WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of Education announced the reversal of a misguided regulatory reporting scheme put in place by the Biden-Harris Administration that would require states and the local career and technical education (CTE) programs across the country to comply with burdensome and unnecessary reporting.
The last-minute Biden-era information collection under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (Perkins V) would have piled on thousands of hours in additional reporting compliance requirements on states, high schools, and community colleges that can be better spent on equipping the American workforce with the skills necessary to rebuild our economy.
“The Trump Education Department is committed to strengthening our career and technical workforce and equipping students with the tools they need to excel,” said Acting Under Secretary James Bergeron. “The 11th hour Biden-Harris information collection on CTE programs was unnecessary bureaucratic red tape that would only drive up costs and hinder innovation. As we celebrate CTE month, the Department looks forward to working through a more thoughtful and cooperative process with states, local CTE programs, employers, stakeholders, and Congress to reauthorize the Perkins Act.”
Many groups voiced concerns with the reporting scheme including Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) in a letter to the Department on January 24, stating, "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. These efforts are regulatory in nature, mandating specific data collection approaches and related reporting methods that go far beyond the statutory requirements and intent of Perkins V, and do not help states or local programs create additional benefit or value for learners."
Relieving Bureaucratic Red-Tape on CTE Programs
In December 2024, the Department released two new information collections requiring state and local CTE providers under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 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. The CTE community has raised concerns that the new collections would be massively disruptive and result in significant state and local administrative burdens, disincentivize innovation, weaken alignment with other federal laws governing education and workforce systems, reduce data quality, and include many items that are not defined in statute and should be appropriately addressed during the reauthorization of Perkins V.
The Trump Administration will begin the process of reversing both the information collections on the Perkins State Plan Guide and the Consolidated Annual Report Guide by directing the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education to reinstate the prior versions of the State Plan Guide and the Consolidated Annual Report Guide, promptly publishing a notice in the Federal Register of the proposed reinstatement, and communicating the change to state CTE directors.
President Trump Proclaims February as CTE Month
On February 3rd, President Trump signed a proclamation naming February 2025 as Career and Technical Education Month. President Trump also signed the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21stCentury Act, the fifth reauthorization of the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, on July 31, 2018.