CTE Policy Watch: A blog for CTE advocates

Why Voting is Important to Me

To me, participating in the electoral process is one of the most fundamental freedoms we as Americans are able to enjoy. Many people in countless countries around the world still do not enjoy the same freedom, nor did many Americans in centuries past (and even some still today). It is our duty to employ the power given to us by the U.S. Constitution to ensure our voice is heard, and to hold our representatives accountable to our collective principles for the future of this nation.

On Tuesday, all of us will be casting a ballot for the next President of the United States. More importantly, we will be casting ballots for “down-ballot” races, which, in my opinion, are more impactful than the one to determine who will live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave for the next four years.

We will be casting ballots for all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 35 in the U.S. Senate. These choices will not only determine which party is in control of each chamber, but they will determine the policy direction and priorities for the 117^th Congress. These men and women will have a significant impact on the future of CTE funding and the likely reauthorization of many critical pieces of legislation, including the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), National Apprenticeship Act (NAA), Higher Education Act (HEA), among others.

Additionally, some states have Governors races, state legislatures races, local school board races, and state and local referendums all of which will impact you and your families daily lives. State and local elections decide whether a school gets built, or how much funding specific programs receive. It's the vote that shapes your direct community's short and long-term goals, and it’s one that you can have a direct impact in.

ACTE is a nonpartisan organization that does not support or oppose any candidate for public office.

Why Voting is Important to Me

This election cycle has been more chaotic than I've ever seen--often eliciting negativity, fear, and even exhaustion. However, having the ability to influence, albeit in a small way, the direction this country is moving toward is why I will always choose to have my opinions heard through voting. 

To me, this election is more than simply voting for a president. I believe the biggest impact that I can have as a citizen is voting on my local and state elected officials, and the amendments, resolutions and initiatives on the ballot that will most directly affect my life. My vote will allow me to have a say in what policies I think should be prioritized on the community, state and federal level. 

During my undergraduate experience, I volunteered for a local campaign by going door to door talking with people about the candidate. I also volunteered on my campus during the 2016 presidential election to make sure people were signed up to vote. Through my conversations during these two experiences, I found that all the people I talked with, no matter their beliefs, had valuable opinions that needed to be heard so that they could shape the policies they wanted to see in their communities and country. You, as a CTE expert, have knowledge and experience in CTE that no one else does, and your vote will have an impact. Please know who and what is on your ballot and vote because it matters.

ACTE is a nonpartisan organization that does not support or oppose any candidate for public office.

Share Your COVID-19 Innovations!

CTE educators have a long history of creativity in delivering high-quality CTE programs and career development experiences to learners, and the 2020-21 school year is no exception. Whether your school, institution or district is open fully with social distancing methods, using a blended approach or continuing with remote learning, ACTE wants to hear about the innovative ways you are coping with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on CTE and career development.

Please fill out this short form to help ACTE learn more about how you are innovating during this challenging time. Examples are welcome from secondary, postsecondary and adult CTE programs as well as from career counseling and development activities. ACTE may publish your innovative practices on our website, in our blogs and/or in print.

Is your CTE program planning to transition between delivery models this school year, based on COVID-19 case counts in your area? If so, check out High-quality CTE: Planning for a COVID-19-impacted School Year, ACTE’s guide for helping CTE stakeholders identify the key considerations, guiding questions and emerging best practices that can shape planning across a variety of different scenarios.   

DC Digest: October 19-25

The second and final presidential debate took place on Thursday in Nashville, TN. Education played a minor role in the debate, with several mentions of reopening schools within the context of the coronavirus pandemic.. With the election right around the corner, make sure to keep up with ACTE’s Election Watch 2020 on the CTE Policy Watch blog. On the Hill on Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to send the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the full Senate. The full Senate is scheduled to vote on Barrett’s nomination on Monday, October 26. Here are a few other notes from the federal education policy realm last week: 

• Additional Funding for the Earn-and-Learn Initiative: The Department of Education announced additional funding for the Federal Work Study (FWS) Experimental Sites Initiative, which launched in 2019 with participants announced earlier this year . This initiative, one of several Pell experiments underway, allows students to work more hours off-campus under the work-study program, and permits institutions to pay students for work-based learning such as apprenticeships, externships and clinical rotations, among other flexibilities
• Virtual Hill Briefing Featuring Principals Thoughts on COVID-19: On Thursday, the American Federation of School Administrators, the National Association of Elementary School Principals and the National Association of Secondary School Principals hosted a virtual Capitol Hill briefing to hear from principals on COVID-19 related challenges and the federal supports that would help schools and students during this time. 
• Senate COVID-19 Relief Proposal Fails Cloture Motion: The Senate failed to move forward the $500 billion COVID-19 relief package that was proposed on Wednesday by Senate Republicans. Among the major provisions, the proposal included more than $100 billion for schools, although these funds were largely conditioned on in-person reopening. Talks remain ongoing between congressional leaders and the White House to try and get another relief measure passed before the November 3 election.
• New Parent and Family Digital Learning Guide: The Department of Education’s Office of Technology released a Parent and Family Digital Learning Guide to help parents and guardians understand digital learning tools, particularly while students are learning from home. Some of the topics the guide covers include how to leverage the flexibilities and innovations that technology and digital tools provide, online safety, competency-based learning, federal laws concerning student privacy and safety, and more.  

Why Voting is Important to Me

I vote to honor those who came before me, and fought so valiantly for their franchise, and to help make a better life for those will come after me.

The presidential election grabs the most headlines, but the decisions that predominantly impact my children’s education options and shape the workforce they will enter are made by state and local officials and decided by bond issues and ballot referendums. While education has been a minor topic on the national stage this election, your ballot may feature school board member candidates and questions about using funds to construct new education facilities. How voters weigh in on these issues will shape local education curriculum and delivery and impact learner opportunities for the next several years.

You, as CTE educators and advocates, have important expertise on your local education and workforce systems to help you decide where you stand on these critical issues. Whether you cast your vote on Election Day, through early in-person voting or with a mail ballot, please vote—and remember to pay as much attention to down-ballot candidates and issues as you do to the top of the ticket.

ACTE is a nonpartisan organization that does not support or oppose any candidate for public office.

Tell Congress to Investment in Skills Training to Jump-Start the Economy

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the United States has lost 20.6 million jobs. That's nearly 15% of American workforce.

The COVID-19 pandemic has completely upended our daily lives - from the way we receive education to the way we work and socialize. It has fundamentally changed our entire economy. In order to get those 20.6 million Americans back to work in good-paying jobs and restore our economy, they will need skills training. Skills training is a critical part of the solution to our current economic crisis, and without dramatically increasing resources for skills training programs, we face the prospect of not only a growing skills gap, but a prolonged economic downturn.

Join us in signing a petition from our partners at Voices for Skills and tell Congress that skills training should be a critical piece of our country’s inclusive economic recovery plan in order to support individual’s real career aspirations, support employers' need for skilled workers, and kickstart our country’s economy.

About Voices for Skills

Voices for Skills, powered by the National Skills Coalition, is working people, students, teachers, and business leaders coming together to call for a national commitment to significantly increase our investment in skills training.

Tonight 9PM: Final Presidential Debate

The final presidential debate between President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden will take place tonight at 9 p.m. ET at Belmont University in Nashville. The debate is scheduled to be 90 minutes long with no commercial breaks and is going to be moderated by Kristen Welker (NBC). Like the previously held debate, it will be split into six 15-minute segments. The six topics are the fight against COVID-19, American families, race in America, climate change, national security and leadership.

For more information about the debate or its format, please visit the Commission on Presidential Debates. To watch the debate on TV or stream online, please visit C-SPAN for live coverage.

Note: ACTE is a nonpartisan organization that does not—and will not—support or oppose any candidate for public office.

Downward Trends for Postsecondary Institutions

Over 16% fewer first-year students are enrolling in postsecondary institutions compared to last year, according to new data from The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Inside Higher Ed published a helpful complimentary analysis explaining the findings. The declines are not as prevalent in public and private non-profit four-year institutions as they were in community colleges, where enrollment is down 9.4%, with an even steeper 23% enrollment drop in first-year students at community colleges. Certificate and associate degree programs across all institutions are also experiencing a decrease in enrollment. 

Typically in a recession when unemployed or displaced workers are looking to reskill or upskill, community college enrollment is expected to spike. Community colleges are closer to home for displaced workers and often the most affordable postsecondary option. During this economic downturn due to COVID-19, it was predicted that the trend would follow the same pattern, but so far it has not. 

Douglas Shapiro, the executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse, listed students’ lack of access to the internet in order to complete online courses and the difficulty of translating hands-on learning to a remote setting as some of the potential factors for decreased enrollment. Due to the lack of enrollment and potential budget cuts because of the economic downturn, community colleges are worried about steep cuts to their funding allocations, which could have large, lasting implications, potentially exacerbating equity and access gaps among disadvantaged students who access higher education through community colleges. 

Why Voting is Important to Me

I first wrote the post below as part of our Election Watch series back in 2016, but all of the sentiments remain true today! In fact, the importance of voting and down-ballot races has never been more evident to me than in the last six months. The decisions impacting education during the COVID-19 pandemic have largely been made by local policymakers. I’ve never sent as many emails to my local school board as I have in the last few months! Every election gives you the opportunity to impact who sits in those critical seats for the next few years, so make your voice heard by voting!

Living in a swing state during this election cycle, the average number of political calls I’m receiving every day has climbed to about a half dozen. They include public opinion polls, recorded celebrities urging me to vote for their preferred candidate, requests for donations and more. I’ve gotten much better at screening them, but will be relieved when the deluge ends! Like many others around the country, I’ve grown weary of the drawn out election cycle, the increased partisanship, and the negative tenor of this campaign season—which seems worse in many ways than any I’ve ever experienced. These feelings make it easy to forget about the important implications of this, and every election, and of the privilege we have in this country to help shape our collective future through voting.

Years ago as a high school student, I had the opportunity to help our local supervisor of elections in the office on election night. I helped track the delivery of ballot boxes from around the precincts, and as each set of ballots was counted, I had the task of tallying the results on a large white board in a conference room designated for those running for local office and their supporters. Thirteen votes, twenty-two votes, seven votes from a precinct—in a local race in a rural county, every individual vote was critical.

During a national election where constant polling results and the sheer magnitude of votes being cast can be overwhelming, I think it is vital to remember the impact of these local and state races and ballot initiatives. These “down-ballot” races can often have a more direct impact on local education and workforce policy than anything that happens in Washington!

I recently heard that one of the candidates for school board in my old home town visited every single family in her district during her campaign—forging a personal relationship and educating herself about constituent concerns. Whether she wins or loses, that’s the image that sticks in my mind this election when I think about engagement in the political process and the importance of voting. Educate yourself about all of the important issues and candidates on the ballot this election season, not just those getting the most national attention, and don’t pass up your opportunity to vote!

ACTE is a nonpartisan organization that does not support or oppose any candidate for public office.

Why Voting is Important to Me

With only two weeks to go before Election Day 2020, now is a great time to reflect on the reasons why voting is important to you. Maybe you view voting as a civic duty—a part of being actively engaged in your community. Maybe it’s the issues that will drive you to the polls, education being among the critical national issues that will be impacted by the results of this election. And maybe you vote because you want to ensure the best possible future for the next generation by supporting CTE at the ballot box. No matter the reason, it is important to make your voice heard by participating on Election Day or through an early voting option.

Let us know why voting matters to you, and check out the CTE Policy Watch blog in the coming days to read some of the reasons why voting is important to us. 

ACTE is a nonpartisan organization that does not support or oppose any candidate for public office.