CTE Policy Watch

Good Afternoon,

Last night, ACTE’s Public Policy Department (PPD) hosted a “CTE Goes Green” Reception on Capitol Hill. The reception was extremely successful! We had over 60 staffers, 4 Congressmen and many other influential people from the education community in attendance. I was so happy to be part of this group last night, it was truly a night to remember!

I had begun contacting CTSO’s about a possible reception last spring…however, with Congressional schedules, PPD schedules and CTSO schedules it was next to impossible to actually get everyone into one room to have a successful event. Spring came and went and in the summer I talked more to the Hill staff who work on the Congressional CTE Caucus and we decided that a prime time to do an event would be when Congress came back in session in September. We knew we wanted to have an event with students, we knew we wanted it on “green-collar” jobs, we just did not know how fantastic the projects would actually be!

I asked CTSO’s to bring students that would be articulate and had been working on a project in “green” issues and boy, did they deliver. We had projects from DECA, FBLA, FCCLA, FFA, SkillsUSA, and TSA set up around the room in a “science fair” setting. The students showcased projects revolving around many different disciplines all with the green theme. I think they changed a lot of perceptions about CTE last night. Please visit our CTE Caucus page on ACTE’s Web site for more information on the student projects.

I want to thank all of the wonderful students who presented last night. I feel very secure that these students will be leading us tomorrow!

~Jamie