[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 129 (Tuesday, July 31, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5506-S5508]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STRENGTHENING CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY ACT
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, on Monday of last week, the Senate
passed H.R. 2353, the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for
the 21st Century Act, with a Senate amendment. On Wednesday, the House
of Representatives followed suit. This measure reauthorizes the Carl D.
Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, which was last reauthorized
in 2006.
President Trump signed this important bill into law today at a
ceremony at the White House that I was fortunate enough to have been
invited to attend.
The bill modernizes our career and technical education programs in
our Nation's high schools, and community colleges, technical colleges,
and other institutions of higher education to provide the skills needed
to support State and local employer's workforce needs. The bill is also
designed to align with other Federal education and workforce laws.
While we are currently experiencing the best economy in 18 years,
there are still 6.6 million unfilled jobs, many of these jobs offer
high wages, but require workers to have specific or a high-level set of
skills. In order to have a productive workforce and sustain a strong
economy, we need to ensure today's workers and future workers have an
opportunity to learn these needed skills.
Our bill is an important step in helping States and local communities
do that.
First, as States are designing their State career and technical
education--CTE--plans, they will need to consult with a variety of
education and workforce stakeholders. This means, for the first time,
employers and business leaders will work with the State on designing
education programs that focus on preparing students for in-demand and
emerging jobs.
Second, local school districts are required to conduct an evaluation
of their current programs and how those programs align with in-demand
industry sectors or occupations. In order to accomplish this, school
districts will work with local community and business leaders to
determine what those sectors and occupations are, if they are not fully
aware of them already. The bill also makes a significant change to the
way funds flow to States. Current law sends funds to States based on
the population in the State but dictates States cannot receive less
than what they received in 1998. Our bill updates this formula as
populations have dramatically shifted with some States seeing
significant growth over the past 20 years.
Another area that was improved was better aligning with other
workforce initiatives. This bill would align CTE program plans with
State Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act plans so that States
that want to submit a combined plan may do so. The Workforce Innovation
and Opportunity Act is a Federal workforce development law that
provides training to adults already in or seeking employment.
In their CTE plans, States must determine levels of performance for
several indicators of performance, which are outlined in the bill. The
indicators at the secondary level include graduation rate, achievement
of academic standards as defined in the Every Student Succeeds Act,
ensuring academic rigor in programs, and accounting for students who
enter postsecondary education, the military, national service, or are
employed, to name a few. There are additional and similar indicators
for postsecondary education.
The State determined levels of performance for these indicators must
be expressed as a percentage of students and demonstrate that the State
is striving to improve year after year. States must determine the level
for each indicator for the group of all CTE concentrators, which are
the group of students at the secondary level taking
[[Page S5507]]
at least two courses in a single program or program of study, or at the
postsecondary level, students taking at least 12 credits in a single
program or program of study, and for each subgroup defined in the Every
Student Succeeds Act and for each special population defined in this
bill.
However, States are only held accountable for the group of all CTE
concentrators. One of the important changes in the law is that the
Secretary will no longer negotiate the levels of performance with the
States. Going forward, States will determine their levels and submit
them to the Secretary, who will approve them if they meet the
conditions highlighted earlier. This is a point worth saying again: The
bill heading to the President's desk eliminates any involvement by the
Secretary in determining levels of performance with the States.
However, a State is required to meet certain conditions in order to
have their plan approved by the Secretary. Specifically, the Secretary
must ensure that plan includes levels of performance and that those
levels of performance have been made public for comment. In the
submitted plan, the State must include the comments along with their
response to those comments. Further, the State must develop their plan
in consultation with various stakeholders and provide descriptions of
their goals and programs, how those meet employment and workforce
needs, and what they will do to close and eliminate performance gaps in
areas where gaps exist for subgroups and special populations.
If a State has met the requirements in developing their plan, then
the Secretary must approve the plan and may not alter or change the
elements of that plan.
The bill allows but does not require a State to revise the levels of
performance after 2 years. If a State elects to revise their levels,
the new level must not be below the average of the actual performance
of the previous 2 years. States may revise their levels downward when
taking advantage of this option, so long as it meets the requirements
of the law. Further, there has been some concerns raised that a State
would be required to go through an entire State plan process in order
to make revisions. The language in the bill is clear that a State
making revisions to their levels of performance need only seek public
comment on those targets and does not need to go through the more
extensive consultation process or an additional public comment period.
When submitting the revised levels to the Secretary, they must include
the public comments and the State response.
Heading into this reauthorization, a major concern of current law was
that there was too much burden on local schools that deterred many from
pursuing Federal funds. They cited the burdensome local plan, the
multitude of requirements and reporting burden. This bill addresses all
of those items and reduces burden for local governments.
First, this reauthorization focuses reporting and accountability on
just CTE concentrators, reducing the number of students States must
collect data on to only those truly enrolled in a CTE program. Second,
the number of requirements of what must be included in the local
application is reduced from 12 to 9. Third, the required use of funds
at the local level drops from nine to six.
One last item that I would like to address about the bill is its
accountability provisions. The bill maintains the current law structure
of accountability which requires that, if a State does not meet 90
percent of their State-determined level of performance for any of the
indicators, then the State must submit an improvement plan indicating
how it plans to improve.
If a State has not achieved 90 percent of their level of performance
after 2 years following the implementation of their improvement plan,
the Secretary is granted the discretion to withhold funds from that
State.
There are a number of education and business groups supporting this
bill, which include National Governor's Association, National School
Boards Association, Rebuilding America's Middle Class, U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, Jobs for the Future,
Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors Association, Heating, Ventilation,
Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Coalition, Education Trust, Boeing,
and IBM.
Chairwoman Foxx and Ranking Member Scott, along with Representative
Thompson and Representative Krishnamoorthi, deserve a good deal of
thanks for their work in the House on passing the Perkins CTE Act.
I also want to thank Senator Enzi and Senator Casey for their work in
the Senate on this bill. They have worked hard to reach a bipartisan
result and should receive the recognition they deserve for it.
I would also like to thank Ivanka Trump for her leadership in helping
create an environment where we could get a result. Her interest in
helping train the next generation of our country's workers and making
the reauthorization of this bill one of her priorities helped keep
Congress focused on passing this bill. I was pleased that she attended
our committee markup of the bill and thank her for her hard work.
I also want to thank the ranking member of the committee, Senator
Murray. This bill is another in a long list of accomplishments this
committee has achieved.
Finally, I would like to thank the following staff: from the
Congressional Research Service, Boris Granovskiy, Becky Skinner, and
Adam Stoll; from the Office of Legislative Counsel, Kristin Romero,
Margaret Bomba, and Amy Gaynor; from Senator Casey's office, Julia
Sferlazzo and Rachel McKinnon; from Senator Enzi's office, Tara Shaw,
Garnett Decosimo, and Steve Townsend; from Senator Murray's office,
Evan Schatz, Kara Marchione, Amanda Beaumont, and Katherine McClelland;
and my staff, David Cleary, Bob Moran, Jake Baker, Richard Pettey,
Bobby McMillin, and Lindsey Seidman.
I am pleased that President Trump signed this bill into law today to
help States and local communities meet the needs of the current and
future workforce.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, although President Trump has spent the
majority of his Presidency undermining workers and their economic
security, today President Trump is taking a small step in the right
direction by signing the Strengthening Career and Technical Education
for the 21st Century Act into law.
This doesn't undo President Trump's actions to roll back health and
safety protections for workers or his efforts to make it easier for
corporations to take advantage of their workers or his continued
attempts to gut workforce training programs, including WIOA and our
registered apprenticeships, but this bill makes clear that, when
Republicans and Democrats work together and put the needs of students,
workers, businesses, and educators at the forefront, even President
Trump would not stand in the way.
Now, I want to talk about what went into passing this law, what is
included in it, and why that is so important. As we were working to
reauthorize the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, we heard
from employers, workers, students, educators, advocates, and our own
colleagues on the need to update this law.
While I agreed reauthorizing Perkins was critical to giving workers
and students the tools and skills they need to get better jobs and
higher wages, we could not pass a law for the sake of passing a law; we
needed to ensure this law improved the current Perkins program and was
able to adapt to a changing 21st century economy.
That meant putting aside partisanship and working together, across
party lines, with the goal of improving career and technical education
programs for the communities we represent.
I am pleased we were able to move away from attempts to voucherize
this program, an idea that was widely rejected by the CTE community
because it would mean programs teaching career and technical education
would receive less funding, and though the theory of privatization has
been championed by some in this administration, including Secretary
DeVos, it has never worked in practice.
We also rejected attempts to change Perkins funding to competitive
grants, which would make it significantly harder for communities to
apply for and receive funding.
Instead we worked together and focused on what businesses, educators,
and students were asking for.
[[Page S5508]]
The details here are so important, and I want to make it very clear
where we landed in this agreement.
To better improve career and technical education for students,
workers, local businesses, and communities, this bill will require
States, schools, and training programs to update education and job
training programs to meet the needs of the local economy, ensuring
students are being provided with the skills they need to find high-
skill, high-wage, or in-demand jobs where they live.
Because the economy is constantly changing, and new equipment,
technology, and curriculum are needed to help students and workers keep
up with technological advancements, this bill would authorize a new
innovation grant program to allow States to explore new and creative
ways to improve career and technical education that use evidence-based
measurements to ensure students are still receiving high quality
education and training.
Updating career and technical education programs and promoting
innovation is important, but we cannot lose sight of our top priority:
improving the quality of the career and technical education students
are receiving.
For that reason, this bill appropriately balances State and local
flexibility with protections and guardrails to ensure our students are
receiving the best possible education and training.
I want to dig a little deeper into these protections today because it
is so important we get this right.
First, on the role of the Secretary of Education, I want to be very
clear: This bill does not prohibit the Secretary's authority to oversee
this law in any new way.
The Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century
Act gives States the ability to determine what education and training
is most needed in their communities and what accountability levels
those programs have to meet.
At the same time, it ensures the Secretary has the ability and the
authority to implement and enforce the law as we intended.
This bill allows the Secretary to issue rules to implement the law,
including notifying Congress before a rule is issued and allowing
Congress to provide input on those proposed rules.
Second, this bill includes a number of measures to support States and
ensure their top priority is student success.
Because regions of the country have different needs and economies,
this bill will allow States to set their own levels of performance, but
each State must meet minimum requirements when they set those levels of
performance, including ensuring our most vulnerable students are making
meaningful progress and performance gaps in the States are closing.
Under current law, we have data on performance gaps and disparities,
but no one is required to do anything about those gaps. So for the
first time, in this law, States and local recipients will not only have
to report data on performance gaps and disparities, they will have to
describe how they will address those disparities and gaps.
We also improved the quality of data in this bill. Right now, there
are not many common definitions in the Perkins law, so it is hard for
local businesses and communities to know which career and technical
education programs are high quality and which programs need more
resources to improve. This law establishes more common definitions so
that the data collected going forward will be more meaningful and
comparable among localities and States and will provide more actionable
data to help local communities improve these programs.
As I mentioned before, this bill gives States and local CTE providers
flexibility to design their own improvement programs for States or
locals failing to meet 90 percent of the goals they set for themselves,
but it also includes basic requirements to ensure low-performing
programs improve in the specific areas they are underperforming,
something all parents, educators, and community members want for the
programs that serve their children--because, if programs don't have to
improve and help the students and workers who need it most, there is no
way our communities will be ready for the economic challenges the 21st
century holds for us all.
Our bottom line should always be that we support students to succeed.
If we aren't, then we have a responsibility to do better. This new law
maintains the authority of the Secretary to hold States' feet to the
fire to do just that.
Finally, I want to thank my negotiating partners in this legislation,
Chairman Alexander, Senator Casey, and Senator Enzi, for working with
me on a bipartisan bill that makes important, needed updates to career
and technical education, while maintaining guardrails to ensure States
and programs receiving Federal money are focused on providing students
and workers with the skills they needy and providing businesses with
workers they need to compete in the 21st century economy.
I also want to take a moment to recognize the hard work and long
hours our staff put in to make this a bill we were all proud to
support.
I want to thank David Cleary, Bob Moran, Jake Baker, and Richard
Petty from Senator Alexander's office, Garnett Decosimo from Senator
Enzi's office, and Julia Sferlazzo from Senator Casey's office.
I want to thank members of my own staff, including my staff director
Evan Schatz, my deputy staff director John Righter, and my education
policy director Kara Marchione.
I also want to thank Amanda Beaumont, Katherine McClelland, Katharine
Parham, Manuel Contreras, and Mairead Lynn for their hard work and
support.
This law shows that, if we keep students, workers, and businesses at
the forefront, we can work together and build an economy that works for
all.
Thank you.
____________________