Council for Exceptional Children • 2900 Crystal Drive, Suite 100, Arlington, VA, 22202 • www.cec.sped.org

RECOMMENDATIONS

CEC urges Congress to:

Build pre-service and in-service career and technical education personnel knowledge and skill sets to effectively serve youth with disabilities in the Perkins reauthorization bill.

Strengthen career and technical education counseling services for youth with disabilities in the Perkins reauthorization bill.

Increase opportunities for work-based training models to accommodate students with disabilities who are significantly challenged in the Perkins reauthorization bill.

Strengthen access to guidance and career exploration curriculum for students with disabilities in the Perkins reauthorization bill.

Maintain strong partnerships via alignment with the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act (WIOA) in the Perkins reauthorization bill.

BACKGROUND

The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act was first authorized by the federal government in 1984. Named for Carl Dewey Perkins (D-Kentucky), a member of the House of Representatives from 1949 to 1984, the Act aims to increase the quality of technical education within the United States by providing individuals with the academic and technical skills necessary to be successful in a knowledge- and skill-based economy. Originally passed in 1984, the Act was reauthorized in 1998 and again in 2006 (with a name change to the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act).

The current 2006 reauthorization introduced key changes that strengthened the original Act's focus on vocational education by:

Using the term career and technical education (CTE) instead of vocational education

Maintaining the Tech Prep program as a separate federal funding stream within the legislation

Maintaining state administrative funding at 5% of a state's allocation

Carl D. Perkins Act

Carl D. Perkins Act

Council for Exceptional Children • 2900 Crystal Drive, Suite 100, Arlington, VA, 22202 • www.cec.sped.org

It also included requirements for "programs of study" that link academic and technical content across secondary and postsecondary education, and strengthened local accountability provisions that will ensure continuous program improvement.

The value of career and technical education is evident in the following statistics:

High school students involved in CTE are more engaged, perform better, and graduate at higher rates; 81% of dropouts say relevant, real-world learning opportunities would have kept them in high school.

The average high school graduation rate for students concentrating in CTE programs is 90.18%, compared to an average national freshman graduation rate of 74.9%.

According to research in Texas, Colorado, and Virginia, graduates with technical or applied science associate degrees out-earn bachelor's degree holders by $2,000 to $11,000.

In Wisconsin, taxpayers receive $12.20 in benefits for every dollar invested in the technical college system; in Washington, for every dollar invested in secondary CTE programs, taxpayers receive a $9.00 return on investment. In Tennessee, CTE returns $2 for every $1 invested.

CTE program completers ac-count for more than $13 million in annual tax reve-nues.

Skilled trades are the hardest jobs to fill in the United States, with recent data citing 1,019,000 jobs open in the trade, transportation, and utilities sector, and 315,000 jobs open in manufacturing.

Middle-skill jobs―jobs that require education and training beyond high school but less than a bachelor's degree―are a significant part of the economy. Of the 55 million job openings created by 2020, 30% will require some college or a 2-year associate degree.

Priorities for Perkins reauthorization include:

Effective alignment with today's labor market, including clear expectations for high-quality programs.

Stronger collaboration among secondary and postsecondary institutions, employers, and industry partners.

Meaningful accountability to improve academic and employment outcomes for students.

Local and state innovation in CTE, particularly the develop-ment and replication of innova-tive CTE models.

The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act was last authorized on August 12, 2006, as Public Law 109-270. It is cur-rently scheduled for reauthoriza-tion, with the original authoriza-tion period that ended on June 30, 2013 (although the program will continue with congressional funding).

The Perkins Act provides almost $1.3 billion in federal support for Grades 7–12 and post-secondary career and technical education programs in all 50 states, including support for integrated career pathway programs.

Workforce development, as espoused in the implementation of the Perkins Act, is a strategy used in the United States to support workers' transitions from education into and through the workforce. This strategy has been adopted at the federal, state, and local levels in order to increase education, training, and learning opportunities for America's current and emerging workforce as they prepare for high-demand, high-opportunity jobs.

CEC recommends that the new reauthorization continue to embrace this ideology.