[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 107 (Thursday, July 10, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4406-S4410]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. KAINE (for himself, Mr. Portman, and Mr. Warner):
  S. 2584. A bill to amend the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical 
Education Act of 2006 to raise the quality of career and technical 
education programs and to allow local eligible recipients to use 
funding to establish high-quality career academics; to the Committee on 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Educating 
Tomorrow's Workforce Act of 2014. This is a bipartisan bill with 
Senator Portman, who will follow me on the floor today. Senator Portman 
and I are working together as cochairs of the Senate Career and 
Technical Education Caucus.
  Let me first explain why career and technical education is important 
to me.
  I grew up in a household in Kansas City where my dad ran a union-
organized ironworking shop. He was the owner. Ironworkers and welders--
in a good year, eight employees; in a bad year, five employees. My 
mother and my brothers and I worked in my dad's shop, and I came to 
appreciate working in that ironworking shop, the tremendous 
craftsmanship and skill that went into being an ironworker. That lesson 
has stuck with me for the rest of my life, and I really credit my dad 
with my work ethic. In a manufacturing welding shop, you get up and you 
go to work early because you want to get the work done before it gets 
too hot in the middle of the day.
  I then had the experience in 1980 to take a year off from Harvard Law 
School and go to Honduras, where I was the principal of the Instituto 
Tecnico Loyola, which was a school that taught kids to be welders and 
carpenters. I was able to use the trades I had learned in my dad's 
shop, and what I saw in Honduras was the same thing: that the 
acquisition of skills--whether it be welding or carpentry or other 
skills--is a great path to life's success.
  But one thing I noticed about the education system in my country--
even

[[Page S4407]]

as I was working in my dad's shop, even as I was a principal of the 
school in Honduras--was in the United States we sort of downgrade 
career and technical education. When I was a kid, it was called 
vocational education. Often, in high schools especially, students who 
were thought to be kind of problems or not college material would kind 
of get trapped into vocational education curricula, and that would 
usually not be a good sign.
  In fact, a friend of mine, who is a middle school teacher in 
southwest Virginia, told me that she would often see her students after 
they had gone to the high school and ask, ``Hey, tell me what you are 
up to.'' And when a student said ``I am in the vocational education 
program,'' the student would almost slump their shoulders, like ``I 
know you are going to be disappointed to hear this: I am in the 
vocational education program.''
  Career and technical education is a very important pathway for life's 
success, and there should be no stigma surrounding career and technical 
education programs. But whether it is in our K-12 schools or in the 
higher ed world or in the mindset of parents or guidance counselors or 
even in the military--in the military today, our military members can 
get tuition assistance benefits, but they can only be used for college 
courses. You can get up to $4,500 a year in the military as a tuition 
assistance benefit, but you cannot use even $500 of it to take the 
certification exam from the American Welding Society to get your 
welding certificate. We still have a stigma against career and 
technical education, and we should not.
  CTE integrates numerous aspects of liberal arts degrees for practical 
and applied purposes. CTE prepares students with industry-recognized 
credentials, professional certificates, occasionally college credits, 
and, most importantly, training for careers as varied as nursing, 
physician assistant, business administration, manufacturing, oil and 
natural gas exploration, automotive maintenance, agriculture, welding, 
software programming, culinary arts, and many other careers.
  CTE happens in interesting places. CTE happens in K-12 school 
systems. It happens on community college campuses. It happens in 4-year 
colleges. It happens in stand-alone institutions such as the Newport 
News Shipbuilding apprenticeship program, where people learn to 
manufacturer the largest items on planet Earth: nuclear aircraft 
carriers and submarines in Newport News, VA. It happens online. It 
happens anywhere where there is somebody who wants to attain a skill 
and there is a qualified teacher or program that can convey and educate 
a student in that skill so they can get a good job.
  CTE programs are proven solutions for creating jobs, for retraining 
workers, older workers who need to find new skills so they can be 
successful and fill open jobs in the market, and ensure that students 
of all ages and walks of life are ready for a successful career.
  When I was Governor, I worked on a number of educational issues, but 
one I was very proud of was starting Governor's Career and Technical 
Academies. We had 17 in Virginia--Governor's schools--that were college 
prep, academic, regional, magnet public high schools. It started in the 
1970s. But when I was running for Governor, I realized, wow, we do not 
have a single school in the State that is a career and technical 
education program that we have deemed fit to hang the Governor's label: 
This is a Governor's career and technical academy. I said this has to 
be just as important as college prep. So when I was Governor, we 
started Governor's Career and Technical Academies. By the end of my one 
term--and that is all you get in Virginia--we had nine. The Republican 
Governor who followed me liked the idea. By the end of his term, we had 
22. The Democratic Governor who has followed him is continuing to 
expand it, and we now have academies around the Commonwealth, developed 
at partnerships among schools, employers, business organizations, and 
postsecondary institutions looking for these skills.
  Last week, during our break week, I traveled in Virginia, and I heard 
the same message from employers and educators: Education has to be job 
relevant. It has to start at earlier grades. Completion rates need to 
be maximized. We need to make sure all of our students have the skills 
they will need to be able to build successful careers throughout their 
lives.
  One entrepreneur even said to me: I am so glad I ended up going to 
the Valley Career and Technical Education Program in the Shenandoah 
Valley and went into CTE because it has enabled me to be my own boss.
  I said: What do you mean by that?
  He said: If I had gone to college, I would have gotten a good job 
offer from a good company and would have taken it, and I probably would 
still be there. I would have been having a good career, but somebody 
else would have been by boss. But by going to a career and technical 
program and learning a skill, it also encouraged me to be 
entrepreneurial. So I did not join somebody else's company; I started 
my own company. CTE promotes entrepreneurial activity.
  It is essential for the United States to invest in creating a world-
class system of education across the spectrum to ensure the technically 
skilled and well-trained workforce we need. That is why we are 
introducing this bill--Senator Portman and I--the Educating Tomorrow's 
Workforce Act.
  Here is what the legislation does.
  It takes the existing Carl D. Perkins career and technical education 
program, which is the major source for Federal funding for programs 
that connect education to real-world careers, and it amends it by doing 
a couple of things.
  First, it ensures that students have access to high-quality CTE 
programs in their schools so they can prepare to be college and career 
ready. Second, it defines what a rigorous program of study for CTE 
students is that links secondary and postsecondary education, to 
culminate in a degree or a credit or a credential or a license or an 
apprenticeship or a postsecondary certificate.
  It emphasizes the opportunities for secondary students to earn 
college or postsecondary credits while they are in high school. I was 
able to graduate from college in 3 years because of credits I earned in 
high school. That was at a time when it was critically important 
financially for my family that I was able to get through college in 3 
years.
  This dual enrollment piece of our bill is a piece that Senator 
Portman worked very hard to make sure was included. The legislation 
allows the Perkins funding to be used by States that want to establish 
CTE academies as we did in Virginia and ensures that the academies are 
of a high quality.
  Finally, the bill promotes the kinds of partnerships we need between 
businesses, industries, postsecondary and other community stakeholders. 
Partnerships are important to connect people to the workforce. The 
Southern Regional Education Board cites that students with highly 
integrated CTE programs, where the CTE programs and the academic 
programs are integrated together, that those schools have significantly 
higher achievement rates in reading, mathematics, and sciences than 
students at schools that do not have integrated programs.
  In closing, and then I defer to my colleague from Ohio, I noticed 
something when I was mayor of Richmond and Governor that was a change 
in the kind of economic development world. As mayor, I was often trying 
to get a business to come to Richmond. I was competing against Savannah 
or against the county next door. What I found was in these 
competitions, the closing factor was always the incentive package: Mr. 
Mayor, how much money can you put on the table? What kind of tax 
incentives can you put on the table?
  Oh, you either beat the other guy or you don't. But by the time I--5, 
6, 7 years later I was Governor, the last issue now was not the 
incentive package anymore. The deciding issue for companies that were 
choosing whether to come to Virginia or South Carolina or Singapore was 
not the tax incentives, it was the workforce.
  Tell me, Governor, that we will have the kind of people we need when 
we open the door tomorrow. Give me confidence that we will have the 
kind of people we need 20 years from now. Long after the ribbon has 
been cut and the photos have been taken, are we still going to have the 
kinds of people we need to do to the kind of work that has to be done?
  In today's world, talent is the most precious asset--more than oil, 
more

[[Page S4408]]

than water, more than rare Earth minerals. It is talent and human 
capital that is precious. Recently we did something good in this body, 
Democrats and Republicans together. We passed the Workforce Innovation 
and Opportunity Act. It was passed in the House yesterday.
  This looks at the Nation's workforce programs and makes them 
stronger. Now we have to make the policy changes that go into our 
education programs and match what we did in the WIOA reauthorization to 
prepare our students for a 21st century workforce. I very much hope the 
Senate moves forward on the Carl D. Perkins Act this year. I look 
forward to promoting this bill as part of that reauthorization. I am 
honored to have Senator Portman, my cochair on the CTE caucus, as the 
cosponsor of this legislation.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be 
printed in the Record, as follows:

                                S. 2584

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Educating Tomorrow's 
     Workforce Act of 2014.''.

     SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.

       Section 3 of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical 
     Education Act of 2006 (20 U.S.C. 2302) is amended--
       (1) by redesignating paragraphs (6) through (9), (10) 
     through (23), and (24) through (34), as paragraphs (7) 
     through (10), (12) through (25), and (27) through (37), 
     respectively;
       (2) by inserting after paragraph (5) the following:
       ``(6) Career and technical education program of study.--The 
     term `career and technical education program of study' means 
     a coordinated, non-duplicative sequence of secondary and 
     postsecondary academic and technical courses that--
       ``(A) incorporate rigorous, State-identified college and 
     career readiness standards, including state-identified career 
     and technical education standards that address both academic 
     and technical contents;
       ``(B) support attainment of employability and career 
     readiness skills;
       ``(C) progress in content specificity (by beginning with 
     all aspects of an industry or career cluster and leading to 
     more occupationally specific instruction or by preparing 
     students for ongoing postsecondary career preparation);
       ``(D) incorporate multiple entry and exit points with 
     portable demonstrations of technical or career competency, 
     which may include credit-transfer agreements or industry-
     recognized certifications; and
       ``(E) culminate in the attainment of--
       ``(i) an industry-recognized certification, credential, or 
     license;
       ``(ii) a registered apprenticeship or credit-bearing 
     postsecondary certificate; or
       ``(iii) an associate or baccalaureate degree.'';
       (3) by inserting after paragraph (10), as redesignated by 
     paragraph (1), the following:
       ``(11) Credit-transfer agreement.--The term `credit-
     transfer agreement' means an opportunity for secondary 
     students to be awarded transcripted postsecondary credit, 
     supported with a formal agreement between secondary and 
     postsecondary education systems, for--
       ``(A) technical credit such as dual enrollment, dual 
     credit, or articulated credit, which may include credit by 
     examination or credit by performance on technical 
     assessments; or
       ``(B) academic credit such as dual enrollment, dual credit, 
     or articulated credit, which may include credit by 
     examination or credit by performance on academic 
     assessments.''; and
       (4) by inserting after paragraph (25), as redesignated by 
     paragraph (1), the following:
       ``(26) Registered apprenticeship program.--The term 
     `registered apprenticeship program' means an apprenticeship 
     program--
       ``(A) registered under the Act of August 16, 1937 (commonly 
     known as the ``National Apprenticeship Act''; 50 Stat. 664, 
     chapter 663; 29 U.S.C. 50 et seq.); and
       ``(B) that meets such other criteria as may be established 
     by the Secretary under this section.''.

     SEC. 3. STATE PLAN.

       Section 122(c)(1) of the Carl D. Perkins Career and 
     Technical Education Act of 2006 (20 U.S.C. 2342(c)(1)) is 
     amended--
       (1) by striking subparagraph (A);
       (2) by redesignating subparagraphs (B) through (L) as 
     subparagraphs (A) through (K), respectively; and
       (3) in subparagraph (A), as redesignated by (2), by 
     striking ``the career and technical programs of study 
     described in subparagraph (A)'' and inserting ``career and 
     technical education programs of study, including a 
     description of how the eligible agency will ensure the 
     quality of any program of study culminating in an industry-
     recognized certificate, credential, or license''.

     SEC. 4. STATE LEADERSHIP ACTIVITIES.

       Section 124 of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical 
     Education Act of 2006 (20 U.S.C. 2344) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (b)(6), by striking ``programs of study, 
     as described in section 122(c)(1)(A)'' and inserting 
     ``education programs of study''; and
       (2) in subsection (c)--
       (A) in paragraph (9), by striking ``,career academies,'';
       (B) in paragraph (16)(B), by striking ``and'' after the 
     semicolon;
       (C) in paragraph (17), by striking the period at the end 
     and inserting ``; and''; and
       (D) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(18) support for career academies, which--
       ``(A) implement a college and career ready curriculum at 
     the secondary education level that integrates rigorous 
     academic, technical, and employability contents through 
     career and technical education programs of study and high-
     quality elements, including those described in section 
     134(b)(7);
       ``(B) include experiential or work-based learning for 
     secondary school students, in collaboration with local and 
     regional employers;
       ``(C) include opportunities for secondary school students 
     to earn postsecondary credit while in secondary school, such 
     as through credit transfer agreements including dual 
     enrollment; and
       ``(D) establish and maintain ongoing partnerships--
       ``(i) between the local educational agency, business and 
     industry, and institutions of higher education, or 
     postsecondary vocational institutions (as defined in section 
     102(c) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 
     1002(c))); and
       ``(ii) which may also include local government, such as 
     workforce and economic development entities.''.

     SEC. 5. LOCAL PLAN FOR CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION 
                   PROGRAMS.

       Section 134(b) of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical 
     Education Act of 2006 (20 U.S.C. 2354(b)) is amended--
       (1) in paragraph (3)(A), by striking ``programs of study 
     described in section 122(c)(1)(A)'' and inserting ``education 
     programs of study''; and
       (2) by striking paragraph (7) and inserting the following:
       ``(7) describe how the eligible recipient will conduct an 
     assessment of local needs related to career and technical 
     education as part of the local plan development process and 
     how such needs assessment will be updated annually in 
     subsequent years of the local plan, including how the needs 
     assessment includes an evaluation of progress toward specific 
     elements leading to high-quality implementation of career and 
     technical education programs of study, including--
       ``(A) sustained, intensive, and focused professional 
     development for teachers, principals, administrators, and 
     school counselors on both content and pedagogy that--
       ``(i) supports high-quality academic and career and 
     technical education instruction; and
       ``(ii) ensures local, regional, and State labor market 
     information as applicable is utilized to make informed 
     decisions about program offerings and to advise students of 
     career opportunities and benefits;
       ``(B) a curriculum aligned with the requirements for a 
     career and technical education program of study;
       ``(C) teaching and learning strategies focused on the 
     integration of academic and career and technical education 
     content, including supports necessary to implement such 
     strategies;
       ``(D) ongoing relationships between education, business and 
     industry, and other community stakeholders;
       ``(E) opportunities for secondary students to earn 
     postsecondary credit while in secondary school, such as 
     through credit transfer agreements including dual enrollment;
       ``(F) career and technical student organizations, or other 
     activities that promote the development of leadership and 
     employability skills;
       ``(G) appropriate equipment and technology aligned with 
     business and industry needs;
       ``(H) a continuum of work-based learning opportunities, 
     such as job shadowing, mentorships, internships, 
     apprenticeships, clinical experiences, service learning 
     experiences, and cooperative education;
       ``(I) valid and reliable technical skills assessments to 
     measure student achievement, which may include industry-
     recognized certifications or may lead to other credentials;
       ``(J) support services to ensure equitable participation 
     for all students; and
       ``(K) recruitment and retention efforts to ensure highly 
     effective educators, principals, and administrators.''.

     SEC. 6. LOCAL USES OF FUNDS.

       Section 135 of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical 
     Education Act of 2006 (20 U.S.C. 2355) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (b)--
       (A) in paragraph (1), by striking ``programs of study 
     described in section 122(c)(1)(A)''; and inserting 
     ``education programs of study''; and
       (B) in paragraph (2), by striking ``career and technical 
     program of study described in section 122(c)(1)(A)'' and 
     inserting ``career and technical education program of 
     study''; and
       (2) in subsection (c)--
       (A) in paragraph (19)--
       (i) in subparagraph (C), by striking ``programs of study 
     described in section

[[Page S4409]]

     122(c)(1)(A)'' and inserting ``education programs of study''; 
     and
       (ii) in subparagraph (D), by striking ``and'' after the 
     semicolon;
       (B) in paragraph (20), by striking the period at the end 
     and inserting ``; and''; and
       (C) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(21) to provide support for career academies, as 
     described in section 124(c)(18).''.

     SEC. 7. CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.

       Section 113 of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical 
     Education Act of 2006 (20 U.S.C. 2323) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (b)(4)(C)(ii)(I), by striking ``section 
     3(29)'' and inserting ``section 3(32)''; and
       (2) in subsection (c)(2)(A), by striking ``section 3(29)'' 
     and inserting ``section 3(32)''.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Virginia and 
appreciate his comments. He has a passion for this issue. It fits very 
well with what so many of us are trying to do in the Congress, which is 
to put in place policies that actually create more opportunities for 
our young people.
  We are living through the weakest economic recovery we have had in 
this country since the Great Depression. I know we have seen some 
improvement recently in the job numbers, but in fact unemployment 
remains way too high. If we take into account folks who have dropped 
out of the workforce altogether as compared to 4 or 5 years ago, we 
have unemployment rates at over 10 percent.
  Among young people coming out of school it is far higher. It is 
double digits, about 12 or 13 percent for 18 to 25 year olds, we are 
told. Again, the real numbers are worse than that when we take out the 
folks who have dropped out of the workforce altogether.
  Our GDP growth, the growth of our economy, is too low. So there are a 
number of things we ought to do, in my view. One is, we have to deal 
with ensuring that we have a workforce that is trained for these 21st 
century jobs that are out there. We also need to reform our Tax Code. 
We need to put regulatory relief in place that is sensible. We need to 
do much more to take advantage of the energy resources we have in this 
country. We need to get back in the business of exporting and trade.
  There are some things relatively quickly we could do to get the 
country back on track, but none is more important than having that 
workforce. Because we can have a great environment--which unfortunately 
we do not have now for many businesses because we have not created the 
climate for economic growth with good policy in Washington.
  But if we had that--if we do not have the workers in this 
increasingly competitive global economy we are in, jobs will be created 
somewhere else. That is happening right now. It is happening partly 
because we do not have the skilled workers to be able to attract those 
jobs here, those businesses here, and to fill the jobs here in America.
  Four and one-half million jobs are open right now, they say. That 
might surprise some people listening because they are thinking: Wow. I 
cannot get a job or my son or daughter cannot get a job or my neighbor 
cannot get a job. As I said, unemployment is high. Yet there are 4\1/2\ 
million jobs open. When we look at those jobs and what is available out 
there--and Senator Kaine talked some about this, a lot of them require 
skills that young people and workers who are shifting careers, maybe 
they have lost a job, are in their forties or fifties, skills they do 
not have.
  So it is IT, it is high-tech jobs, it is health care jobs, it is 
bioscience jobs. Yes, it is manufacturing jobs. My own State of Ohio is 
a big manufacturing State. We are particularly sensitive to this. There 
are lots of manufacturers in Ohio who are saying: If we had the 
workers, we could add new jobs, new opportunities, grow this economy. 
The spinoff from that, all of the other jobs that are created through a 
successful manufacturing company that makes something is the backbone 
of our higher economy, international economy.
  This is exciting for me to work with Senator Kaine and others who 
say: Let's take a piece of this, which is career and technical 
education, to encourage young people to get these skills, to be able to 
access these great jobs. Some of them, by the way, will do it right out 
of high school.
  I was in Ohio on Monday. We had a roundtable on this. We had a bunch 
of employers there. We had some educators there. We had some students 
there. One was a senior in high school who is currently in career and 
technical school. For those who do not follow this closely, you 
probably are more familiar with the word ``vocational'' school, because 
that is typically what it has been called over the years. That is the 
same thing as the career and technical schools.
  Again, Senator Kaine and I have cofounded this Career and Technical 
Education Caucus in the Senate over the last couple of months. We have 
a number of our colleagues now joining and so on. We are trying to 
raise this, let people know about this great opportunity out there.
  This young man is a senior. He is going back to his high school and 
saying: You Guys are crazy not to do this CTE stuff because I am 
getting great skills, where I can get a great job, and I am getting 
college credit because they have one of those dual credit programs in 
this particular CTE program.
  Then there were two students there who graduated earlier this year. 
They both have been in the CTE program. They both have been taking 
advantage of it to get the skills but also working part time as 
apprentices or interns--19 years old, two young men. Both of them are 
now out in the workforce, working for these manufacturers. One of their 
bosses was there, one of the executives from one of the small 
manufacturing companies.
  These young men at 19 years old are making $50,000 a year. They have 
benefits on top of that. They have the opportunity now to run very 
sophisticated machines. Both of them started off learning as 
apprentices. Now they are both running machines. These machines are 
worth over $1 million apiece. These are in CNC machines. In one case it 
is a plastic injecting molding machine. It is very exciting. By the 
way, they now have been encouraged to go back to their high school and 
say: Hey, 4-year college or university, that is great if you want to do 
that, but here is another opportunity.
  By the way, they may go back to school. They both have some credit 
where they could go back and maybe get an associate's degree or a 4-
year degree or maybe a graduate engineering degree someday, but in the 
meantime they are providing the opportunities for these companies in 
Ohio to have skilled workers so they can compete globally. For them and 
their families, they are providing a tremendous opportunity, rather 
than graduating with a bunch of debt. The average debt is $20,000, 
$30,000 a year now. Instead of having debt, they are making money.
  For the next 4 years, even if they are not promoted 0--0 which I 
think they will be, having met these two young men--that is $200,000 
they are going to be making and spending and investing in our economy.
  I am very excited about this opportunity to hold this up to say there 
is a way for us to help get this economy moving by helping to fill this 
skills gap. In Ohio alone, if you go on ohiomeansjobs.com right now, go 
on their Web site, you will see about 140,000 jobs open. Yet we have 
about 400,000 people out of work. If you look at these jobs, again, you 
will see a lot of them require skills that simply are not out there in 
the workforce now.
  Help provide these skills and we are going to see some of these jobs 
get filled. That helps our economy, keeps businesses here, and expands 
businesses here. We did, as Senator Kaine said, just pass the Workforce 
Innovation and Opportunity Act, so-called WIOA. I was very pleased 
about that. The House just passed it this week. The Senate passed it 2 
weeks ago.
  In that there is something called the CAREER Act that Senator Bennet 
and I have been promoting the last few years. We were able to include a 
number of our provisions in there to add more accountability, to add 
more performance measures to improve that legislation. I am happy that 
was done. That helps on retraining. That is critically important. We 
spend about $15 billion a year on that at the Federal Government level.
  What we are talking about is starting with the career and technical 
education even before we get into the WIOA programs and the retraining 
money that is necessary when somebody loses a job and needs to move to 
another job. We are talking about young people coming up and having 
this opportunity. According to the U.S.

[[Page S4410]]

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ohio is gaining jobs in manufacturing. That 
is great news. But we also hear, in the latest skills gap report by the 
Manufacturing Institute, 74 percent of manufacturers are experiencing 
workforce shortages or skill deficiencies that keep them from expanding 
their plant and operations and improving productivity--74 percent.
  We could be doing much more to close that skills gap. The legislation 
that Senator Kaine and I talked about that we are introducing today is 
a very important step toward that. It is going to help open 
opportunities for the next generation of workers by ensuring that they 
have these skills to participate in the 21st century economy.
  We were talking a moment ago, some of us, about high school 
graduation rates. Unfortunately, we have unacceptably high numbers of 
people who do not graduate from high schools in this country. So there 
was a lot of discussion about postsecondary and so on. But we have a 
real problem: Our high school graduation rate is way too low. According 
to the U.S. Department of Education, 81 percent of high school dropouts 
say real-world learning opportunities would have kept them in school. 
That is interesting. The average high school graduation rate is now 
about 80 percent--way too low. In fact, it is closer to 50 percent in 
some of our great cities and in some of our poorer rural areas. But 
even 80 percent is the average--way too low for high school graduation.
  But what they say is they would have been more likely to stay in 
school if they had real-world learning opportunities. That is why the 
graduation rates for kids involved in CTE--
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. PORTMAN. I would ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PORTMAN. For kids in CTE concentrations, it is a 90-percent 
graduation rate. That is because they are getting that real-world 
experience. So I think a good place to start, again, is with this 
legislation we are introducing today. This is legislation that begins 
with reforms to the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. 
It needs to be reauthorized. The reauthorization ought to include these 
reforms that Senator Kaine and I have talked about.

  This is the major source of Federal support for the development of 
CTE skills. It was last reauthorized in 2006. So it has to be 
modernized to meet the demands of this workforce today to ensure that 
students have access to these programs.
  It does a few different things. Senator Kaine has talked about it. It 
requires a more rigorous CTE curriculum, requiring Perkins grant 
participants to incorporate key elements into the programs; that is, 
things such as academic and technical skill assessments to measure 
student achievement, making sure they are actually accomplishing what 
they are supposed to be based on industry standards, making sure the 
CTE curriculum is in alignment with whatever the local and regional 
needs are in the workforce, what the demands are. Employers are looking 
for kids who have specific skills. We have to be sure we are providing 
them.
  It also increases flexibility for States and localities, allowing 
them to use these Perkins grant funds to establish academies such as 
the one Governor Kaine started when he was in Virginia.
  It also improves the link between high school and postsecondary 
education to ease the attainment of industry-recognized credentials, 
licensing, apprenticeship, postsecondary certificates. We do a lot of 
that in Ohio, the dual credit programs I talked about earlier.
  It promotes partnerships between local businesses, regional 
industries, and other community stakeholders to create pathways for 
students through more internships, service opportunities, and so on.
  I believe this legislation is urgently needed, and we have to move 
forward with it. If we do, we are going to be able to provide more 
opportunity for our young people and more jobs in this country because 
we will be filling that skills gap and we will be able to have more 
young people who will able to have this experience, such as these two 
young men I met earlier this week, where they are able to go out on 
their own, get a good job, good benefits, help themselves and their 
family, and help create a stronger economy for all of us.
  I thank my colleague from Virginia for his hard work on this 
legislation, and I look forward to working with him toward its passage.
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