Take a look at the latest resource from NASDCTEc to learn about changes in federal funding for Career Technical Education (CTE) over the last two decades. Funding levels for Basic State Grants, National Programs and Tech Prep are listed in addition to total appropriations for each fiscal year from 1991 through 2011.
To view the document, please click: Federal Appropriations for Career Technical Education: Fiscal Year 1991-2011.
In these tough economic times, how can the Career Technical Education (CTE) community band together to show the value of CTE to individuals and society? Stakeholders in education and many other fields struggle to receive support through dwindling federal or state funds because they often lack the resources or sufficient data to provide strong evidence of program efficacy.
Widely used to evaluate cost-effectiveness, return on investment (ROI) studies in education specifically aim to evaluate the connection between spending and educational outcomes. Strategies that show more efficient overall use of funds demonstrate a higher rate of return on investment.
A new policy paper from the McGraw-Hill Research Foundation, an organization that advances 21st Century global education and knowledge, provides several examples of ROI studies that show a positive economic impact for adult education and training. The authors describe how increasing investments in adult education would actually save the government money by reducing societal healthcare, public assistance and incarceration costs in addition to providing direct economic benefits for individuals and society.
Read more about states and organizations that have made efforts to quantify the ROI of adult education in the full report.
House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers released a draft of suballocations for FY12. These suballocations are the spending limits for each of the appropriations subcommittees. The Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies (commonly referred to as Labor-HHS-Ed) sets the funding levels for all education, including Perkins, and workforce related programs. The proposed spending limits for Labor-HHS-Ed are 11.6 percent below the FY2011 amount and 23 percent below the President’s FY2012 budget.
According to Rogers’ FY12 markup schedule, the Labor-HHS-Ed bill will be the second-to-last markup with the subcommittee markup on July 26 and the full committee markup on August 2. The Labor-HHS-Ed bill will reach the House floor in September at the earliest before it eventually moves to the Senate.
It will be essential for all CTE advocates to take the next few months to make a concerted, consistent and broad-based effort to let Congressional leaders know the importance of Perkins funding. NASDCTEc is launching an aggressive advocacy plan during the summer months and will be rolling out opportunities and resources for you to use in your efforts to raise visibility and support for CTE and Perkins funding.
Urban Jobs Act
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) introduced S. 922, the Urban Jobs Act, to increase employment opportunities for at-risk youth. The bill, an amendment to the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, would authorize the Secretary of Labor to provide grants for urban job programs. Nonprofit organizations would receive funding to carry out programs to prepare youth for employment, especially high school dropouts or youth who have had any encounters with the criminal justice system.
Investing in Innovation for Education Act
Sen. Mark Begich (AK) introduced S. 895, the Investing in Innovation for Education Act (also known as the “i3†bill), to promote innovative ideas proposed by school districts and organizations that show a record of increasing student achievement. Begich proposes to make permanent the i3 competitive grants funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The new bill has a special focus on rural areas, requiring 25 percent of funding to go to grantees from rural areas. Begich suggests that the bill will “level the playing field†by giving students the chance to benefit from innovation regardless of where they live.
Hiring Heroes Act of 2011
Sen. Patty Murray (WA) and 14 co-sponsoring Senators introduced S. 951, the Hiring Heroes Act of 2011, to address the high unemployment rate (over 27 percent) among young veterans and to help them find work. Senator Murray stated that, “For the first time, this bill will require that our service members get the training they need to translate the skills they learned in the military into the working world.†The bill would require broad job skills training and a transition assistance program requirement for returning service members. The bill would also create new direct federal hiring authority to provide jobs for returning service members when they leave the military, and veteran mentorship programs would be improved.
The CTE community should prepare for a fight to restore federal Perkins funds, which took its first hit in the FY11 appropriations bill, warned education policy experts at the NASDCTEc /OVAE Joint Spring Leadership Meeting last week.
The FY11 funding bill cut $140.2 million from Perkins, including completely eliminating funding for Tech Prep and cutting Basic State Grants by $37.3 million, said Jamie Baxter, Advocacy Manager of the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE). The cut will impact funds for the 2011-2012 school year.
Moreover, experts predict that the FY11 bill indicates that funding levels for FY12 may be poised for a similar fate. Thus far, the House has passed their FY12 budget resolution, which proposes to set non-security discretionary spending below 2008 levels and freeze it for five years. The resolution sets spending for Department of Education programs at $360 billion, which is the same as the FY06 level.
Rachel Gragg, Federal Policy Director for National Skills Coalition, said there is a new urgency to push for reauthorization of legislation such as the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), which funds education and training programs that are of interest to the CTE community. Rising concerns regarding duplicative and ineffective programs will likely endanger funding for such legislation. The strategy to maintain funding would be to expedite reauthorization with the assurance that new language will ensure the support of quality effective programs, she said. On a similar note, Perkins is up for legislation in 2012.
Spiros Protopsaltis, Education Policy Advisor for Senate Committee of Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, urged the CTE community to focus on advocacy efforts that highlight the strong role CTE plays in preparing students for college and career. Addressing that broad overall goal will appeal to Congress and the Administration, which are seeking investments that will prepare students to compete in the global economy and position the nation to succeed.
“CTE has an important role to play,†Protopsaltis said.
There has been much talk in recent months from freshman and Tea Party Congressmen about the role of the federal government in education, and even calls to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. In a new paper released this month by the Center on Education Policy (CEP), Get the Federal Government Out of Education? That Wasn’t the Founding Fathers’ Vision, Jack Jennings lays out several reasons why limiting the federal government’s role in education would be “a wrong-headed, simplistic move.â€
First, federal involvement in education is not a new phenomenon. Laws from the 1700s granted federal lands to new states that could be used for public education. These policies existed even before Washington was elected president, and lasted 170 years until the Eisenhower Administration.
Second, it would limit the ability of states and local districts to use tax dollars to support public education. While only 8% of funding for public education comes from the federal government, the federal tax code, through a number of deductions and exclusions from federal taxation, incentivizes states and locals to use their tax dollars for public education. According to CEP, these indirect subsidies for education earned through the federal tax code were worth somewhere between $42 billion to $48 billion for all levels of education in 2009.
Third, federal student financial aid makes college more affordable, leading individuals to good jobs and a better life. Almost three-fourths of student aid comes from the federal government, and if this aid did not exist, many students would be unable to access postsecondary education and training.
Fourth, the federal government has long supported equal educational opportunities for minorities, women, individuals with disabilities, and the poor. For example, according to Jennings, the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 was enacted for the purpose of providing “vocational†education to new immigrants and those with low levels of education.
Finally, broad education reforms at that federal level, rather than piecemeal interventions at the local level, will help to raise the United States’ academic achievement and competiveness among other countries. During the last four presidential administrations, reforms such as increased accountability and uniform standards, have gained traction at the federal and national levels.
As more information comes out about the drastic cuts to education programs in Congress’ FY11 continuing resolution, we have learned that funding for the Smaller Learning Communities program has been eliminated. This program, authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, had previously allocated $88 million in grants to LEAs to improve student academic achievement through structures within a large high school that included career academies, themed schools-within-a- school, and “houses†in which small groups of students remain together throughout high school.
The impetus for Smaller Learning Communities stemmed from research that showed that students learn better and retain more when they learn things in context and when they understand the “why†behind what they are learning. CTE has played an integral role in many of these schools that prepare students to succeed in postsecondary education and careers. Once again, this cut in funding will negatively impact CTE students and programs throughout the country.
On Friday the House passed their FY12 budget resolution by a vote of 235-193. The resolution proposes to set non-security discretionary spending below 2008 levels and freeze it for five years. The budget resolution also seeks to save $4 trillion over ten years through cuts and changes to Medicare, Medicaid, other entitlement programs and discretionary programs.
The budget resolution sets spending levels for each appropriations subcommittee to use when determining funding individual programs. The resolution sets spending for Department of Education programs at $360 billion, which is the same as the FY06 level. It is clear that the House is serious about cutting spending, and it is likely that most federal programs will be once again touched by cuts in FY12.
However, the budget resolution, much like the President’s budget, is a blueprint that outlines the House budget priorities. It does not have the force of law, and does not have to be agreed upon by the Senate. Because Congress is on recess for two weeks, now is a critical time to reach out to Members while there are in their home states and districts. Contact from constituents goes a long way in making our message more personal, and will help foster relationships with their offices. You can schedule visits with Members or their staff, invite them to visit CTE programs in your state, and send them data and information on best practices in their state.
Today the House (260-167) and Senate (81-19) passed H.R. 1473, the long-term continuing resolution that will fund the federal government through the end of FY11 (September 30, 2011). Once signed into law by the President, the bill will cut $39.9 billion from federal programs, including eliminating Tech Prep and cutting the Perkins Basic State Grant by $35 million. The Department of Education has 30 days to release details on the cuts to individual programs, including how the cuts will affect each state.
We learned yesterday afternoon from Congressional sources that the $138 million cut to CTE in the FY11 appropriations bill will be the total elimination of Tech Prep and an additional $35 million cut from the Basic State Grant. The rationale given was that the President had also proposed cutting Perkins in this FY12 budget. It seems that without Democratic or Republican support, we were a target during the tense negotiations last week.
In addition to the cuts to Perkins, we have learned that the following other programs have been cut or eliminated:
The bill would, however, fund a new $125 million DOL-administered “Workforce Innovation Fund†that would provide competitive grants to states or other partnerships for projects that “demonstrate innovative strategies or replicate effective evidence-based strategies†to strengthen and align the workforce system to improve participant outcomes.
Please note that in addition to the cuts listed above, the bill includes a 0.2 percent across-the-board reduction for all non-defense programs, which is not reflected in these totals.
Late last night the House introduced the long-term appropriations bill that will fund government programs through the end of FY11. Programs funded by the Labor, HHS, Education Appropriations subcommittee received a total of $157.7 billion. This equates to a $5.5 billion, or 3.36%, cut from fiscal year 2010 levels. This is also $13 billion, or 7.6 percent, below the President’s FY11 budget request.
While we do not have specifics on the exact cuts to Perkins, according to this chart released by the House Appropriations Committee, “Career Education†was cut by $138 million (see page 7). It is unclear at this time if that reduction is from Tech Prep and the Basic State Grant, or just from the Basic State Grant. As soon as further details have been released by Congress and the Department of Education, we will update you.
The House is expected to vote on the bill TOMORROW, after which the Senate will take up the bill.
CALL YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
It is crucial that you contact your Members of Congress TODAY to urge them to maintain funding for CTE!
If you have any questions or to update NASDCTEc on your contact with Congress, please call Nancy Conneely, Public Policy Manager, at 301-588-9630 or email her at [email protected]