The current COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic has dramatically shifted our lives, both professionally and personally. In an effort to best serve our membership, we have been busy advocating on your behalf. Below is a small representation of the work we have been doing to ensure that people understand the critical role CTE plays in our nations recovery and is well represented in the coronavirus relief efforts.
Congressional & Executive Action
After hearing and evaluating the concerns from our membership, ACTE, along with Advance CTE, wrote multiple joint letters to congressional leaders recommending specific policies that Congress should enact to support CTE programs during the current pandemic. The first letter was sent to both House and Senate leadership prior to the introduction of the CARES Act, or “Phase 3,” relief bill. Immediately upon the start of discussions around a fourth relief package, we sent another letter to chairmen and ranking members of the education committees in the House and Senate, again expressing the importance of CTE in the relief efforts. Upon hearing additional concerns from our membership, a follow-up letter was sent with the new recommendations. You can feel free to share this last, most up-to-date letter with any policymakers that you may have contact with.
Additional action includes coordinating with staff on the various committees that oversee education policy and funding on our COVID-19 related policy priorities and potential bill language. ACTE has also been coordinating and meeting with the Bipartisan CTE Caucus and education committee member offices to garner additional support in the upcoming legislation. ACTE also supported a letter authored by CTE Caucus Co-Chairs, Reps. Jim Langevin (D-RI) and G.T. Thompson (R-PA), that urges Congressional leaders to provide $1 billion for the Perkins Basic State Grant program to mitigate the harm to student learning caused by COVID-19.
Aside from direct advocacy with Congress, we have been coordinating with other organizations to ensure prioritization of workforce programs, including CTE, in any relief package. This includes weekly phone calls and signing onto various letters that have been sent to congressional leaders. Click here to view a letter ACTE signed along with other members of the Campaign to Invest in America’s Workforce (CIAW) that advocates for investments into our workforce systems in the next relief package.
Furthermore, we have been working closely with the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to help them understand what waivers and other regulatory relief the CTE community needs to continue to produce high-quality CTE programs. ED, on a rolling basis, has released answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) surrounding education and the coronavirus. To date, they have released two separate FAQs related specifically to Perkins, which you can find here and here. To view all of ED’s resources related to COVID-19, please visit https://www.ed.gov/coronavirus.
ACTE has also been diligently working to update our running blog daily to ensure that our members stay up-to-date with the most current news, guidance, and resources around COVID-19. For certain key issues or developments, a dedicated, more detailed blog post has been posted on the CTE Policy Watch Blog. Additionally, ACTE has disseminated updates on a variety of webinars and conference calls, and we are happy to provide updates to you or your group any time! Further, to ensure that your hard work to provide high-quality education to students doesn’t go unnoticed, ACTE has been working with the media to promote stories about how programs are adapting to the pandemic.
If you have specific concerns, or needs, that have gone unaddressed, we encourage you to fill out our short, three question, survey so we are able to effectively advocate on your behalf.
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