DC Digest: August 30-September 5

Members of the House and Senate will soon begin to return from their August recess with an eye toward crafting pieces of a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package. The House and Senate committees that received reconciliation instructions in the budget resolution, including the House Education and Labor Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, are working with an informal deadline of September 15 to complete their work. This is a critical time for CTE, as lawmakers will be making key funding decisions during the reconciliation process. You can contact your representatives and senators and ask them to ensure CTE and workforce development are prioritized in the budget reconciliation package. 

 

• Congressmen Krishnamoorthi and Langevin Introduce Resolution Supporting CTE: Congressmen Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and Jim Langevin (D-RI) introduced a House resolution calling for doubling federal funding for CTE through the budget reconciliation process. ACTE has endorsed this resolution, and ACTE Executive Director LeAnn Wilson is quoted in the press release. ACTE urges Members of Congress to recognize and take advantage of this unique opportunity to support CTE programs at a critical time for our nation’s students and economy. 

 

• ACTE Sends Letter to House and Senate Committee Leadership to Support Area CTE Centers: ACTE, along with Advance CTE, sent a letter to the bipartisan leadership of the House Education and Labor Committee and the Senate HELP Committee to ensure that area CTE centers (ATCs) are not inadvertently overlooked as eligible institutions in any free college proposal offered in the budget reconciliation package, or any other postsecondary programs included in that package designed to support students as they obtain postsecondary credentials. 

 

• Department of Education Releases Resource to Address Lost Instruction Time: The Department of Education has released a new resource, “Strategies for Using American Rescue Plan Funding to Address the Impact of Lost Instructional Time,” to help support educators as they implement, refine, and work to continuously improve their strategies for supporting students.