Rep. Suzanne Bonamici Criticizes Trump Administration's Move of CTE Programs to Dept. of Labor

Concerns Over Department of Education Dismantling

• ⚠️ Representative Suzanne Bonamici expresses deep concern over the Trump administration's executive order to dismantle the Department of Education.
• 🏛️ The administration is using interagency agreements (IAAs) to transfer administration of Career and Technical Education (CTE) and adult education programs from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor.
• 💰 Approximately $2 billion in funding for CTE programs has been moved to the Department of Labor, with further programs being transferred to other departments.

Flaws in Transferring CTE Programs

• 🎯 Bonamici argues that moving CTE administration to the Department of Labor is a mistake because CTE is more than just job training; it involves building skills for higher education and long-term careers.
• 📚 The Department of Education staff have expertise in crafting educational pathways, unlike the Department of Labor's focus on workforce training grants.
• 📉 Programs are objectively worse off at the Department of Labor, being short-term and disconnected from education systems, risking CTE becoming narrow vocational training.
• 📜 This move potentially violates the Perkins Act, which Bonamici helped reauthorize.

Bureaucratic Inefficiencies and Stifled Innovation

• 📈 The transfer has created bureaucratic inefficiencies, forcing states and districts to navigate two agencies and new grant management systems, causing delays.
• 💡 Innovation in CTE, which was previously fostered by state flexibility, is now at risk due to this ideological shift, turning a bipartisan success story into a federal bureaucratic tug-of-war.
• 🏫 States were previously tailoring programs to meet student and local economic needs, but this shift threatens to stifle that progress.

CTE's Success and Oregon's Leadership

• ✅ Career and Technical Education is highlighted as an education-driven, bipartisan success that engages students through hands-on learning.
• 📊 Bonamici shares examples from her home state of Oregon, where prioritizing CTE has led to decreased absenteeism, increased graduation rates, and successful student programs in culinary arts, fish hatchery management, health sciences, and home construction.
• 📚 She references reports from Stanford Children, the Oregon Capital Chronicle, and the Portland Business Journal to support the positive impact of CTE in Oregon.

Call to Action

• ✊ Congress must reject this transfer, restore CTE programs to the Department of Education, and ensure future changes go through proper legislative channels, not backdoor maneuvers.
• 🎓 The goal should be to improve and innovate CTE, protecting learning opportunities for millions of students.