The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will mark up its career and technical education (CTE) reauthorization bill this afternoon, June 26, at 2:30 pm ET. You can watch the markup
here.
The National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE) appreciates the significant effort by the committee Senators and their staff to reach a bipartisan agreement that continues to use accountability as the cornerstone to ensuring that high-quality CTE programs support the success of every student, including those from special populations.
NAPE applauds the HELP Committee for building on current law by continuing to include provisions that support access and success of special populations in high-quality CTE programs of study at the secondary and postsecondary levels. The bill, while not perfect, maintains the spirit of accountability through a thoughtful state and local planning and reporting process that uses disaggregated data, performance gap analyses, and a local needs assessment to determine the most effective use of funds.
The bill expands the important role of states in providing leadership for improving CTE to prepare students in nontraditional fields, recruiting special population students, and serving incarcerated youth and students with disabilities. The bill also provides for career awareness and exploration of nontraditional careers in the middle grades when students’ biases about their career options start to narrow. All of these provisions, and more, are examples of provisions that NAPE supports and must be included through the Senate markup and floor process.
The House passed its version of a Perkins reauthorization bill last year, creating the potential for completion of Perkins reauthorization during this Congress. As the Senate HELP Committee completes its markup and moves the bill to the floor, NAPE looks forward to working with the Senate to improve the bill as the process continues.
