Obama Administration Announces Blueprint for Future of Career, Technical Education Law

Today at the Des Moines Area Community College in Iowa, U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, announced the Obama Administration’s blueprint for the reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, which was last passed by Congress in 2006. 

The Administration’s plan includes:

• Alignment: Ensuring that the skills taught in CTE programs reflect the actual needs of the labor market so that CTE students acquire the 21st century skills necessary for in-demand occupations within high-growth industry sectors.
  • Collaboration: Incentivizing secondary schools, institutions of higher education, employers, and industry partners to work together to ensure that all CTE programs offer students high-quality learning opportunities.
  • Accountability: Requiring CTE programs to show, through common definitions and related performance measures, that they are improving academic outcomes and enabling students to build technical and job skills.
  • Innovation: Promoting systemic reform of state-level policies to support effective CTE implementation and innovation at the local level

The Administration’s proposal would ensure equity in access and participation for individuals with disabilities. Each state’s plan and each local consortium’s application would be expected to include descriptions of the actions that would be taken to ensure that there are no access, participation, quality, or performance barriers for the participation of students with disabilities in CTE programs.

In 2006, when the Perkins Act was last signed into law, CEC joined numerous organizations as a member of the Career and Technical Education Coalition.  Stay tuned for more information as this process continues.

Read Secretary Duncan’s speech on Perkins.

This Blueprint is available here and a summary of the Blueprint is available here. You are invited to please send any questions and comments about the Blueprint to CTEBlueprint-2012@ed.gov

In addition, please mark your calendars for Wednesday, April 25, 2012, at 3:00 p.m., Eastern Time, for an interactive Webinar to engage in a dialogue about the core principles of the Blueprint and the transformation of career and technical education.  Details are below:

To join the Webinar, take these steps on the 25^th at the designated time:
1. Go to this link.
2. If requested, enter your name and email address.
3. If a password is required, enter the meeting password: OVAE
4. Click "Join".