Legislation to expand access to career and technical education may have accomplished its sponsor’s goals without a single vote for passage.
State Representative Tim Hicks of Gray, Tennessee says he decided to take House Bill 0117 off the House Education K-12 Subcommittee calendar Tuesday evening after receiving commitments from the Tennessee Department of Education to expand the availability of career and technical education and industry credentialing programs.
“Given their commitment to addressing and expanding high quality credentialing over the summer of 2023, we have as a result agreed to take this bill off notice,” said Representative Hicks. “We will be keeping an eye on this and may again bring this next session.”
Representative Hicks sponsored the legislation along with Huntington State Senator John Stevens. Tuesday’s decision effectively removes the legislation from consideration this session.
The bill would have created the Career Development Success (CDS) Pilot Program, providing local school districts with $1,000 in additional funding for each student who earns an industry credential, finishes a workplace training program, or completes an AP Computer Science course.
The Tennessee Department of Education currently encourages districts to provide industry credentials in 157 approved fields, including automotive repair, welding, web design, and cybersecurity, but the state doesn’t provide direct financial incentives to school districts to assist in the expense of starting up new programs.
56% of the jobs in Tennessee require at least some education beyond a high school diploma but not a four-year degree. Less than half of Tennesseans have access to the training necessary to fill those jobs and annually, only 3% of high school students are earning an industry credential.
“This is a flexible voluntary program that responds to Tennessee’s workforce demands,” said Representative Hicks. “With less than 50% of our students going to college now. With about 15% of Tennesseans and seven million Americans between the ages of 18 and 26 not working or not going to school, we really need programs like this. We need this to work.”
Data shows students participating in these types of programs are more likely to graduate from high school and have higher GPAs. Nationally, 93% of students who participate in these types of career-focused programs graduate high school and more than 75% of those students went on to pursue postsecondary education.
