Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act

Floor Speech

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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.

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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