[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 20 (Monday, February 6, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S926-S928]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                  Career and Technical Education Month

  Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk about 
Career and Technical Education Month. The month of February has been 
set aside as Career and Technical Education Month. It is an opportunity 
for us to talk about something that is working very well in some of our 
States and is giving our young people amazing opportunities, and it 
should be expanded.
  Over the last 6 years, my home State of Ohio has come a long way. We 
have turned a record deficit into a billion-dollar rainy day fund. We 
have created lots of new jobs, but we also have a problem in Ohio and 
around the country, and that is a skills gap.
  If you go on the www.ohiomeansjobs.com Web site right now, I think 
you will see about 122,000 jobs being offered. In other words, these 
are companies saying: We are looking for people.
  At the same time, in Ohio today, we have about 280,000 people who are 
out of work. So how could that be, you ask? Well, if you look at the 
jobs and you look at what the descriptions are, many are jobs that 
require skills, and some of these skills are not available right now in 
the workforce. So you could get a lot of people put back to work just 
by developing these skills in Ohio.
  At the same time, this is happening around the country, and this 
skills gap--this mismatch between the skills that are in demand in a 
local economy and the skills of a worker--is something that can be 
dealt with with more aggressive career and technical education.
  Businesses want to invest more. They want to make better products, 
but they

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can't do so if they can't find the right people.
  By the way, when those skilled workers aren't available, often those 
jobs go somewhere else. So in the case of Ohio, some may go to other 
States--let's say Indiana--but some go to other countries--say India.
  So if you don't have the skilled workforce, you are not going to be 
able to keep the jobs that we want here in America because workers are 
such a critical part of making a business successful.
  The Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the 
typical unemployed worker today has been unemployed for about 6 months. 
So we have this long-term unemployment again. The skills gap would help 
deal with that. There are 5.8 million Americans who are now stuck in 
part-time work who would want full-time work. So we have some 
challenges in our economy, and this skills training would really help.
  According to a survey from Deloitte, 98 of the 100 biggest privately 
held employers in my hometown of Cincinnati, OH--98 out of 100--say 
they are struggling to find qualified workers. There is a shortage of 
machinists--machine operators. We are a manufacturing State. There is 
also a shortage of other jobs, IT skills, health care skills. Companies 
want to hire, but they have a hard time finding workers with the right 
skills.

  By the way, it is not just in Cincinnati or in Ohio; it is across the 
country. There was a study done by the National Association of 
Manufacturers that found that three out of every four manufacturers say 
the skills gap is hurting their ability to expand and create more jobs. 
So as soon as this new Congress and new administration get to work, I 
think there is an opportunity for us to address this.
  One thing we have heard about from the administration and also from 
both sides of the aisle here is the need for more infrastructure. We 
have all heard about the funding for our crumbling roads and bridges, 
our water systems, our waste water systems. I think that is all true, 
but it is going to be tough to do it because we don't have the skilled 
workers to rebuild the infrastructure. I think there is an area of 
common ground that if we have skilled workers, we will be much more 
likely to rebuild that infrastructure.
  We had a conference on this issue a couple of weeks ago in Congress, 
and we brought people in from Ohio from the building trades. The point 
they made was: We would love to see this infrastructure expansion 
everybody is talking about. But who is going to do the work? We need 
more skills training, and we need to make sure that is there.
  Yesterday afternoon we confirmed the Secretary of Education, Betsy 
DeVos. One reason I voted for Betsy DeVos is that she talked about 
skills training. Her quote was that CTE, career technical education, is 
an ``important priority,'' and she agrees that we must do more to give 
our young people the job skills they need.
  Some people, when they hear about CTE, wonder what it is. For some in 
my generation, it is what was called vocational education, but I will 
tell you that it is not your father's Oldsmobile. It is really 
impressive to go to these CTE schools and see what they are doing and 
see the changes in the attitudes of the kids and their parents once 
they get into these programs.
  One of the challenges we have is getting kids to enroll in some of 
these CTE programs. Sometimes the parents say to their kids: That is 
not something you should do. You should get on track to go to college 
because that is the track we were on, and that is the track we were 
told was better. I will tell you that is a big mistake. Changing that 
attitude is really important to helping expand CTE because young people 
going into these CTE programs have an incredible opportunity. By the 
way, many of them do go on to college, 2- or 4-year institutions. Many 
of them also get a job out of high school, and, again, that job is very 
important to our employers keeping jobs and economic activity here in 
this country, but it is also a huge opportunity for them.
  I was at a CTE center a couple of years ago. We were sitting around 
the table talking to some of the employers who were there supporting 
the programs, some of the administrators, and, of course most 
importantly, some of the students who were from three local high 
schools who were all involved in this CTE program. Of the three young 
people who were there, two of them were going off to manufacturing jobs 
where they were going to be making 50 grand a year plus benefits, and 
the third was going into an IT position where, again, she was going to 
have a great opportunity.
  My question to the students was: Have you gone back to your high 
school and talked to your friends about this? They all indicated they 
were planning to do that because they had a great experience. They had 
great opportunities. By the way, one of them was interested in being an 
engineer. He was going to CTE and then going to get a job. He had a job 
lined up with a company he had interned for, but that same company was 
willing to send him to school to get a degree in engineering over the 
subsequent years.
  All three of them had college credits already because in Ohio 
students are allowed to get college credits from CTE courses, which 
makes it more likely that they will graduate but also more likely that 
they will be able to get to college and have college be more affordable 
by getting credits in advance. It is a terrific idea.
  There is a story that I heard about recently of a young woman in 
Ohio. Her name is Mackenzie Slicker from Massilon, OH. She will tell 
you that she was not doing very well in school. She was not hitting her 
marks, and she was not very excited about school. Then one day she saw 
there was an opportunity to get into a CTE course in sports medicine. 
She applied for it. The teacher looked at her scores in other classes 
and non-CTE classes, and said: I will take a chance on you, but I am 
concerned about you because your grades are so low. But she applied. 
She said she was embarrassed by those scores. The teacher let her in 
with the understanding that she would do a better job in her other 
classes. The CTE course gave her a totally new-found motivation to work 
hard and get good grades.
  I hear this again and again back home. These kids from CTE are 
excited. They not only stay in school--they are not dropouts--but they 
do better.
  In her senior year in high school she had a 4.0 after getting into 
the CTE program for sports medicine. She is studying at Miami 
University where she is on track for living out her dream of becoming 
an orthopedic surgeon. That is an example of how CTE really works.
  Senator Tim Kaine and I had this in mind when we started the Senate 
CTE Caucus. It is a caucus that started with just a couple of Members, 
and now it has a strong following. Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin 
is among the leaders of that caucus, and she is on the floor today. 
This caucus not only has these conferences that bring people together 
to talk about issues, but we also put together legislation.
  Senator Kaine and I introduced legislation called Jumpstart Our 
Businesses by Supporting Students Act, or the JOBS Act. We tried hard 
to get that acronym, JOBS. We introduced it a couple weeks ago. It 
would let low-income people get Pell grants for job training programs. 
Under current law, financial aid for programs can be used for courses 
lasting 15 weeks or more, but a lot of the licensing programs and the 
job training programs are less than 15 weeks. In Ohio a lot of them are 
9 weeks. So we think this legislation will be helpful, giving young 
people options that they don't have now to be able to have this funding 
to be able to give them opportunities for a better start in their 
careers, getting them the licensing they need, the certificates they 
need, and putting them on the path to joining the middle class and the 
ability to get a job, but also to be able to buy that car, to be able 
to buy that home over time by having this opportunity to get skills 
training.
  Our legislation has been endorsed by education groups like the 
Association of Career and Technical Education, the National Skills 
Coalition, the National Council for Workforce Education, and many other 
groups. We appreciate their help, and we are going to get that 
legislation done.
  I hope colleagues from both sides of the aisle can join us to get 
that legislation enacted. It makes so much sense.

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  Senator Kaine and I are also planning to reintroduce another bill 
called Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, which improves the quality 
of our CTE programs by setting minimum standards for CTE programs that 
would ensure students are able to transfer their credits, be able to 
have their work graded today based on today's industry standards, and 
use equipment that is up to date. So basically it is legislation--and 
again I thank Senator Baldwin for her support--to help increase the 
quality of CTE education. In some of our States this is working 
incredibly well. Ohio is one of those cutting-edge States. We have to 
ensure that the standards are maintained and expanded everywhere and we 
continue to support reauthorization to strongly support our CTE 
programs.
  Just like the JOBS Act, this bill has been endorsed by a number of 
education experts and groups, and we appreciate their help, including 
the National Career Academy Coalition, the National Career Development 
Association, National Association of Secondary School Principals, and 
many more.
  In Ohio we have some great schools, whether it is Cleveland, OH--the 
Max Hayes High School does an awesome job. I was there for its opening, 
now about a year and a half ago, and they are doing a terrific job of 
working with the building trades, working with private industry, 
working with the high schools in the area, and developing skills that 
are badly needed in Northeast Ohio. Ohio also has some great health 
care CTE programs. I mentioned the young woman who found her motivation 
getting involved in CTE for sports medicine.
  Recently I went to Butler Tech to their health care campus, which is 
north of Cincinnati, and what they are doing there is amazing. You walk 
in and all the kids have on their white medical coats, and whether they 
are dental hygienists who are being trained or technologists or 
students who plan to go to medical school someday or those who are 
interested in getting a degree in nursing, there are some incredible 
sites. They have brought in outside partners, all from the area, who 
are involved with working with them. It is good for our kids but also 
really good for our community.
  Mr. President, if we pass this legislation that I am talking about 
today, if we continue to focus on career and technical education as we 
are supposed to do this month--CTE month, February--we are going to 
help many millions of our young people to be able to have better 
opportunities and, most importantly, we are going to be able to help 
our economy. We are going to help create more jobs and more 
opportunities in this country, to be able to close that skills gap, to 
put people back to work. It makes too much sense for us not to come 
together as Republicans and Democrats alike, and with the new 
administration, to promote career and technical education.
  With that I yield my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise today to support the nomination 
of Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General of the United States. He 
is a veteran and an outstanding public servant who has worked 
tirelessly for decades in service of his constituents in Alabama, in 
this body, as a U.S. attorney, as Attorney General of Alabama. He is a 
good colleague and a friend to many of us on both sides of the aisle. 
He is gracious with his time, his wisdom, his intelligence.
  In all nomination processes there is some twisting of facts that goes 
on and, unfortunately, even some character attacks, but the twisting of 
his record and the attacks on Senator Sessions, in my view, have been 
particularly egregious. That is why I was very saddened by what 
happened on the floor of the U.S. Senate last night.
  One of our colleagues violated rule XIX. Here is what rule XIX says: 
``No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of 
words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or 
motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.''
  That is the rule. It has been in place for decades, and I don't think 
you need to be a Harvard law professor to realize that rule was 
violated last night.
  Mr. President, like you, I have been in the Senate for a couple of 
years. I certainly have tried very hard to work with my colleagues, all 
my colleagues across the aisle, Democrats, Republicans. I have respect 
for all of them. I have no problem whatsoever with Senators coming 
down, and in the last week or so, Senators coming down to the floor of 
the Senate to debate their views on nominees for Cabinet positions, up-
or-down votes on the merits and the qualifications of these nominees. 
That is what we should be doing. That is our job. We have seen a lot of 
that over the last several weeks.
  Like the Presiding Officer, in the last couple of years, I supported 
some of President Obama's Cabinet officials, was opposed to others, as 
is our job, on their merits and qualifications. We can do this in a 
respectful manner, especially here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. We 
can certainly do this in a way that does not violate rule XIX by 
imputing conduct and motives unbecoming of a U.S. Senator. More 
importantly, we can do this in a way that is respectful of each 
other. For the sake of the Senate and for the country, I hope we can 
get back to that tradition that is so important to this body.

  Let me try to set the record straight on Senator Sessions, the 
Senator Jeff Sessions I know. I have gotten to know him over the last 2 
years. He certainly has a long, distinguished history of public 
service. Nobody in this body is denying that. Everybody in this body 
knows Senator Sessions well, knows that he is a man of integrity, a man 
of principle. He will support the laws of the land, and he will be a 
fierce advocate for the rule of law and defending the Constitution.
  I wish to spend a few minutes on the broader issue of what is 
happening on the Senate floor right now. We are not getting a lot of 
press on it, but it is the unprecedented obstruction that is happening 
with regard to President Trump's Cabinet. Because of this obstruction--
unfortunately, by my colleagues--more than 2 weeks into President 
Trump's term, he has fewer Cabinet Secretaries confirmed at this point 
than any other incoming President since George Washington. That is some 
pretty serious obstruction. Nineteen days into his term as President of 
the United States, President Obama had 21 Cabinet Members confirmed. 
Right now, President Trump has seven. President Obama had three times 
the numbers we now have today.
  I believe most Americans--certainly the Americans I represent, 
fairminded Alaskans who are desperate to get our country and our 
economy working again--don't like this kind of obstruction. They see a 
new President who should be allowed to move forward with his Cabinet in 
place so the Federal Government can get to work on behalf of the 
American people. I think Americans are also seeing the reputation of 
good people who want to serve their country tarnished for political 
purposes.
  I hope the Members on the other side of the aisle understand that the 
American people are wise. They see through all this theater. We need to 
get to work. We need to let the Trump administration get to work.
  This body has a responsibility to treat the confirmation process with 
the same courtesy, seriousness, and focus the Senate gave to President 
Obama when he came into office, and that has not happened right now. It 
is not happening right now, and we need to move forward on that.