Kaine: Bill to boost career and technical education becomes law

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine’s legislation to improve job training and career and technical education was signed into law by President Trump. Kaine, a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee and a co-chair of the Senate Career and Technical Education (CTE) Caucus, wrote three bills that were passed as part of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act. Kaine, who grew up working in his father’s ironworking shop, has long pushed for increased access to career and technical education programs that prepare students for future careers.

“With the signing of this legislation, we complete years of work and finally commit to investing in students so they have access to high-quality career and technical education programs that will prepare them with the skills they need for future careers. This is about expanding the notion of what it means to get a higher education and closing the skills gap. I’m very excited about it,” Kaine said.

The legislation was last reauthorized in 2006 and aims to increase access to high-quality career and technical education programs. The bill includes key priorities from three of Kaine’s bills: the Educating Tomorrow’s Workforce Act to raise the quality of CTE programs; the Middle School Technical Education Program (Middle STEP) Act, which would expose middle school students to CTE programs focused on career exploration; and the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to support re-designing the high school experience to include courses more relevant to the modern workforce to better prepare all students for future careers.

As Governor, Kaine prioritized career and technical education training to ensure that Virginia was competitive in the global economy by having a skilled workforce to fill the jobs available. In 2007, he spearheaded the creation of Governor’s Career and Technical Academies in Virginia — now Governor’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Academies. In the Senate, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) joined together in 2014 to form the bipartisan Senate CTE Caucus. Kaine successfully urged President Obama to expand the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program to commend the efforts of students who have chosen CTE pathways and authored various CTE-related provisions that were included in the Every Student Succeeds Act(ESSA), the bipartisan rewrite of No Child Left Behind. Kaine knows that CTE is an important pathway for success, and he has long worked to create a better understanding of the critical role CTE and workforce training programs play in growing our economy.