CTE Policy Watch: A blog for CTE advocates

Updated Resource: Manufacturing Sector Sheet

Today ACTE has released CTE: Developing the Manufacturing Workforce, the fifth in our revamped series of Sector Sheets describing CTE’s role in growing the workforce for vital industry sectors. The Sector Sheet series is published with support from ACTE's long-time partner Pearson. 

These revised Sector Sheets include job opportunities in each sector and descriptions of how CTE prepares learners for the workforce in each sector, all in a new format featuring streamlined text and additional graphics to make these advocacy tools even more effective. 

This Sector Sheet describes how CTE supports the critical manufacturing workforce, which employs almost 13 million people nationwide with countless more workers needed each year to meet industry demand. It also shares information on occupations, earnings and credentials that give readers guidance for how to enter and progress within fields such as semiconductor manufacturing, electric vehicle and battery manufacturing, and supply chains. Finally, the Manufacturing Sector Sheet demonstrates the importance of CTE in developing the workforce by describing how CTE prepares learners through courses, industry credentials, work-based learning, career and technical student organizations and more. 

As we move forward with the revamped Sector Sheets, both the newer and older Sector Sheets will be available on the ACTE Sector Sheet webpage for download and use. We encourage you to share these tools with students, counselors, policymakers and others to spread the message about CTE and its benefits for students and the workforce. 

Updated Resource: Health Care Sector Sheet

Today ACTE has released CTE: Developing the Health Care Workforce, the fourth in our revamped series of Sector Sheets describing CTE’s role in growing the workforce for vital industry sectors. The Sector Sheet series is published with support from ACTE’s long-time partner Pearson.

These revised Sector Sheets include job opportunities and descriptions of how CTE prepares learners for the workforce in each sector, all in a new format featuring streamlined text and additional graphics to make these advocacy tools even more effective.

This Sector Sheet describes how CTE supports the health care workforce, which employs more than 17 million people nationwide and requires approximately 1.9 million individuals each year to meet demand. It also shares information on occupations, earnings and credentials that give readers guidance for how to enter and progress within fields such as allied health, nursing and behavioral health. Finally, the Health Care Sector Sheet demonstrates the importance of CTE in developing this workforce by describing how CTE prepares learners through courses, industry credentials, work-based learning, career and technical student organizations and more. 

As we move forward with these revamped Sector Sheets, both the newer and older Sector Sheets will be available on the ACTE Sector Sheet webpage for download and use. We encourage you to share these tools with students, counselors, policymakers and others to spread the message about CTE and its benefits for students and the workforce.

Perkins V Resources: Data Sharing & Analysis

State and local CTE leaders need accurate data to identify problems, iterate solutions and make informed decisions about programs and funding. Perkins V allows states to invest additional resources in building their data and reporting systems and requires more data-informed decision making through the comprehensive local needs assessment.

As we close this week celebrating Perkins V’s fifth birthday, we’re sharing tools and resources that ACTE has developed or co-developed to support data reporting, analysis and sharing:

• Beyond the Numbers: Design Principles for CTE Data Reporting: This Advance CTE and ACTE report describes principles for reporting, sharing and communicating data. A related toolkit includes a data communications planning tool and numerous templates for CTE data tools.

• Achieving Inclusive CTE Goal-setting Tool: This Advance CTE and ACTE tool can help state and local CTE leaders assess learner group data to recruit, engage and support underrepresented learner groups.

• High-quality CTE Library: Data and Program Improvement: ACTE’s online library of resources contains publications and tools for CTE data reporting, analysis and sharing and how to use data to close gaps and support continuous improvement.

State and local leaders can use these resources to enhance their data reporting systems and maximize their understanding of how data leads to better CTE implementation. ACTE and Advance CTE have also collaborated to provide targeted technical assistance to states and local CTE programs focused on effectively using and sharing CTE data.

ACTION ALERT: Ask Your Members of Congress to Support the Senate’s FY 2024 Education Funding Bill!

On July 27, the Senate Appropriations Committee considered and approved its Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill on a bi-partisan basis, which contains a $40 million increase to the Perkins Basic State Grant program, and provides significantly more resources to education and workforce development programs than the House version of the bill does.

The appropriations process will continue once Congress returns in September, and we want to let Members of Congress know that we support the Senate bill and its higher funding levels! Your advocacy will be critical throughout August to share this message!

ACTION NEEDED: CLICK HERE to urge your Members of Congress to support the Senate’s $40 million increase for Perkins and overall higher funding levels! 

You can send a message directly using the ACTE Action Center. You can also call or email directly any personal contacts that you have in your Members’ offices, such as from a meeting at NPS, or call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121, and an operator will connect you to your Member of Congress.

Perkins V Resources: Middle Grades & Career Development

Perkins V recognizes the importance of beginning career exploration as early as possible by enabling Perkins funds to be spent starting in grade 5. The legislation also includes new definitions and provisions that focus on expanding and improving work-based learning and career development.

As we continue our celebration of five years of Perkins V, take a look at these resources from ACTE and its partners with tips for and examples of effective strategies for career development and middle grades CTE:

• Broadening the Path: Design Principles for Middle Grades CTE: This Advance CTE and ACTE resource lays out a theory of action for CTE in the middle grades, defines outcomes for student learning, and introduces 10 design principles that should be part of any middle grade CTE program.

• Student Career Development series: This ACTE series of briefs and webinars dives into topics such as social emotional learning, work-based learning and equitable career development through technology.

• High-quality CTE Library: Student Career Development: ACTE’s online library of resources includes publications and more on how to empower and prepare learners for the workforce through career development.

CTE educators and career development professionals can use these resources to support career advisement, exploration and more, including programming in the middle grades.

Perkins V Resources: Stakeholder Engagement

Today we’re continuing our celebration of Perkins V by recognizing the strides that CTE programs have made over the past five years in engaging stakeholders such as employers, community leaders, parents and students. Effective stakeholder engagement enables CTE programs to respond to labor market, community and learner needs.

To support CTE educators in engaging stakeholders, ACTE has developed or co-developed the following tools and resources. These resources feature examples of effective engagement strategies from states and local CTE programs:

• Engaging Families and Communities to Support Special and Underserved Populations in CTE: This report from ACTE recommends ways that CTE educators can communicate and collaborate with learners’ families and communities to support students, specifically individuals from historically underserved communities.

• With Learners, Not for Learners: A Toolkit for Elevating Learner Voice in CTE: This resource from Advance CTE and ACTE provides strategies, guidance and tools to help CTE leaders engage learners for the improvement of CTE policies and practices.

• Taking Business to School: A Resource Guide for Building an Employer Partner Engagement Plan: This ACTE toolkit supports CTE programs looking to expand the scope and quality of their work-based learning programs through improved employer engagement.

• High-quality CTE Library: Business and Community Partnerships: ACTE’s online library of resources contains publications and toolkits based on grounded research and best practices, including a section on how to support the formation of industry and community-based partnerships.

State and local leaders can use these tools to maximize their understanding of collaboration between key players to shape the future of CTE in their areas. ACTE and Advance CTE have also collaborated to provide more targeted technical assistance to states and local CTE programs focused on effectively connecting stakeholders.

Research Roundup: CTE at Community Colleges

Analysis of Community College Health Care Training Programs: The Community College Research Center at Columbia University recently published a report in which researchers used 2019-20 data from the U.S. Department of Education to examine community colleges’ contributions to the health care workforce.

The results showed that community colleges are responsible for much of the health care programs and graduates in allied health, nursing, mental health and clinical laboratory science. Additionally, researchers looked at the demographics of community colleges and earnings outcomes that students achieve upon completion. The following represent some of the most notable findings:

• Community colleges were cited as responsible for 76% of all postsecondary programs in mental/social health, 68% in allied health and 58% in practical nursing. They were also responsible for similar percentages of graduates in those programs across the postsecondary sector.
• Public health programs were noted for their diverse recruitment with Latinx and African American students comprising 22% and 20% of all graduates, respectively.
• For many health care programs, certificates are more common than longer-term awards.
• Median hourly wages vary by program and attainment level, with the highest wages associated with two-year degrees in dental support services.

Community Colleges: Achieving Their Potential for Workforce Development: A report recently published by the American Enterprise Institute analyzed the role of public community colleges in preparing learners to enter the workforce and meet labor demand.

Community colleges are facing many hurdles, including providing academic and career supports, purchasing equipment for in-demand fields, the lack of Pell Grant access for students in non-credit programs, and the transfer disconnect with four-year institutions, among other things. Researchers highlighted some of the following recommendations for policymakers and administrators to better support these institutions:

• Update recruitment and hiring practices to attract instructors with relevant industry experience.
• Use labor market information and employer engagement to improve labor market alignment and better integrate work-based learning with classroom instruction.
• Create flexible pathways and stackable opportunities in and among for-credit and non-credit programs.
• Invest in staff who specialize in building relationships with employers and community partners.

The publication highlights examples such as Project QUEST in San Antonio, Texas, which offers community college training that supports the certification of students in high-earnings fields such as health care, manufacturing and information technology as well as the Good Jobs Challenge, which has awarded $500 million in grants extending into 2027 to regional workforce training partnerships of industry, community colleges, training partners, community-based organizations and unions.

Strategies and Resources to Align Non-credit and Credit Programs: Education Strategy Group recently published a series of resources, which share research, strategies and examples of success aimed at supporting community colleges in the pursuit of more closely aligning non-credit workforce training and degree-focused credit programs. Despite this separation often being beneficial, having two different systems internally can cause content duplication, lack of communication, missed opportunities to build and collaborate and an inequitable student experience, particularly for non-credit students.

Researchers propose the following key tenets for framework alignment:

• Treat non-credit students the same as those in for-credit programs. Ensure every institutional decision or action is taken with both types of learners in mind.
• Do not make non-credit programs an educational dead end. Instead develop seamless transitions between non-credit programs and credentials and associate degree programs.
• Reorganize for joint leadership between non-credit and credit departments and be prepared to modify institutional curriculum development and design processes for better alignment.
• Ensure that industry-focused programs are credit worthy and credit based with bridge tools like credit matrices, articulation and equivalency agreements.

Updated Resource: Information Technology Sector Sheet

Today ACTE has released CTE: Developing the Information Technology Workforce, the third in our revamped series of Sector Sheets describing CTE’s role in growing the workforce for vital industry sectors. The Sector Sheet series is published with support from ACTE's long-time partner Pearson.

These revised Sector Sheets include job opportunities in each sector and descriptions of how CTE prepares learners for the workforce in each sector, all in a new format featuring streamlined text and additional graphics to make these advocacy tools even more effective.

This Sector Sheet describes how CTE supports the critical information technology workforce, which employs more than 9 million people nationwide and contributes approximately 8.8% to the U.S. economy. It also shares information on occupations, earnings and credentials that give readers guidance for how to enter and progress within fields such as network architecture and administration, software and web services, and cybersecurity and data science. Finally, the Information Technology Sector Sheet demonstrates the importance of CTE in developing the workforce by describing how CTE prepares learners through courses, industry credentials, work-based learning, career and technical student organizations and more.

As we move forward with the revamped Sector Sheets, both the newer and older Sector Sheets will be available on the ACTE Sector Sheet webpage for download and use. We encourage you to share these tools with students, counselors, policymakers and others to spread the message about CTE and its benefits for students and the workforce.

ACTION ALERT: Ask Your Members of Congress to Oppose Cuts to Education and Workforce Programs in FY 2024!

On July 14, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies approved its Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 appropriations bill on a party-line vote. In some good news for CTE, the Perkins Basic State Grant is level funded in this bill. However, the bill reduces overall education funding, including rescissions to some funding that would become available to programs this fall and significant cuts to or complete eliminations of dozens of education and workforce programs, such as WIOA Youth and Adult programs, federal work-study, ESSA Title I and II and more.

The proposed cuts to major education and workforce development programs are deeply concerning, and will harm the ability of CTE programs to support learners and provide access to broader career and postsecondary opportunities. Education and workforce programs work hand-in-hand to develop a skilled workforce – CTE programs cannot be successful without the support of the entire system.

As the bill moves forward in the House and the Senate begins work on its bill as well, it is critical that Members of Congress understand the impact of these proposed cuts, and that you lend your voice in support of funding for the entire education and workforce development system.

ACTION NEEDED: CLICK HERE to tell your Members of Congress about the impact of proposed cuts to education and workforce programs in the FY 2024 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill! 

You can send a message directly using the ACTE Action Center. You can also call or email directly any personal contacts that you have in your Members’ offices, such as from a meeting at NPS, or call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121, and an operator will connect you to your Member of Congress.

House Subcommittee Appropriators Approve FY24 Education Funding Bill

Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill, including funding for education and workforce development programs. The bill was approved by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies earlier today on a party-line vote. Unfortunately, because House leaders chose to develop appropriations bills at a much lower funding level than agreed to in the debt limit deal, this bill makes significant cuts across education and workforce programs. There are approximately 60 programs completely eliminated and another 50 programs with proposed reductions. Overall, the bill reduces funding 29% below the FY 2023 enacted level, and also includes recissions to prior funding.

In a small victory for CTE, the legislation “maintains career and technical training grants,” suggesting that the Perkins Basic State Grant should be level funded at FY 2023 levels.

However, while we appreciate the legislation’s recognition of sustaining current levels of federal investment in CTE via Perkins, we are extremely concerned about proposed cuts to other major education and workforce development programs elsewhere in the legislation. You can view our statement about the bill here.

Below are just a few of the funding cuts included in the bill that are most relevant:

Education Cuts/Eliminations

• 80% cut for Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Title I state grants to local education agencies
  • Note: Rescinds $8.7 billion of advance funding for Title I grants to states that would become available in Fall 2023 and could be used for the upcoming program year
• Eliminates funding for Magnet School program
• Eliminates funding for Teacher Quality Partnerships
• Eliminates funding for Federal Work-study Program
• Eliminates funding for ESSA Title II – Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants

Department of Labor Cuts/Eliminations

• Eliminates funding for Department of Labor WIOA Youth and cuts Adult training programs
• Eliminates funding for the Women’s Bureau
• Eliminates funding for Job Corps program
• Cuts Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) by $95 million

The bill now advances to consideration by the full House Appropriations Committee. We are still awaiting the date of the full committee markup, and we will continue to provide updates as the bill moves along in the appropriations process. Be on the lookout for an Action Alert next week to get involved and let Congress know that these massive cuts will have a negative impact on the broader education and workforce system, including CTE programs. You can view the full text of the bill here.