[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

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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.

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  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.

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