Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), founding member of the Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus, led U.S. Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), and Todd Young (R-IN) in introducing the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to support re-designing the high school experience to include courses more relevant to the 21st century workforce to better prepare students for future careers.

The bill is supported by the Alliance for Excellent Education, the American Federation of Teachers, Advance CTE, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, Committee for Children, the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, the National Skills Coalition, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, and the Society of Women Engineers.

The bill would provide federal funding for partnerships between school districts, employers, and institutions of higher education in Virginia and other states that integrate high-quality career and technical education programs into high schools. These partnerships help students earn industry-recognized credentials or credit toward a postsecondary degree or certificate and an understanding of the relevance of coursework in the context of a future career.

According to the nonpartisan organization Achieve, nearly 80 percent of college instructors and 60 percentof employers indicate that public high schools fall short in preparing students for postsecondary education.

A one-page fact sheet on the legislation can be found here.