On October 25, the House elected Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) to be the 56th Speaker of the House of Representatives, capping off a contentious three-week period where the House did not have a speaker.  

Johnson, first elected in 2016, has served as chair of the Republican Study Committee, vice chair of the House Republican Conference, and on the Judiciary and Armed Services committees. Prior to joining Congress, Johnson was a partner at a law firm in Louisiana. He earned both his bachelor’s degree and Juris Doctorate from Louisiana State University. He has not worked much in the education or workforce development areas and is likely to focus primarily on other issues. However, he was a member of the House CTE Caucus, indicating at least some interest in CTE.  

Johnson faces many legislative priorities as Speaker with one of the first being government funding. The continuing resolution keeping the government open is set to expire on November 17. In a blueprint for the new few months that he circulated earlier this week, Johnson said another stopgap funding measure until January or April may be needed so that lawmakers can continue working on passing regular appropriations bills. He also suggested bringing the House FY 24 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill, which contains steep cuts to education and workforce programs, to the floor for a vote the week of November 13. Now is the time to redouble efforts to oppose this House bill and advocate for the higher funding levels proposed by the Senate.   

This week the attention of Capitol Hill continued to be largely focused on the election of the new House Speaker, with a number of developments throughout the week but no real progress. The Senate was also back in session but activity on appropriations continues to be at a standstill there as well, with no agreement on how to move forward on appropriations bills. In other news, the White House unveiled a request of over $100 billion in supplemental security aid for fiscal year 2024 aimed at supporting Israel and Ukraine, and addressing other defense and border security needs. Read more news and notes below:

• Representative Jim Jordan Loses Republican Vote for House Speaker a Third Time: After losing a third public vote, House Republicans met in a session behind closed doors and voted against electing Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) as the party’s nominee for Speaker of the House. This development leaves the party with no immediate option for speaker, and the process will have to begin again next week.

• Department of Education Announces Funding For Fostering Diverse Schools Demonstration Grant Program: ED has announced an award of approximately $14 million to assist local- and state-driven efforts to create more diverse school communities through the Fostering Diverse Schools Demonstration Program, which will aim to build a more inclusive school environment and support districts working to enrich educational experiences, opportunities and school conditions for all students.

• OCTAE to Host Webinar Series on High-Quality Correctional Educational Programs: The Office of Career and Technical Education (OCTAE) is inviting CTE shareholders and members of the public to attend its recently announced webinar series titled Pipeline to Pell, focusing on advancing state and local implementation of inclusive, supportive, comprehensive, and high-quality correctional education programs that meet the diverse needs of students. The series will provide participants with information, best practices and resources for expanding high-quality CTE programs to incarcerated students. You can register for the initial two webinars in the series here and here.

• Department of Education Announces Funding Initiative to Preserve Native Languages, Increase Native Teacher Retention, and Support Tribal Educational Agencies: ED has announced a round of funding that totals more than $11 million aimed at strengthening and supporting the Native American teacher pipeline and the vitality of Native American languages and schools. The funding will be awarded to the new Native American Language Resource Centers (NALRC) program with the goal of ensuring that Tribal Educational Agencies can coordinate grant resources alongside state and local partners.

• Department of Education Releases Updated Perkins Data: The Office of Career and Technical Education has released an update to its Perkins Data Explorer with school year 2021-22 enrollment and performance data. Read more about it on the CTE Policy Watch Blog.

MDRC recently published a report that explores the resurgence and popularity of CTE as a path to providing learners with in-demand skills and preparation for today’s labor market. It also tackles challenges and opportunities that would enable CTE to scale up and systematize its most effective elements and models.

The report makes the case for CTE as a solution to the skills gap crisis due to its nature as a hands-on learning model and demonstrated positive association with learner workforce and postsecondary outcomes. Researchers note that career-related certificates and associate degrees lead to higher employment rates and increased wages, yet access to high-quality CTE and early postsecondary programs remains limited, which further exacerbates inequality and makes credential attainment for underrepresented populations more difficult.

To combat these challenges and help CTE fulfill its potential for all learners, researchers made some of the following recommendations:

• Tie education and training to booming economic sectors by building regional capacity to align CTE and workforce needs.
• Ensure that evidence-based program models remain faithful to their purpose by scaling practices while adapting to diverse labor markets and contexts.
• Disseminate CTE research to help inform policymakers and practitioners about emerging trends and practices.
• Expand data collection capacities to build the knowledge base and help practitioners understand the variation in outcomes for specific student populations.

In particular, researchers recommend that leaders prioritize ensuring equitable access to programs for underrepresented learners as they seek to entrench CTE in the fabric of the American education and workforce system.

The Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education has released an update to its Perkins Data Explorer with school year 2021-22 enrollment and performance data. CTE practitioners and researchers can use this data to better understand CTE student outcomes nationwide and in their states.

Notable findings and figures are listed below:

• School year 2021-22 recorded more than 11.5 million CTE participants across secondary and postsecondary education.
• School year 2021-22 recorded more than 4.6 million secondary and postsecondary CTE concentrators nationwide.
• In school year 2021-22, secondary CTE concentrators achieved a 96% four-year graduation rate.
• In school year 2021-22, Health Science was the most popular Career Cluster.

To learn more, access the Perkins Data Explorer tool and a national summary of the data from 2021-22. A lengthier and more in-depth post digging deeper into data points from the release will be published on the CTE Policy Watch Blog in the coming days.

This week, Members of Congress were largely focused on the election of a new House Speaker and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Little action could occur to address support for Israel because of the situation in the House, and all other bills are stalled as well. The Senate was also on recess this week but will return next week with a long “to do” list, including funding or other policy to support Israel, as well as the FY 24 appropriations bills. Read more news and updates below:

• GOP’s Steve Scalise Drops Out of House Speaker Race: Republican lawmaker Steve Scalise (R-LA) announced that he was dropping out of the election to become the new Speaker of the House after he failed to get enough support from within the party. Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is now the current nominee, but also lacks full support. Currently, a vote is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, October 17, but it is unclear how the next few days will unfold.

• White House Launches Initiative to Catalyze Workforce Development for Advanced Manufacturing Jobs and Careers: The Biden-Harris Administration held a White House Convening to officially kick off its efforts on an Advanced Manufacturing Workforce Sprint, an initiative to build a diverse, skilled pipeline of workers for “good jobs,” including union jobs in the advanced manufacturing sector. The initiative brings together employers, unions, education and training providers, community-based organizations, and state and local governments, among others, to strategize on how to help more Americans train for and succeed in the growing field.

• Department of Education Announces Technical Assistance Centers Funding to Support Student Academic Achievement: ED has announced a round of funding of more than $24 million for technical assistance centers across the nation aimed at supporting and enhancing student well-being, academic success and school safety. The initiative will complement the Department’s mission of accelerating learning, meeting student mental health needs and expanding opportunity and success both inside and outside the classroom.

The Community College Research Center (CCRC) recently published a series of reports to accompany its Dual Enrollment Equity Pathways (DEEP) framework, a new initiative that aims to rethink dual enrollment (DE) as an equitable ramp to postsecondary programs that can lead to good-paying, family- and self-sustaining careers for learners who might not have otherwise pursued education after high school. The framework centers around the following four areas of practice:

• Outreach to underserved students and schools
• Alignment to college degrees and careers in fields of interest
• Early career and academic exploration, advising and planning
• High-quality college instruction and academic support

Redesigning Dual Enrollment as a Purposeful Pathway to College and Career Opportunity: The initial report of the series presents the DEEP model and draws on the authors’ conclusions from institutions that were early adopters of whole-college guided pathways (GP) reforms. Researchers identified that approximately one in five school districts nationwide have closed the racial equity access gap to DE, indicating the importance of scaling and sharing program strategies happening at the local level.

The following list spells out key strategies that leaders can use to implement the DEEP framework in their DE programs:

• Engage in outreach to low-income students and students of color beginning in middle school to make learners aware of DE opportunities when they reach high school.
• “Backward map” all programs to ensure that they lead to a good job, an associate degree or a bachelor’s degree.
• Provide separate advising and planning assistance to DE students to better assist them and reduce the work of overburdened high school advisors.
• Expose learners to postsecondary instructional methods that help them improve academic performance and assimilate to college norms and expectations.

Rethinking Dual Enrollment as an Equitable On-ramp to a Career-path College Degree Program After High School: The second report presents findings that researchers gained through field research at six community college-K-12 partnerships across Florida and Texas that have achieved positive results in expanding postsecondary access to underrepresented learners and economically disadvantaged individuals through the reforming and extension of GP practices and DE offerings. Researchers found that more than 1.5 million high school students take DE courses each year, but the majority of these courses are à la carte with no opportunity for specializing.

The following list contains strategies and recommendations that community college-K-12 partnerships can use to implement GP reforms and increase participation opportunities for underserved individuals:

• Embed program-specific DE coursework into high school CTE programs to market DE to learners, building on existing career-focused academies and programs.
• Create more efficient and streamlined pathways to teaching careers for high school students by aligning DE with teacher education pathway programs.
• Set high expectations across the board and provide essential supports such as tutoring, advising and purposeful pathways to ensure learner success.
• Frame DE pathways as a route to facilitating upward mobility and creating productive citizens when marketing to underserved communities.

Researchers also shared a key recommendation gleaned from the partnerships that they engaged with: Using current academy and DE students as ambassadors to describe DE opportunities to elementary and middle school students and families.

After a busy weekend where both the House and Senate managed to pass a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open until Nov. 17, the Senate had very little activity this week, and is now recessed until October 16. The House, however, saw unprecedent events unfold as former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was voted out of his role. The House is now beginning the process of electing a new speaker, but it is uncertain how long this may take. In the meantime, House activity is at a standstill, potentially impacting numerous pieces of legislation awaiting consideration. Read further news and notes below:

• Appropriations Update: With a new CR in place until November 17, Congress now needs to return to the process of considering appropriations bills. Currently, the House has passed four of its 12 funding bills, all on a partisan basis, while the Senate is still working to pass its first set of three bills. The Senate plans to return to votes on these bills when they return, but the situation in the House is likely to slow further appropriations consideration there. Both sides remain far apart in terms of total spending levels. As this process continues to advance, it is critical that you continue to let your Members of Congress know you prefer the reasonable investments in the Senate bill.
• Department of Education Appoints New Members to National Assessment Governing Board: ED has announced the appointment of 11 education leaders (seven new members and four reappointed members) to the National Assessment Governing Board, the organization that oversees the Nation’s Report Card. These new members are set to be sworn in at the governing board’s quarterly meeting in November. The full governing board members list is linked here.

• Department of Education Announces an Additional Student Debt Relief Measure: ED and the Biden-Harris Administration have announced an additional $9 billion in student debt relief for more than 125,000 Americans through fixes that the Department has made to income-driven repayment (IDR) and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. The new measure also grants automatic loan cancellation to borrowers with total and permanent disabilities.

• Department of Labor Announces Funding for Continued Temporary Employment and Workforce Training Support After Hurricane Ian: DOL has announced an incremental award of $7.5 million in funding to support the efforts of disaster-relief employment and workforce development and training for eligible residents in the state of Florida as the area continues to recover from the effects left behind by Hurricane Ian. The funds will be available for the Florida Department of Commerce to provide residents with relief services including support for career and training programs.