Senate committee passes key provisions of Kaine Career Ready Act

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee passed key provisions of the Career Ready Act, bipartisan legislation introduced by U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, co-chair of the Career and Technical Education (CTE) Caucus, that would help ensure students are ready for postsecondary education and the workforce by encouraging career guidance programs in schools and requiring states to incorporate career readiness indicators into their state report cards.

Provisions of the Career Ready Act were included in the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015, which reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and was unanimously passed out of the HELP Committee yesterday. The legislation will now advance to the full Senate for consideration.

“I applaud Senators Alexander and Murray on their work to reach a bipartisan compromise, which supports early childhood education and includes key provisions of the Career Ready Act to ensure our school systems will help students become ready for the 21^st century workforce. I am also grateful to Senator Baldwin, a co-sponsor of the Career Ready Act who was a passionate advocate for incorporating it into the Committee’s bill,” said Kaine. “However, there are still improvements that need to be made to preserve the original intent of ESEA by ensuring that every child in this country has the opportunity to succeed.

“I also believe we should do more in this legislation to help prevent sexual assault and domestic violence – crimes that disproportionately impact young people. I hope to amend the bill to include theTeach Safe Relationships Act of 2015, legislation that would ensure instruction on safe relationship behavior is included in public secondary schools’ health curriculum. I look forward to debating, improving and ultimately passing the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015, to give our students and educators the long-overdue reforms our schools need.”