CTE Policy Watch: A blog for CTE advocates

DC Digest: November 18-24

Though Congress was mainly focused on impeachment hearings this week, there were a number of CTE-related activities as work wrapped up leading into the Thanksgiving holiday recess. The most significant activity occurred on appropriations, where significant movement occurred for the first time in weeks. You can read more about that on the blog here, and see other news below:

• Briefing on Access and Equity in CTE: The House CTE Caucus held a briefing on advancing access and equity in CTE, which ACTE attended. Career and Technical Education Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Glenn Thompson spoke at the briefing, along with other panelists to discuss the challenges that many special populations, such as low-income earners, students with disabilities and nontraditional students face. See photo and read more from our partners at Advance CTE!
  
  
• 2020 House Floor Schedule: Majority House Leader Hoyer (D-MD) has released the 2020 House Floor Schedule for the Second Session of the 116th Congress, which begins on January 7 and will meet for 113 days. Hoyer says the 2020 schedule will continue addressing health care costs, infrastructure investments, climate change and expanding economy opportunity. Take a look at the schedule to identify congressional recess times when Congress is not in session. These are great times to invite Members of Congress to visit programs or to schedule meetings with your representatives while they are back in their home districts!
  
  
• 90/10 Rule Veterans Legislation Gains Key Support: Senate HELP Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) backed the Protect VETS Act, a bipartisan bill aimed to protect military and veteran students from predatory institutions by closing the 90/10 loophole. Currently, military and veteran education benefits do not count towards federal aid portion of the 90/10 rule, so this bill would reclassify all federal aid under the 90%. This concession, one the Chairman has historically pushed back on, could signal that he is looking to make a compromise on Democratic priorities in order to gain traction on a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA).
  
  
• DC Organizations Release “Green Economy” Policy Principles: A group of national policy organizations, including the National Youth Employment Coalition and Center for Law and Social Policy, released “Building Pathways, Inclusive Economies, and Opportunities for Youth and Young Adults: Principles for Green Economy Legislation and Investment.” These principles outline how to ensure that opportunity youth are connected to the green economy through targeting resources, building policy frameworks on a racial and gender equity lens, involving young people, building career pathways and focusing on quality jobs.

Fiscal Year 2020 Appropriations Process Moves Forward

Last week, Congress passed and President Trump signed into law, a second continuing resolution (CR) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 appropriations bills that extended funding through December 20, 2019. The CR will continue to fund the majority of government programs at FY 2019 levels, while providing some programs additional funds to meet specific demands, like an increase in funding for the Census Bureau in the lead up to the 2020 Decennial census.

In addition to the CR, over the weekend, House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) came to an agreement on the 302(b) allocations for the twelve spending bills. The 302(b)s are the top-line numbers for each of the twelve bills (such as the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill), with specific program levels still being negotiated at the subcommittee level. The deal sticks to the defense and nondefense caps agreed to as part of the two-year budget deal passed back in July. Under the deal, total nondefense spending was set at $632 billion, while total defense spending was set at $738 billion.

While this marks a major breakthrough in the appropriations process, which has been at a standstill for much of the fall, it still does not clear the road for easy passage of FY 2020 appropriations bills. Congressional leadership still need to address a myriad of policy issues before these bills are signed into law, including border wall funding and the ability for President Trump to reprogram funds under emergency powers; several abortion provisions; the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention beds; among other partisan sticking points.

What’s Next?

Now that the top-line numbers have been set, the subcommittees are able to go to work on the line-item funding decisions for each program, like Perkins Basic State Grants. Sources close to the process have said that Chairmen Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) have expressed a desire to pass all 12 appropriations bills before the CR expires on December 20. This means Congress has less than a month, and only 15 session days, to work out the details in the bills, get them through both chambers, and signed into law by the president. Failing to do so would more than likely result in one of two scenarios – either an additional CR into the new year, or the passage of a “crominbus.” A crominbus is a spending bill that combines a short-term continuing resolution for some federal programs and a long-term omnibus to cover all remaining federal spending. As the process moves forward, it is important to continue to emphasize the importance of federal funding for CTE to your Members of Congress!

New Features on College Scorecard

On November 20, the Department of Education (ED) released a redesign of the College Scorecard, which now includes data on debt levels and potential first-year earnings, broken down by program level. The new earnings data in the College Scorecard is obtained from federal tax records.  Approximately 41,000 programs across the nation are covered, including apprenticeships, certificate programs, 2-year and 4-year programs, and some graduate programs. Specifically, the debt data comes from students who graduated in 2016-2017 and the earnings data comes from students who graduated in 2015-2016.

ED emphasizes that the new design of the College Scorecard allows students to make more informed and personalized decisions when trying to find a school that is the best fit for them. Some of the features they highlight include that students can now make comparisons for up to ten different school options. Also, ED now differentiates between full-time, part-time, first-time and transfer students. Other features allow students to search for potential schools by acceptance rate, ACT/SAT scores and location.

Some have questioned the relevance of the earnings data since it is based on a graduate’s first year in the workforce, which does not account for the fact that students’ earnings gradually increase over time at rates that often vary with occupation. However, the ED has said it will update the data annually and provide ten years of post-graduation earnings data. Other concerns have also been raised regarding the effectiveness of the data since it is taken from different samples of students, which could potentially skew some of the findings.

Overall, providing more readily-accessible information to students about postsecondary programs is a good thing. However, it is important to ensure students are aware of how the data were collected, what is actually measured and any potential shortcomings, which is inherent in any large-scale data project. ACTE will continue to monitor the new college scorecard and future updates to it.

Strengthening Relationships Between CTE Coursetaking and Labor Markets

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) found a positive relationship between recent CTE coursetaking and labor market characteristics in their latest report, “An Examination of Career and Technical Education Course Taking and Labor Markets Across Two High School Cohorts.” The researchers used national data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to complete the study, including longitudinal studies following high school graduates from 2004 and 2012.

The researchers looked at several different questions to determine the relationship between high school CTE coursetaking and the needs of the labor market, as well as whether students with baccalaureate-degree aspirations engage in CTE coursetaking differently than those without baccalaureate-degree aspirations.

Specifically, the study showed that for the high school students that graduated in 2004, CTE course taking in specific Career Clusters was for the most part not correlated with the number of people employed in industries within those Clusters in the state economy. However, for the high school students who graduated in 2012, the relationship between employment rates in state industry sectors and CTE course enrollment in those Career Clusters was stronger overall, with significant correlation particularly in Business, Health, Finance, IT, STEM and Human Services. This could suggest that the changes made in CTE programs over the last two decades have created better alignment between courses available and labor market needs.

Researchers also found that there was no significant difference in the amount of CTE courses taken, or for the most part the type of CTE courses taken, between students with baccalaureate aspirations and students without those aspirations. The only two exceptions were students planning on attending a four-year university earned more credits in IT, and those students in the 2004 cohort earned fewer CTE credits in Agriculture (although this finding was not replicated in the 2012 cohort), and those in the 2012 cohort earned more credits in STEM.

Because Perkins V emphasizes the use of labor market information through Comprehensive Local Needs Assessments (CLNAs) and in the creation of recognized postsecondary credentials, we expect that the positive trend between CTE course taking and local labor market needs will continue to grow. For more information about how to better align CTE course taking and local economic needs through the CLNA, read more here.

DC Digest: November 11-17

DC Digest: November 11-17

The House returned to session on Tuesday, however, it has continued to be relatively quiet for federal education policy as Congress remains busy with other issues. Members of Congress and the Administration did take time to celebrate National Apprenticeship week though, which you can read more about below! In other news:

• Career Counseling Bill: House CTE Caucus Co-chairs, Reps. Jim Langevin (D-RI) and Glenn Thompson (R-PA) have introduced a bill to invest in career counseling opportunities at the secondary level. ACTE Executive Director LeAnn Wilson was quoted in the press release.
• Senate CTE Caucus: Tom Cotton (R-AR) has joined the Senate CTE Caucus. This brings the total caucus to 30 members, the largest number of senators to be a part of the caucus since its founding! Continue to encourage your Members of Congress to join the House and Senate CTE Caucuses.
• Short-term Spending Bill Update: Congressional leaders have tentatively agreed to an additional short-term spending deal in the lead up to the November 21 funding deadline. The deal, expected to be voted on soon, will extend funding to December 20 in an effort to give both chambers more time to pass year-long appropriations bills.
• National Apprenticeship Week: In recognition of the National Apprenticeship Week, over 980 events were hosted across the country to display the importance of apprenticeships. Other recognitions included a White House proclamation in support of apprenticeships, a Department of Education video featuring OCTAE Assistant Secretary Scott Stump discussing opportunities and benefits of apprenticeships, and speeches on the House floor, including one by Representative Foxx (R-NC), ranking member of the House Education and Labor Committee, and one by Representative Bonamici (D-OR), also a member of the House Education and Labor Committee.
• Perkins Implementation: Work on Perkins implementation continues as state leaders and data experts gathered in Baltimore this week for the national CTE Data Quality Institute. States discussed the new Perkins V core indicators of performance, measurement approaches and setting performance targets, sharing best practices and innovative solutions to key data challenges.
• International Education Week: The Department of Education celebrated International Education Week on November 12th by hosting a panel of government representatives from the United States, Brazil and China to share ideas on apprenticeship programs and career and technical education. Watch the whole video here.
• National Summit on Literacy: On November 13, the Barbra Bush foundation hosted the inaugural National Summit on Adult Literacy. Scott Stump, the Department of Education’s Assistant Secretary for Career, Technical and Adult Education, was one of the speakers to highlight best practices in adult education.

 

DC Digest: November 3-10

It was a relatively quiet week on the federal education policy front, with the House on recess and no major Committee activity. The House returns this week though, and Washington will be celebrating National Apprenticeship Week, so there is likely more activity in the future! In the meantime:

• Progress on Education Appropriations: With the current November 21 funding deadline looming, congressional leaders have taken positive steps to ensure the government remains funded while working toward a longer term Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 solution. On Tuesday, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) and House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) met to discuss the path forward. Also, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) announced that the House is likely to introduce a new short-term CR that extends funding to December 20 to give lawmakers more time to come to consensus on funding the 12 appropriations bills for FY 2020.

• World Standards Week on the “Workforce of the Future”: On November 7, the American National Standards Institute hosted a conference on Building an Effective Workforce for the Future, which ACTE attended. During the day, there were two keynote speakers and four panel sessions which covered challenges to meet the workforce needs of the future and how education and trainings are going to have to adapt to meet those needs.
  
  
• National Day of Action for ESSA Title IV: On November 6, ACTE joined other national associations and advocates for a National Day of Action to support awareness of and funding for Title IV of the Every Student Succeeds Act, Student Success and Academic Enhancement Grants, which can be used for career development activities and other parts of a “well-rounded” education. You can view our tweet and others that were part of the campaign!
  
  
• Federal STEM Investments Reviewed: On November 8, the Trump Administration reported on $540 million dollars that has been allocated to support STEM education to expand opportunities in the STEM workforce. This is part of the five-year federal STEM education strategic plan in which all Americans will have access to lifelong STEM education, as well as to make America a leader in the STEM field.
  
  

Department Announces Final Regulations on Accreditation and Distance Education

On October 31, The U.S. Department of Education (USED) published the 519-page final accreditation and state authorization distance education regulations, which were the product of a yearlong negotiated rulemaking process between USED and higher education stakeholders. According to the Department’s press release, these regulations, which are a part of Secretary Betsy DeVos’ “Rethink Higher Education” agenda, are designed to “expand educational options for students, lower the cost of education post-high school, and ensure occupationally-focused education meets current workforce needs.”

Along with the regulatory changes, the final regulations included a summary of the few hundred public comments the Department received, along with their responses to the comments. Some of the regulatory changes most relevant to CTE include:

• Allows accreditors to have separate faculty standards for instructors teaching courses within dual or concurrent enrollment programs, or career and technical education courses, if the instructors, “in the agency’s judgement,” are qualified to teach by either their education or work experience. The department contends that an agency should not have to choose between setting rigorous standards for faculty that may be appropriate, for example, at comprehensive or research institutions, and allowing other kinds of institutions to hire the faculty that will provide students with the best opportunities possible.
• Provides a three-year grace period that accreditors can propose in order to allow programs to comply with the accreditor’s faculty standards for dual or concurrent enrollment. This grace period is able to be extended. 
• Allows agencies to have separate standards regarding an institution’s process for approving curriculum with the goal of better aligning certain programs with specific industry or occupational demands. These separate curriculum standards, which are intended to give employers and industry a stronger voice in curriculum development, can include using recommendations from industry advisory boards that employers who hire program graduates participate on; including employers who make hiring decisions in a given field or occupation in the approval process; or aligning the curriculum with widely-recognized industry standards, credentialing, or other occupational registration or licensure. The Department argues that a traditional faculty governance process for approving curriculum, while widely used, is not the only governance process currently in use by institutions or allowed by the HEA, and in some instances it may be inappropriate to give faculty a stronger voice than employers.
• Includes a requirement that institutions disclose to students whether their educational programs meet the requirements for licensure across States. This will allows students to know if their investment in an educational program will lead to the career the student intends to pursue.

The regulations will go into effect on July 1, 2020. The Department’s press release can be found here and final regulations can be found here.

Additionally, the Department has recently announced that they will be publishing proposed rules on distance education and innovation, TEACH grants and faith-based institutions shortly. ACTE will continue to monitor the Department’s actions and update the Policy Watch Blog accordingly.

DC Digest: October 27-November 2

The biggest education news this week on Capitol Hill was the House Education and Labor Committee’s marathon mark-up of its Higher Education Act reauthorization bill, which lasted for three days! You can read more about that markup on the blog at https://ctepolicywatch.acteonline.org/2019/11/democrats-pass-hea-reauthorization-proposal-out-of-house-committee.html.

In other news:

• Work on Education Appropriations Remains Stalled: On October 31, the Senate rejected a procedural motion that would have allowed for debate to start on the four-bill minibus, H.R. 2740 (116), that includes the Fiscal year (FY) 2020 funding for the Department of Education. The vote, 51-41, failed to reach the 60 vote threshold needed to advance. Democrats voted against motion on the grounds that their Republican colleagues did not engage them when they set the overall spending levels, which were much lower for education than the House bill.
  
  
• Regulations on Accreditation and Distant Education Finalized: On November 1, Secretary DeVos released the final accreditation and state authorization distance education regulations. These regulations, a part of the broader “rethink higher education” agenda, are aimed to “expand educational options for students, holistically lower the cost of education post-high school, and ensure occupationally-focused education meets current workforce needs,” according to the Secretary, but have been met with some concern. Check back on the CTE Policy Watch Blog soon for a more detailed summary.
  
  
• Senate CTE Caucus Briefing: On October 31, the Senate CTE Caucus, in partnership with the National Skills Coalition (NSC), hosted a briefing on the importance of aligning Perkins V and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), and how they can work together to drive economic success. Organizations who participated on the panel include: the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA), Advance CTE, Rural Local Initiatives Support Corporation (Rural LISC) and NSC.
  
  
• Nation’s Report Card Results Released: Significant attention in DC was placed on the release of the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress results, which were released on October 30. While these results are not specific to CTE, as they are based on assessments in fourth and eighth graders’ reading and math scores, they do have implications for educational policy overall. Unfortunately, the overall news was not positive. The results for reading were lower for both grades compared to 2017, and the results for math were one point higher in fourth-grade students and one point lower for eighth-grade students compared to 2017. Department of Education Secretary DeVos said in a press release that the results were “devastating” and proposed support for school choice initiatives to help counteract the results.

New Resources for Perkins V Implementation

The resources below can help states and locals as they work to implement changes in Perkins V!

Employer Engagement Cheat Sheet: ACTE recently partnered with Advance CTE and Business Leaders United to release a “cheat sheet” to help employers navigate new opportunities for engagement at the state and local level under Perkins V. Use the four-page fact sheet, “Cheat Sheet: Opportunities for Employer Involvement in CTE” with current or potential business partners to spark discussions about future activities!

Resource on Data Disaggregation for Public Reporting: Perkins V places renewed emphasis on the public reporting and use of disaggregated student performance data at both the state and local levels. The Data Quality Campaign recently released a tool, “Disaggregated Data: Not Just a Box Checking Exercise,” with tips for presenting disaggregated data in meaningful ways. While primarily targeted toward implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the information can be applied to Perkins reporting as well.

Perkins V Implementation Meeting Wrap-up: Curious about how states are working through the process to develop their state plans? ACTE joined Advance CTE, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), and the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE) in hosting a set of collaborative meetings around state plan development. You can read more about this fall’s meetings at http://blog.careertech.org/?p=15932.

Democrats Pass HEA Reauthorization Proposal Out of House Committee

Never the dull moment on Capitol Hill, on October 29 the House Education & Labor Committee began a mark-up on H.R. 4674, the College Affordability Act (CAA). The proposal, the House Democrats’ Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization bill, has many similarities to the Aim Higher Act that Committee Democrats introduced last Congress. After three days of debate and amendments, the CAA was approved favorably out of Committee on a party-line vote. While all Democrats voted for the proposal, Ranking Member Virginia Foxx (R-NC) issued a strongly-worded statement in response, saying that “[t]his partisan legislation will contribute to exploding college costs, exacerbate our nation’s skills gap, and allow failing programs to go unchecked. This approach will force students to spend more to learn less.”

Among the many reasons Committee Democrats offered in support of the bill, Committee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) stated that the legislation would actually lower the cost of college, improve the quality of higher education and expand opportunity for students of all backgrounds to succeed. ACTE previously published a summary of the nearly 1,200 page bill on the CTE Policy Watch blog and highlighted the provisions that most impact the CTE community.

There were a number amendments offered and adopted at the markup. Some of those include:

• An amendment by Rep. Bradley Bryne (R-AL), with a sub-amendment by Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) would expand the use of Title III funds to include the development, improvement, alignment and integration of post-secondary CTE programs. Title III is intended to provide support for less-advantaged institutions that primarily serve low-income and historically under-represented populations in higher education. Institutions that qualify for Title III funds include Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), American Indian and Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions (ANNHs), Predominately Black Institutions (PBIs), and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs).
• Under the America’s College Promise Federal-State Partnership proposal, the federal government requires that states and tribes only provide funds to community colleges for the purpose of waiving all tuition and fees for eligible students. Then, if states can demonstrate they have met the demand for the program and have funds leftover, the proposal allows for a number of additional uses of funds. An amendment by Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) would add an additional allowable use of funds to permit states to collaborate with industry or sector partnerships in an effort to expand the capacity of high-quality job training programs.
• An amendment by Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA), with a sub-amendment by Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) would require a state or tribe in their application to the Secretary to consider how to build capacity in CTE programs in order to receive federal funding under the America’s College Promise Federal-State Partnership proposal.
• Rep. DeSaulnier (D-CA) introduced an amendment that would give priority to grant applicants for teacher preparation programs that demonstrate a commitment to recruiting candidates with cultural and community ties to the students they would be teaching.

The Capitol Hill tea leaves don’t seem to indicate that the bill will be brought up for a full vote on the House floor anytime soon. While Chairman Scott has expressed interest in having the legislation passed out of the House before the December recess, House leadership has not indicated when, or even if, it will be scheduled for debate. Immediate priorities include impeachment proceedings, a prescription drug bill, the National Defense Authorization Act and perhaps a continuing resolution (CR) ahead of the current CR’s scheduled expiration on November 21, leaving little time for focus on HEA reauthorization.

Signs might point to a slowdown in HEA action, however, as is often the case in Washington, the landscape can quickly change. With a bill passed out of Committee in the House and a package of proposals recently offered by Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) in the Senate, there certainly is a chance that things could pick up. You can follow the latest updates on HEA news, along with other CTE-related policy issues, on the CTE Policy Watch blog.