Following a series of announcements, Congress has officially confirmed the assignments for committee leaders and members across education and appropriations. Now that these rosters are complete, you can utilize this blog post as a resource to help you schedule meetings with the Members of Congress who will have the most direct impact on CTE-related funding and policies during the 118th Congress!

House Appropriations Committee

House Education and Workforce Committee

Senate Appropriations Committee

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee

On February 28, ACTE, District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) hosted a school visit in celebration of CTE Month 2023 at Jackson-Reed High School in Northwest Washington, DC.

Representatives from the Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education (OCTAE), DC State Superintendent of Education, DCPS leadership, local and national organizations, media, and congressional staff joined the event. At the beginning of the morning, attendees were welcomed with remarks from Jackson-Reed Principal Sah Brown, DCPS Chancellor Lewis Ferebee, DC State Superintendent of Education Christina Grant, OCTAE Deputy Assistant Secretary Luke Rhine and ACTE Executive Director LeAnn Curry after breakfast served by the hospitality and tourism academy. The student-led academy fair hosted above the main room featured students from each of Jackson-Reed’s seven CTE academies.

Jackson-Reed CTE students then participated in a panel discussion, where they shared their reasons for choosing CTE courses and how their CTE programs were preparing them for their future careers. Several of the students said that the availability of work-based learning opportunities has been instrumental in preparing them for their chosen career pathways and postsecondary education. Students took questions from the gathered attendees, and many of them expressed that they would make the decision to pursue CTE programs over again if they were given the choice.

Attendees were also able to get a closer look at several of the NAF Academy programs at Jackson-Reed, including tours of the graphic design, finance, engineering and biomedical science academies. In the finance academy, teacher Dee Ward shared that she planned to continue earning certifications to better serve her students, including a few upcoming Saturdays that she plans to spend learning Quickbooks software. Biomedical science students were honing in on the various flavor receptors of the body, while engineering students soldered and programmed circuits. Graphic design students demonstrated examples of the mixed mediums they were using in their productions.

You can view several Tweets and videos from the event here.

In Washington this week, both chambers were in session. Congress was focused on passing resolutions, negotiations on domestic spending programs and advancing nominees. Coming up next week, the Biden Administration is preparing to release its fiscal year 2024 budget proposal on March 9, followed by specific budget justifications on March 13. ACTE’s Public Policy team is preparing to respond to the budget request and conduct additional follow-up to ensure that the funding needs of the CTE community are addressed appropriately. Activity with the Congressional CTE Caucus is also ramping up, with staff briefings and Capitol Hill receptions soon to come. For those joining us at the 2023 National Policy Seminar (NPS), you will have the opportunity to attend in-person meetings with your legislators in Washington to advocate for CTE priorities. Here are some news and notes from the week:

• Department of Education Launches Raise the Bar Website: In support of Secretary of Education Cardona’s “Raise the Bar: Lead the World” address on January 24, the Department has launched a new landing page and posted a one-pager in English and Spanish. Visit the website here.

• Department of Labor Announces Funding for Pre-Release Job Training for Incarcerated Individuals: The Department of Labor has announced funding to provide training and employment services to incarcerated individuals before their release from state correctional facilities, county or local jails. Read more about the funding here.

• Deputy Secretary of Labor Julie Su to be Nominated as Next Secretary of Labor: President Biden has announced his intent to nominate Julie Su as the next U.S. Secretary of Labor. Read the full statement from the Department of Labor here.

• Senate Appropriations Committee Leaders Discuss FY24 Proposals: Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) and Vice Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-ME) are working to set a topline funding level for fiscal year 2024 appropriations. Sen. Collins noted that lawmakers may try to move several “minibus” packages containing more than one spending bill at a time, but that they would try to avoid a large omnibus funding package.

• House Eliminates Education Earmarks: The House Appropriations Committee announced its Member request for fiscal year 2024 and will not be allowing earmarks in the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill this year. This means any education or workforce development projects will need to be submitted in the Senate.

• ACTE Hosts 2023 CTE Month School Visit at Jackson-Reed High School: On February 28, ACTE, District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) hosted a school visit in celebration of CTE Month 2023 at Jackson-Reed High School in Northwest Washington, DC. Read more about the visit here.

This week in Washington, Congress was in recess and there was limited activity in DC. Congressional leaders were focused on addressing national security concerns and the anniversary of the war in Ukraine. Both chambers of Congress will return on February 27. ACTE’s Public Policy team is also focusing on the 2023 CTE Month school visit in Washington, DC, our response to President Biden’s upcoming budget request for fiscal year 2024 (scheduled to be released March 9), the 2023 National Policy Seminar (NPS) and Congressional CTE Caucus activities, such as putting together membership recruitment drives and congressional staff briefings. This work is continuing, and we will keep you posted on how you can get involved. Here are the newest headlines to share:

• ACTION ALERT: Ask Your Members of Congress to Co-sponsor the JOBS Act of 2023: Earlier this month, the Jumpstart Our Businesses by Supporting Students Act of 2023 (H.R. 793/S. 161), or the JOBS Act, was reintroduced in the Senate by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Mike Braun (R-IN), and in the House by Reps. Bill Johnson (R-OH), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and Michael Turner (R-OH). This legislation would expand federal Pell Grant eligibility to high-quality, short-term job training programs, which has been a top priority of the CTE community for the past few years. ACTE has endorsed this bipartisan bill. Click here to ask your Members of Congress to cosponsor this legislation.

• Department of Energy Announces Buildings Upgrade Prize: The Department of Energy has announced a multi-year, multi-million-dollar prize competition that will provide funding to 60 teams of organizations working to decarbonize existing buildings in their communities. Learn more about the opportunity here.

• Senate Releases Earmark Guidelines: The Senate Appropriations Committee has released its deadlines and additional instructions for Senate offices to submit requests for “Congressionally Directed Spending.” Education and workforce development related funding requests must be submitted to the Committee by April 13, so individual Senate offices will likely have much earlier deadlines to ensure time to compile requests.

The following reports, released by researchers who are part of the CTE Research Network (CTERN), seek to help educators and administrators better understand how the design and implementation of CTE programs affect learner outcomes. ACTE is proud to be one of the Network leads, focused on supporting and disseminating causal research into how CTE impacts students.

Equity Framework for CTE Research: CTERN’s Equity in CTE Workgroup recently released a framework to help researchers infuse an equity approach into CTE research from start to finish. The framework addresses equity at six stages of the research life cycle — project management, research design, measurement and data collection, data analysis, cost and resource equity, and reporting and dissemination — and includes real and hypothetical examples from CTE research.

Incremental Costs in CTE: A recent brief developed by CTERN’s Workgroup on CTE Cost Analysis explores and analyzes the incremental costs of CTE in classrooms across America. The brief aims to be a guide for researchers, evaluators and administrators in documenting the resources needed to provide CTE experiences for students on the secondary and postsecondary levels. It identifies specific resources used in CTE programs that are generally not used in a standard classroom. The authors emphasize the importance of cost analysis as a crucial step in creating an effective system of career exposure and preparation for students as they journey toward further education and employment and in identifying disparities in resources dedicated to different learner groups.

Relatedly, a recent paper authored by CTERN-affiliated researchers for the Annenberg Institute at Brown University looked at cost data in Connecticut and Massachusetts CTE-dedicated high schools and found clear, positive expected returns on investment in Massachusetts and smaller returns in Connecticut.

CTE Concentration Rates at the Start of COVID-19: CTERN-affiliated researchers participated recently in a multi-state analysis of trends in CTE in Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Tennessee and Washington, which sought to look at the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on students concentrating in CTE. The analysis looked at three cohorts of students across all the states — ninth graders in SY 2014-15, ninth graders in SY 2015-16 and ninth graders in SY 2016-17 — as well as SY 2017-18 in Michigan and Montana only. Researchers focused on how the disruptions of the pandemic affected students by gender, race and ethnicity as well as by rural vs. urban populations. The following list includes key findings from the study:

• Across all five states, students who concentrated in CTE were more likely to graduate from high school than those who did not, both before and after the start of the pandemic.
• At the start of the pandemic, no changes in concentration rates occurred across gender, race or ethnicity. Additionally, there were no major changes in concentration rates across clusters except in Montana, which saw large swings one year into the pandemic.
• One year into the pandemic, concentration rates had fallen for students with disabilities in Michigan and Montana.
• Montana and Tennessee witnessed changes in their rural-urban CTE concentration rates one year into the pandemic.

Earlier this month, the Jumpstart Our Businesses by Supporting Students Act of 2023 (H.R. 793/S. 161), or the JOBS Act, was reintroduced in the Senate by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Mike Braun (R-IN), and in the House by Reps. Bill Johnson (R-OH), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and Michael Turner (R-OH). This legislation would expand federal Pell Grant eligibility to high-quality, short-term job training programs, which has been a top priority of the CTE community for the past few years. ACTE has endorsed this bipartisan bill. 

Currently, Pell Grants are not available to postsecondary CTE students in short-term certificate programs less than 600 clock hours or 16 semester hours over 15 weeks. As a result, many students across the country do not have access to high-quality, short-term CTE programs that that provide the education and skills necessary for in-demand careers and culminate in meaningful credentials that are proven to increase lifetime earning potential and employment opportunities.  

We need your help so that Members of Congress understand the many positive impacts of extending Pell Grants to high-quality, short-term CTE programs. 

ACTION NEEDED: Contact your Members of Congress to ask them to support the extension of Pell Grant eligibility to high-quality, short-term CTE programs by co-sponsoring the JOBS Act.  

CLICK HERE to send a letter! If you have a direct contact in a representative’s office, we encourage you to contact them directly! 

Help us hold Members of Congress accountable for supporting CTE students, educators and institutions by advocating for short-term Pell expansion.  

House bill text can be found here.  
Senate bill text can be found here.

Recently, researchers affiliated with the CTE Research Network (CTERN) released several briefs describing findings of ongoing research on the impacts of CTE. ACTE is one of the CTERN leads and supports the network in its efforts to promote causal research into how CTE affects learner outcomes.

CTE-Focused Dual Enrollment: Participation and Outcomes: In an ongoing study conducted by a CTERN team at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in conjunction with the RAND Corporation, researchers examined North Carolina’s Career & College Promise CTE dual enrollment pathway and found that approximately 9% of the state’s students participated in CTE dual enrollment. The study aimed to examine the implementation, impact and cost of the program’s three dual enrollment pathways, as well as to expand the research available about the implementation and impact of CTE-focused dual enrollment courses to help policymakers and practitioners make better decisions around opportunity and equity. In the study, researchers compared participating students to nonparticipating students and looked at the impacts at the high school, postsecondary and workforce levels. Notable findings include:

• Disparities in participation among learner groups were less in CTE-focused dual enrollment courses than for college transfer dual enrollment courses.
• Participation in CTE dual enrollment is positively associated with students earning college credits in high school and graduating from high school.
• CTE dual enrollment participation has a positive relationship with enrollment in North Carolina public colleges, especially for underrepresented ethnic groups and economically disadvantaged students.

NYC as a Laboratory for Learning About CTE: The Research Alliance for New York City Schools recently published a report of a multi-year study of the city’s CTE-dedicated high schools in collaboration with researchers from MDRC, Boston College and the University of Connecticut. The research focuses on 37 CTE-dedicated high schools in the NYC metropolitan area, which are all structured in a way to ensure CTE participation of students in grades 9-12. Researchers found that the 37 high schools had a lot of variation in their programming, which also led to different outcomes, but in general they offer coursework around industry-aligned themes such as construction, IT and health services as well as work-based learning opportunities and access to aligned college-level coursework.

Researchers examined the experiences and outcomes of nearly 19,000 students who attended a CTE-dedicated high school between 2013 and 2016 and did a comparison with similar students who also applied to CTE programs but were assigned to another type of high school. Here are some key findings:

• A majority of CTE-dedicated high school students completed the required CTE credits with one quarter engaging in work-based internships.
• There was no evidence that CTE programs impede students’ ability to meet academic requirements — in fact, CTE-dedicated high school students were more likely to be on track for a New York State Regents diploma.
• On average, students graduated from CTE-dedicated high schools and enrolled in college at similar rates to their non-CTE counterparts.
• The newer generation of smaller, nonselective CTE schools with narrower sets of career themes that prepare students for pathways that can lead to bachelor’s degrees led to better graduation and postsecondary enrollment rates than the older, larger and more selective CTE schools with a wider range of programs preparing students for positions requiring limited postsecondary education.

Further report releases will include information on students’ employment, earnings and longer-term college enrollment as well as persistence and completion outcomes.