Today, Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) issued the following statement on the Department of Education’s decision to reverse a set of Biden-Harris requirements that would mire key career and technical education (CTE) programs in red tape:
“The Perkins Act is intended to elevate and improve CTE programs; the Biden-Harris requirements would have had the opposite effect. Adding more red tape only forces CTE programs to redirect valuable resources away from their students and toward government compliance. I’m glad to see the Trump administration is listening to the concerns from our Committee and CTE programs. Bottom line, our education system needs less bureaucracy.”
Background
On January 16, Chairman Walberg called out the Biden-Harris Education Department for sidestepping the law to implement requirements that would hamper CTE programs, which help fill U.S. jobs.
The Biden-Harris requirements would have placed major burdens on state education and related agencies, school districts, and postsecondary institutions that implement CTE programs. Specifically, the Biden-Harris administration approved the Department of Education’s revisions to two Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act information collections requests (ICRs), the State Plan Guide, and the Consolidated Annual Report. The revised ICRs would have required states to adopt new definitions for the performance accountability indicators, some of which exceeded or conflicted with a plain reading of the law.
