies promising practices in the field to overcome these challenges, and provides actionable strategies and recommendations to assist state and local CTE leaders in strategically planning and developing policies and practices to increase diversity in the CTE workforce.

A companion resource, Recruiting Diverse Educators: A Database of Organizations Representing Underserved Populations, presents a contact list of organizations that serve minority populations, including industry professionals, learners, and current and future educators of color. The list offers a starting point for local, regional and state CTE leaders looking to develop the educator pipeline and recruit educators from under-represented populations to teach in CTE.

This work was generously funded by the Joyce Foundation.

ACTE and Advance CTE will be hosting an in-person preconference workshop on this topic on May 1, 2024, at the ACTE Region I conference in New York City. You do not need to register for the entire conference to take part!

This week, the Biden-Harris Administration announced winners of Perkins Innovation grant funding and released the National Educational Technology Plan. In Congress, the Innovation Act, endorsed by ACTE, was reintroduced, offering further support to student success. Unfortunately, there’s still no progress to report on the twelve spending bills that Congress needs to pass in order to keep the government open past early March. 

• Young, Hassan, Braun, Kaine Reintroduce Innovation Zone (IZ) Act: The Innovation Zone (IZ) Act would reform the Experimental Sites Initiative authorized under the Higher Education Act. The bill, endorsed by ACTE, would help educational institutions better understand how to support students and pursue innovative strategies to ensure their success.
   
• Biden-Harris Administration Announces $25M in Grant Awards for Career Connected High Schools: The Biden-Harris administration announced 19 new grant award winners through the Perkins Innovation and Modernization, Career Connected High Schools (CCHS) grant program.
   
• Upcoming Webinar: 2023 State CTE Policy Year in Review: Advance CTE and ACTE will host a joint webinar on February 21, “2023 State CTE Policy Year in Review,” to discuss national trends and innovative legislation that will impact the millions of CTE students and educators. Registration information can be found on the CTE Policy Watch Blog.  
   
• Research Roundup: Community College and Workforce Development Trends: Several new reports have been published addressing funding levels for community colleges, the role of the community college system and the current practice of career navigation. More information on each report is available on the CTE Policy Watch Blog.
   
• ACTE member Catherine Walker nominated as finalist for CCSSO National Teacher of the Year: Catherine Walker, a CTE teacher from Alaska and ACTE member was nominated by the Council of Chief State Schools Officers as a finalist for their National Teacher of the Year award.
   
• Department of Education released the 2024 National Educational Technology Plan (NETP): NEPT frames three divides limiting the transformational potential of educational technology to support teaching and learning including: Digital Use, Design and Access.  Read more at https://tech.ed.gov/netp/.  

The co-chairs of the Senate CTE Caucus, Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Todd Young (R-IN), Ted Budd (R-NC) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), are once again leading the Senate’s annual CTE Month resolution marking February as CTE Month. These senators are currently circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter asking their colleagues to cosponsor the resolution.  

The following other Senators have already signed on: 

• Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) 
• Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) 
• Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) 
• Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) 
• Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) 
• Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) 
• Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) 
• Sen. Angus King (I-ME) 
• Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)  
• Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) 

If either of your Senators has not signed on, CLICK HERE to ask them to cosponsor this year’s CTE Month resolution. 

The resolution raises awareness about the many benefits associated with high-quality CTE programs. By requesting support for the resolution, you are continuing to elevate the benefits of CTE to policymakers at a critical time for CTE advocacy. Please contact your senators today! If you have a direct contact in your senator’s office, we urge you to call or email them directly. The deadline for Senate cosponsors to sign on is Monday, February 5, 2024. 

Note: More details about a House CTE Month Resolution will be available soon – this resolution is just for senators! 

Variation in Community College Funding Levels: The Urban Institute recently published a report on varying levels of community college funding across the nation and the impact on historically underserved groups. Researchers discovered no evidence of systemic differences across the nation in state and local funding for community colleges that serve more Black, Hispanic and/or low-income students relative to other demographic groups. However, the analysts caution that equal funding may not be sufficient to ensure access and supports for all learners.

More findings and insights below:

• States that rely on local sources of funding for community colleges also have more funding overall.
• Some states intentionally change levels of funding based on factors like institution size, potentially leading to funding differences among demographic groups attending smaller versus larger institutions.
• On average, rural institutions receive over $1,000 more per student in state funding than urban and suburban institutions.
• About 44% of public undergraduate students attend community colleges, ranging from 24% in South Dakota and Montana to 67% in California.

Policy Changes to Maximize Community College Workforce Development: The American Enterprise Institute recently released a report that explores the role of the community college system by analyzing how successful institutions across the nation are fulfilling their workforce development potential. Researchers concluded that institutional effectiveness varies greatly by location and that more scaling and standardization of evidence-based practices is needed for improved student outcomes.

The analysts recommend a national framework that does the following:

• Mandatorily places community colleges at the center of state workforce development efforts.
• Enacts short-term Pell-eligible noncredit programs that provide learners with healthy earnings boosts.
• Invests in state offices similar to the , which focuses on compiling regional labor market and supply-and-demand trends.
• Publishes outcomes for noncredit programs.
• Further promotes work-based learning.

Career Navigation in a Time of Rapid Change: A report recently published by the Harvard Kennedy School analyzed the current practice of career navigation to set an agenda for a more equitable ecosystem that can lead to improved career and wage outcomes for underrepresented and economically disadvantaged individuals. Analysts found that in 2019 approximately 53 million people in the United States were working low-wage jobs with median earnings of $24,000 annually and suggested solutions in which CTE plays a crucial role in changing the status quo.

The following list includes recommended best practices for a more equitable career navigation system:

• Increase access to stackable credentials, which can lead to a 20% increase in wages for working adults and can help narrow the middle- and high-income earnings gap.
• Increase access to American Job Centers, which provide assessment, coaching and service referrals and can lead to earnings growth of between 7% and 20%.
• Encourage corporate policies that support employee reskilling efforts to provide underrepresented workers with more open doors for upward mobility.
• Build community partnerships and develop trust with marginalized populations to co-create solutions with community leaders like the embedded career navigator program in Oakland, California.