The burden has been lifted for career and technical education (CTE) programs as they no longer have to comply with recently added federal reporting compliance requirements, the U.S. Department of Education this week.
On Feb. 3rd, President Donald Trump signed a proclamation naming February 2025 as Career and Technical Education Month. With that, he’s set his sights on reversing some last-minute changes by former President Joe Biden impacting local CTE providers.
The Department contends that the Biden-era data collection requirements would have cost states, high schools and community colleges would be better spent equipping students with necessary workforce skills.
“The 11th-hour Biden-Harris information collection on CTE programs was unnecessary bureaucratic red tape that would only drive up costs and hinder innovation,” Acting Under Secretary James Bergeron said in a statement.
In December, the Department moved to standardize how states and local Perkins V grant recipients collect and report data related to CTE student performance. It would’ve required state and local CTE providers to revise their Perkins V State Plans outside of the traditional 5-year process and meet additional reporting requirements as part of their Consolidated Annual Reports.
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The Trump Administration will reinstate prior versions of the State Plan Guide and the Consolidated Annual Report Guide.
The decision comes in response to several groups voicing concerns about the new reporting requirements, including Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education, both of which to the Department late last month.
“Our organizations, along with a number of states and other entities, including policymakers, have consistently raised significant concerns about these proposals since they were first unveiled last fall,” the letter reads.
