Last week, House Committee on Education and Labor Chairman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03) and incoming Senate HELP Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) reintroduced the Relaunching America’s Workforce Act (RAWA).
The bill, originally introduced last Congress, aims to invest $15 billion in America’s workforce training infrastructure, including CTE, in order to help workers quickly re-enter the workforce as the economy emerges from the deep decline due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.
In the press release, Chairman Scott stated that, “Millions of Americans remain unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and roughly 7 million of the jobs lost are not expected to come back. We must provide these workers the support and skills they need to get back on their feet. The Relaunching America’s Workforce Act will make smart investments to help dislocated and vulnerable workers transition to new careers. By passing this legislation, we will take long-overdue steps to strengthen our workforce development system and help both employers and workers benefit from our economic recovery.”
The Relaunching America’s Workforce Act provides over $10 billion to the state and local public workforce system by supporting dislocated workers, employers, and youth and adults seeking jobs. These funds will support workforce training activities, including career navigation services, access to online skills training and employment services, while prioritizing short-term training to health care and essential frontline workers. Further, it invests $2 billion to restart the community college career training grant program initiated during the last recession to help build partnerships between educators and employers and provide individuals pathways to high-skill, high-wage and in-demand employment opportunities.
The bill also includes a section dedicated solely to providing relief for CTE programs. It includes several important provisions that ACTE has been tirelessly advocating for, such as providing additional funds to expand and modernize digital and physical infrastructure to deliver in-person and virtual educational and work-based learning activities. More specifically, the bill authorizes $1 billion in funding to support Perkins CTE programs and activities, including the ones mentioned above. The funding may also be used to restock supplies that have been donated to COVID-19 response activities (medical equipment, etc).
Our goal is for this bill and its provisions to be included in an upcoming comprehensive COVID relief package, but your advocacy remains critical to help with this effort! ACTE will continue to work with Chairman Scott and Chairwoman Murray to ensure that our CTE programs, students, and communities receive much needed relief during the pandemic.
Below are links to various documents related to the legislation:
Please continue to contact Congress about the needs of CTE related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is vital to make sure this legislation garners broad support to show congressional leaders why it is important to include our workforce and CTE systems in any upcoming relief package and ensure that they have the necessary resources to get Americans back to work.
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