US Senate Announces CTE Caucus
On January 30, senators Rob Portman of Ohio and Tim Kaine of Virginia announced the formation and launching of the bipartisan U.S. Senate Career and Technical Education (CTE) Caucus, which will center on the advancement of CTE and will work to ensure that all students are better prepared for college and, subsequently, for the workforce through access to rigorous and superior career and technical education.
In a letter to their Senate colleagues asking for their support and membership, Kaine and Portman discuss how CTE is a “proven solution for creating jobs, retraining workers with the skills they need to fill open position in the job market, and ensuring students of all ages and walks of life are career and college ready.” The letter continues, “It is critical that students have the opportunity to acquire the education and skills that will help them find employment and live productive, successful lives.”
Though a CTE Caucus currently exists in the House of Representatives, the Senate counterpart will enhance advocacy for this important cause and will provide the opportunity for Senators to vote on CTE matters as a united voice, one that is genuinely concerned with the overall welfare and expansion of career and technical education.
The Senate CTE Caucus will also make efforts to ensure that unemployed or displaced workers have better access to training which will equip them with skills deemed highly relevant to the job market. More and more Americans are finding that they lack the skills required by high-paying jobs or that the skills that they do possess are increasingly less germane to the jobs available where they live. In order to get higher numbers of Americans back into the workforce, it is essential that these individuals have access to vocational and educational resources; this way, they can earn the certifications and credentials that they need.
With stronger and more widely available CTE programs, all students—whether secondary, postsecondary, or adult—will easily be able to receive training in areas of personal interest and will consequently be more passionate about the material that they are learning. Greater numbers of impassioned students leads to an influx of qualified job candidates and increasing numbers of filled positions. The Senate CTE Caucus is an exciting step in the right direction to helping Americans gain employment with ease, thanks to the attainment of more desirable skills.
