Lawmakers, business leaders prioritize CTE programming in Legislature

How does the state convince students school is a place worth going to?

How do young adults not interested in a traditional college experience find jobs after high school?

For many, the answer is career-technical education, better known as CTE — educational programs in schools that help students develop job skills in specific industries for after they graduate from high school.

During the upcoming session, lawmakers and business leaders are pushing several initiatives to build on the state’s CTE programs, from establishing incentives for districts to help their students get industry certifications to more funding for young adults to pursue such fields.

“There’s a concerted effort to acknowledge and recognize career-technical education as an integral part of secondary school experience for students by many, if not most, of the members of the Legislature,” said Gwen Perea Warniment, director of the Legislative Education Study Committee, or LESC.

Minority Floor Leader Rep. Ryan Lane, R-Aztec, said education in New Mexico is a significant issue he thinks CTE programming can help fix.

“I feel like a lot of our best talent is leaving the state too often,” he said. “And this is, I think, a way to keep some of our hometown kids here.”

Rob Black, CEO and president of the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce, said without a successful education system, everything else in the state is undermined.

Black said quality education leads to quality local jobs later.

“That’s really the focus of the Chamber, if you want to distill it down ... creating that equality of opportunity for our kids for the next generation to have a quality education and quality career in their community,” he said.

But it’s not just a pie-in-the-sky ambition of policymakers and business leaders — Perea Warniment said students want it, too.

During outreach over the past year to investigate why not all students are coming to school, the LESC found they “resoundingly said that part of the issue was the need for relevant education, relevant experiences, things that connected with work … and career-technical education.”

Perea Warniment also pointed to data from the U.S. Department of Education that shows students enrolled in CTE programs funded by federal grant dollars had a four-year graduation rate of nearly 98% in New Mexico in the 2021-2022 school year.

“Career-technical education is critical, not just because it’s important for schools and community and connects with economic development and students are asking for it — but it’s also important for educators in terms of … how we make what we teach relevant,” she said.

K-12 billsLane said one of the practical measures lawmakers want to pass this session is more money for CTE programming in K-12 schools.

He said this will address the ongoing shortage of trade workers, like electricians and plumbers, and get 18-year-olds ready to enter the workforce or at least an apprenticeship program without having to take prep classes at a local community college.

“The other thing is it gives kids more options in high school, to have them take more control of their educational future,” Lane said, “which we think will lead to more buy-in, which will lead to better educational outcomes.”

One initiative that seems to fit that bill is legislation Senate Minority Whip Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, plans to bring forward.

The LESC in mid-December endorsed a bill that would create a three-year pilot program to provide $250 to $750 incentives to school districts for each student who earns a basic credential that can get them started in a career, such as being a mechanic.

The idea, Brandt said, is to garner more follow-through from schools’ CTE programs and set students up for real, sustainable careers after high school.

“They’re going to have that sellable skill that’s not going to be that minimum wage McDonald’s job that they had in high school,” he said. “It’s going to be the job that actually will pay for them to be able to live on their own, to be able to get their own home, be able to start a family if they want to and be contributing members of our society.”

The bill also would help fill positions that local businesses find themselves struggling to staff, Brandt said.

“I’ve actually talked to Don Chalmers Ford, in my community, and (they) said one of the biggest things that holds their dealership back is they can’t get enough mechanics for their shop,” Brandt said. “And one of their commitments to me was, ‘We’ll hire those students coming out with that first level certificate, and then if they’re a good employee, we’ll pay for all the others.’”

In its current form, the bill asks for a $1.2 million appropriation to start the pilot.

Higher education prioritiesThere’s also a push to get more dollars for trade in higher education or similar spaces. The Opportunity Scholarship, which covers tuition and fees for New Mexico residents to attend in-state public universities, doesn’t always cover trades at the college level.

Trade certifications and degree programs are eligible for the Opportunity Scholarship if they’re provided as credit-bearing credentials at a New Mexico public college or university, according to the Higher New Mexico Education Department. Private trade schools aren’t eligible.

Lane said legislators are working on something to make more funding available. He said the way lawmakers wrote the scholarship bill, it doesn’t cover trades at the junior college level or community college level.

“So the idea is to be able to have specific funding for that type of pathway for kids that are interested in that,” Lane said.

A few prefiled bills are focused on creating a fund that would set aside dollars for apprentice and training programs in the state, including a $2.5 million starting request from Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, and Sen. Siah Correa Hemphill, R-Silver City, that would continue accumulating dollars every year.

Black said a pot accumulating revenue to pay for scholarships to fund technical career certifications, such as for broadband cable splicing or welding, is something the Chamber would support.

He said, from what the Chamber understands, there’s about $80 million in the House budget to do something along those lines.

“We would like to see a longer-term approach where you get to maybe a half a billion dollars in a trust fund,” he said.

Black said these technical skills aren’t usually taught in traditional two- or four-year college programs, despite being for jobs that are in high demand, pay well and are essential for economic growth.

One area with a demand for more workers is the broadband field, as state and federal efforts ramp up to expand high-speed internet service coverage. But Black said it costs $2,500 for non-Santa Fe residents to attend a five-day cable splicing program at Santa Fe Community College.

“That makes it really hard for a kid from Navajo Nation to come out and spend five days in Santa Fe, come up with $2,500,” he said.

Funding more technical career certifications also could be something to help address the health care worker shortage, Black said, pointing to rural health care communities in desperate need of nurse assistants, phlebotomists or radiology assistants, “all of these different things that are certifications, not necessarily part of a two- or four-year program.”

He said there’s no pathway to do this today.

“There’s a major gap in New Mexico around educational opportunities,” Black said.