Boosting CTE education and the trades still a legislative priority

(The Center Square) —  As schoolchildren across Pennsylvania prepare to return to the classroom, House Republicans are emphasizing the importance of career and technical education.

As they argued during a GOP Policy Committee hearing Tuesday in Bucks County, to get young students ready for the future, more money and support needs to flow to careers that don’t require a traditional college education.

“Now is the time to focus on CTE and to make sure that we’re really pressing forward so that we can meet the needs of our workforce,” Rep, Kristin Marcell, R-Richboro, said. “There’s a larger urgency here that we need to be acting within the next year or two to really put emphasis on making some positive changes in this area, whether it’s making it easier for instructor certifications or whatever it might be.”

While CTE programs got a funding boost in the latest state budget, they still massively trail behind higher education. CTE programs will get $144 million in 2024-25, a $13 million increase from last year, along with a $5 million increase for equipment grants.

Rep. Josh Kail, R-Beaver, warned that how the state measures success in education pushes students toward a traditional college route when young people could find success elsewhere, noting a worker shortage and housing shortage across the state.

Testifiers from the Middle Bucks Institute of Technology, which trains more than 900 students and 500 adults in evening education programs, argued schools like theirs provide a viable career.

“Career and technical education must serve the needs of business and industry by delivering programs that meet national skill standards and offer recognized credentials,” MBIT Director Mark Covelle said. “At MBIT we are seeing record interest in our school, record enrollment into our programs, and record achievement in our students.”

Bob Hickey, president of MBIT’s executive council, called for a balance between academic and CTE education.

“Slowly but surely, and also thankfully, the stigma of career technical education is being erased,” he said.

As the stigma fades, the need is great. Without more workers in the trades, Pennsylvania’s economy feels their absence.

“The need for more skilled construction labor is a significant obstacle to expanding home construction, improving housing inventory, and making homes more affordable,” said Carla Zapotek, executive vice president of The Home Builders Association of Bucks and Montgomery Counties.

“They’re not ‘just’ blue-collar jobs. These are the jobs our country needs,” Covelle said. “When we said college for all,  we may have accidentally said CTE for none.”

Covelle called for “bold action” on CTE and noted problems like the cost of upgrading equipment with which to train students. Finding the funds for those upgrades is difficult, as is the process by which new CTE instructors get hired.

“Education programs have been eliminated and or limited for someone to transition from the industry to a teacher of a CTE course,” Zapotek said. “In the state of Pennsylvania, there are limited options for receiving a teacher certification for CTE programs, which can take up to 8 years to receive.”