On June 7, Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona gave testimony to Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education regarding the fiscal year (FY) 2023 education budget request. In the hearing, Sen. Braun (R-IN) and Sen. Baldwin (D-WI) both inquired about the Department’s plans for CTE, including the need for more emphasis on high school CTE and the historic federal underinvestment in CTE programs. Specifically, Sen. Baldwin highlighted that the Department of Education’s $200 million Career-Connected High Schools grant program proposal would only be awarded to 32 programs, leaving many states out entirely while existing programs, such as Perkins state grants, would be left level-funded.
Secretary Cardona, who is a graduate of a technical high school, responded by agreeing that additional funding and support are needed to supplement this competitive grant initiative. He also spoke of his vision for career-connected learning: “[high school students] can go to a good, high-paying, high-skilled job because there's a good connection with our workforce partners. They can go to a two-year school to level-up on their skills, or they could go to a four-year school, but then those skills that they get should be transferable into high-paying jobs in the community that they live.”
Additionally, the Department of Education hosted a virtual event on June 1 to discuss a new initiative, called “Pathways to Success”. Featured in the event were speeches from Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo regarding the need to more deeply embed career-connected learning in the fabric of the country’s educational system. Other than the already-proposed Career-Connected High Schools grant program, however, they did not give any specifics of how this strategy will be implemented from a federal policy perspective.
ACTE’s Public Policy Department will continue providing updates as they come and will be working with Congress and agency staff to ensure that ACTE’s members’ needs are heard throughout the process. For more questions, you may reach out to ACTE’s Government Relations Manager, Zach Curtis ([email protected]).
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