Lawmakers Clash Over Moving Career and Technical Education Programs

Support for career and technical education (CTE) to help bridge the skills gap and alleviate labor shortages in the U.S. was center stage Nov. 19 before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, in Washington, D.C. 

But while witnesses proudly discussed their involvement in CTE programs and lawmakers talked about CTE successes in their states, much of the hearing was a reaction to the Trump administration’s recent actions moving CTE administration and funding from the U.S. Department of Education to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). The move is part of a broader, controversial effort to shutter the Department of Education. 

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., started the hearing by highlighting the value of CTE. “While CTE is not new, its value has often been overlooked or dismissed in recent decades as the fallback option for students who don’t fit into the traditional academic mold,” he said. “Today, there is no denying its critical role in preparing the workforce for a skills-forward economy. CTE classrooms are filled with future engineers, health care professionals, business owners, and innovators. It is not a second option, it’s a pathway to success in high school, higher education, and the workforce.” 

Advocacy: Workforce Development

Over 8 million secondary school students nationwide participate in CTE programs, and more than 40 states allow students to take CTE courses through dual enrollment programs at technical or community colleges, enabling them to earn college credits in high school.  

“Job creators across the country are struggling to find workers who have the right skills,” Kiley said. “In a dynamically changing economy, we must reimagine student programs to meet the demands of today’s and tomorrow’s labor market.” 

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., agreed that CTE provides incredible opportunities for students and has broad bipartisan support. But she used her time to express opposition to the transfer of CTE from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor earlier this year.   

Bonamici said that moving the administration of CTE to DOL is a mistake for a number of reasons. “First, CTE is more than job training or short-term job placement,” she said. “It helps students — many of them as early as middle school — explore careers, build skills, and prepare for higher education or long-term careers in high-demand fields. That kind of lifelong learning pipeline can’t be built or maintained without staff who have spent their careers crafting educational pathways, not just administering workforce training grants. It also violates the Perkins Act [which provides funding for CTE].” 

Bonamici and the other Democrats on the panel argued that CTE programs will lose their long-term educational alignment under the DOL, which has historically been more focused on short-term job training programs.   

“This shift risks turning CTE into the very type of narrow vocational training we worked for decades to move away from,” she said. “CTE works because we had career professionals in the Department of Education who understood the difference between preparing students for the future and just placing them in a job.” 

SHRM Foundation: Widening Pathways to Work 

Braden Goetz, senior policy advisor, center on education and labor at New America in Washington, D.C., spent 26 years at the Department of Education, working on CTE policy and research.  

“Job training is not CTE and CTE is not job training,” Goetz said. “This is not to say that CTE should be siloed off from DOL programs — and it hasn’t been.” 

Goetz explained that during the decades he worked on CTE, including during President Trump’s first term, leaders from both departments met frequently and collaborated closely on areas such as registered apprenticeships and other work-based learning programs. 

Bonamici and Goetz said that the transfer of CTE has created more bureaucratic inefficiencies, not reduced them.  

“States, school districts, and institutions of higher education are now forced to navigate two different agencies to access one program,” Bonamici said. “We’ve heard stories from states that are spending all their time learning a new grant management system instead of doing what they should be doing — which is innovating. Delays in grant processing and decision-making are already being reported, and we’ve only just begun to see the fallout.” 

Goetz added that relocating CTE programming would also put the federal government out of step with states. “CTE is almost universally viewed by states as an education program,” he said. “Perkins is administered in 47 states and the District of Columbia by a state education agency.” 

Rep. Kiley briefly responded to the criticisms, saying that any issues accessing grants must be worked out quickly, but as to CTE falling under the DOL, “we want to have connection between schools and industry, so what is wrong with fostering greater coordination between the two departments?” he asked.