Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my deep concerns with H.R. 2353, the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for 21st Century Act, also referred to as the CTE Reauthorization Act. This bill reauthorizes the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (Perkins Act) to help more Americans enter the workforce with the skills necessary to compete for and succeed in high-skilled, in-demand careers. The bill also makes several other changes and funding modifications to the current program.

Louisiana highly values vocational and technical education and includes these skills in all public schools. These contributions are vital to Louisiana's Fourth Congressional District. With more than 25 schools in our district focused on careers in technical education, I am proud to represent many hardworking Louisianians who are skilled in hands-on labor. For these reasons, I cannot in good conscience support this bill knowing it could result in Louisiana losing critical funding over the next several years.

As well-intended as this legislation may be, it will not benefit all states equally. A study conducted by the Congressional Research Service examined the bill's modified formula for allocating grants under the Perkins Basic State Grants Program, and found that Louisiana will lose money in nearly every scenario it calculated. In fact, according to this analysis, Louisiana would face some of the most significant decreases among all states in each scenario examined. Decreasing our state's funding level for technical career education would be a great detriment to our efforts and exactly the opposite of what H.R. 2353 is intended to do.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great concern that I oppose the current CTE Reauthorization Act. I believe we can do better by the constituents in Louisiana's highly-skilled workforce. Moving forward, I will do everything in my power to work for our students and teachers of the technical education field to ensure they are not left behind and are provided the resources they need to keep our communities strong and our economy growing.

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