federal legislation « Advance CTE Blog

Senate Passes Jobs Bill 70-28

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

After invoking cloture on the jobs bill on Monday, which would prevent a filibuster, the Senate passed the bill yesterday in a vote of 70 to 28. Thirteen Republicans joined 55 Democrats and two independents to vote for the bill, with Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska the only Democrat to vote against it.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acknowledged that there is still work to be done: â€œWe need to do more and we understand that. The road to recovery is a very long one. Todayâ€™s progress is a small step forward but an important step forward.â€ Democrats must now reconcile the differences between the $15 billion Senate bill and the much larger $154 billion House jobs bill.

Next on the jobs agenda, Senate Democrats intend to introduce a travel and tourism promotion bill that would create 40,000 new jobs in the service sector and 240,000 other jobs. Reid said he would also propose a Federal Aviation Administration bill that would create â€œthousandsâ€ of jobs.Â Democrats will also advance a package of short-term extensions of expiring tax credits, increased federal Medicaid assistance to states and a small-business assistance bill.

By admin in Legislation
Tags: Congress, federal legislation, Public Policy

Letâ€™s Get Vocal About WIA Reauthorization

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Yesterday, I met with a staffer on the House Education and Labor Committee, which oversees the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). He reinforced what we have suspected for some time now â€“ reauthorization of WIA is being held up by healthcare as resources, time and attention are directed towards that monumental piece of legislation. He reviewed NASDCTEcâ€™s WIA recommendations prior to our meeting and suggested that the best thing our members could do now is to contact their Congressman and urge them to reauthorize WIA. Tell your Congressman why WIA is important to your state, give timely and results-oriented examples, and tell them your state cannot wait any longer!

You can contact your Senators and Representative via email, or call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202)224-3121 and ask for your Senators’ and/or Representative’s office. If you call, remember that telephone calls are usually taken by a staff member, not the member of Congress. Ask to speak with the aide who handles the Workforce Investment Act.

By admin in Legislation
Tags: Congress, federal legislation, Job training, Public Policy, WIA

Bipartisan Reauthorization of ESEA is on the Agenda

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Democratic and Republican members of the House Education and Labor Committee announced plans today for a bipartisan reform of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).Â Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA), along with Ranking Member John Kline (R-MN), Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-MI), chairman of the Subcommittee on Elementary and Secondary Education, and Rep. Michael N. Castle (R-DE), the senior Republican on that subcommittee, issued the following joint statement:

â€œToday, weâ€™re announcing a bipartisan, open and transparent effort to rewrite No Child Left Behind â€“ a law that we all agree is in need of major reform. It will start with a series of hearings in the coming weeks to explore the challenges and opportunities ahead as we work to ensure an excellent education is available to every student in America. With a real commitment to innovation, we invite all stakeholders who share our serious interest in building a world-class education system to email us their suggestions.â€

The House is expected to schedule hearings on ESEA throughout the spring, with the first hearing to be held on February 24 focusing on charter schools.Â The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is also rumored to be setting their schedule of hearings on ESEA for March.

The House Committee will also be accepting comments from stakeholders regarding ESEA reauthorization at [email protected]. The deadline to submit your comments is March 26.

By admin in Legislation, Public Policy
Tags: Congress, federal legislation, NCLB/ESEA, Public Policy

Senate Plans Cloture Vote on Jobs Bill Next Week

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

As we told you last week, the snow in Washington, DC and the scheduled Congressional recess have pushed movement on the Senate jobs bill to next week.Â When the Senate returns on February 22 they are expected to begin with a cloture vote on the bill.Â Cloture is a parliamentary procedure that allows the Senate to vote to place a time limit on consideration of a bill, and thereby overcome a filibuster. To invoke cloture three-fifths of the full Senate, normally 60 votes, must vote to invoke it.

Senator Reidâ€™s proposed jobs package includes two programs that affect education:

Under the â€œPayroll Tax Forgiveness For Hiring Unemployed Workersâ€ provision, qualified employers would be exempt from paying the Social Security payroll tax for the remainder of 2010 for certain newly hired employees (those who have been unemployed for at least 60 days). A â€œqualified employerâ€ includes any employer which is a public institution of higher education (as defined in section 101(b) of the Higher Education Act of 1965).
The â€œElection to Convert Tax Credit Bonds to Build America Bondsâ€ provides qualifying issuers a direct payment from the Treasury for a portion of the interest paid on bonds for certain school and energy projects. This provision would allow qualifying issuers of tax credit bonds the option of issuing tax credit bonds under current law, or utilizing the direct subsidy Build America Bond structure for bonds issued after the date of enactment. The federal subsidy would equal 45 percent of the borrowing cost (65 percent for qualifying small issuers). The proposal is estimated to cost approximately $2 billion over ten years.

By admin in Legislation
Tags: Congress, federal legislation, Job training, Public Policy

Senate Jobs Bill Stalled

Friday, February 12th, 2010

As we noted last week, the Senate has unveiled their agenda for creating jobs and spurring economic growth, which they had hoped to begin voting on this week. Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proposed a $15 billion jobs package that will “create jobs immediately”, after rejecting a larger bipartisan bill proposed by Democrat Max Baucus of Montana and Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa, senior members of the Senate Finance Committee. However, two massive snow storms hit Washington, DC this week causing the federal government to shut down for four days and preventing Senate staffers from reporting to work, thus delaying votes on any bill.

In light of the scheduled Congressional recess next week,Â Reid has said that the Senate will not take up the legislation until the week of February 22.

By admin in Legislation, Public Policy
Tags: Congress, federal legislation, Job training, Public Policy

Senate Releases Jobs Agenda to Be Voted on Next Week

Friday, February 5th, 2010

In December, the House passed the Jobs for Main Street Act which aims to create or save jobs through investments for highways and transit, school renovation, hiring teachers, police, and firefighters, small business, job training and affordable housing. These investments would be paid for by redirecting TARP funds from Wall Street to Main Street.

Yesterday, Senate Democrats released their own jobs agenda that they plan to bring up for a vote next week. They intend to move their jobs proposals through the Senate in a series of smaller bills, rather than a multi-billion bill like the one passed by the House in December.Â The first of these smaller bills (tax incentive to spur job growth) is scheduled to come up for debate on Monday with the goal of passing it by the end of the week, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Among the items on Senate Democrats’ jobs agenda:

Tax credits to encourage small businesses to hire employees and buy new equipment
Money to encourage construction projects by state and local governments, including school construction
Extending healthcare subsidies and unemployment payments for the jobless
Incentives to weatherize buildings
Aid to cash-strapped state and local governments to avoid further layoffs of teachers and other public employees
Summer Youth Jobs Program and Dislocated Worker Training Program

By admin in Legislation, Public Policy
Tags: Congress, federal legislation, Job training, Public Policy

Getting Assessment Right in ESEA Reauthorization

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Yesterday, the Forum on Education Accountability (FEA) hosted a discussion with Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University, Gene Wilhoit from the Council of Chief State School Officers, and Monty Neil of FEA.

The panelists discussed issues regarding assessments in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, including performance assessment, use of local and classroom evidence of learning, formative and summative assessment, possibilities of new technology, and the role of common core standards and assessments.

Linda Darling-Hammond gave an international Â perspective on other countries assessment methods.Â While the U.S. tends to test students on recall and rote learning, other countries are more concerned with hands-on experience and application of knowledge.Â In Singapore, students are evaluated through project-based assessments where they are asked to identify a problem, design an investigation, evaluate their methods and use various scientific technologies and apparatus.

During the question and answer period, the panelists stressed that while performance-based assessments are more expensive than the current tests administered in the U.S., they are worth the investment for several reasons.Â First, they are cheaper than intervention or remediation later.Â Second, students learn more through application, and teachers learn more by designing such tests.Â Finally, performance-based assessments will yield higher quality results than multiple choice tests alone.

By admin in Legislation, Public Policy
Tags: accountability, federal legislation, NCLB/ESEA

FY 2010 Appropriations Process Finally Completed

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Last week President Obama signed legislation that provides funding for six appropriations bills that had not yet been signed into law.Â ThisÂ includes the bill that funds the U.S. Department of Education.Â As we have been aware for months, as this bill has slowly moved through Congress, there is no additional funding for programs supported through the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. These programs are all flat funded at the same level as last year.

So this closes the books on the FY 2010 Federal appropriations process.Â The opening act of the FY 2011Â process begins soon.Â The first stepÂ is the release of the President’sÂ recommendations for FY 2011 which are unveiled in early February.Â We will of course continue to monitor and influence this process at the Administration level and then afterÂ February, when the focus turns toÂ Congress writing appropriations bills, we will be working on CapitolÂ Hill to remind our elected officials of the important role career technical education has inÂ developing a well educated public and a skilled American workforce.

By admin in Legislation
Tags: advocacy, budget, Congress, federal legislation, funding, Legislation, Public Policy

Education Department Hosts Meeting With WIA Stakeholders

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

The U.S. Department of Education held â€œWIA Community Conversations with National Organizationsâ€ this morning to get input from stakeholders about WIA reauthorization.Â Brenda Dann-Messier, the Assistant Secretary of OVAE, and Martha Kanter, the Undersecretary of Education, opened the meeting by highlighting the need to better align workforce and education.Â The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and the American Graduation Initiative are two areas where this could be done.Â Undersecretary Kanter also stressed that WIA reauthorization must be looked at in the context of Perkins and ESEA.

Attendees were then given five minutes each to present their recommendations to the panel.Â While many focused on Title II of WIA (Adult Education), there was some talk of integrating adult education with workforce training, as well as developing state career pathway grants.Â Several groups also suggested expanding the Title V incentive fund into more of an innovation grant program that would incentivize partner programs to collaborate on developing innovative programs.Â There was also some concern that there are barriers in place that discourage community colleges from participating in the WIA system, despite being well-established training providers.

By admin in Legislation
Tags: community colleges, federal legislation, Job training, WIA

Senate To Make WIA Reauthorization a Priority in 2010

Monday, December 14th, 2009

Last week Kim and I met with a Senate HELP Committee staffer to discuss the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA).Â During the meeting we talked about possible connections between WIA and Perkins.

We discussed WIA summer youth programs as a possible way to connect the programs.Â Are there ways to connect summer jobs to CTE training so that kids have the opportunity to not only earn money over the summer and stay off the streets, but to actually gain skills that they can use later in life?

Aligning workforce and education systems and programs, like WIA and Perkins, was another important topic we discussed.Â We emphasized that the Perkins and WIA accountability measures are just different enough to make collecting both sets of measures burdensome on states and eligible entities.Â Measures that track the same outcomes should be better aligned.

The staffer was also particularly interested in how CTE is funded at every level â€“ federal, state and local.Â We explained that not all states track how much money local districts invest in CTE, but we understand that knowing those figures will give Congress a better sense of how much money actually goes to CTE programs.

We walked away feeling encouraged that the Senate wants to move quickly on the reauthorizing WIA, and that we may see something early next year.

By admin in Legislation
Tags: Congress, federal legislation, WIA

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