With 16 career and technical education programs offered in the Pittsburgh Public School District comes the weight of providing quality education in the face of rising expenses.

For Angela Mike, executive director of CTE for Pittsburgh Public Schools since 2010, challenges arise when pursuing the results students need to meet the demands of the business sector.

“We are doing as much as we can with what we have, but we need more support to help our students to be career ready,” Mike said.

Hosted in Pittsburgh Public Schools’ CTE emergency response technology classroom at Westinghouse Academy, panelists spoke to Pennsylvania lawmakers as part of the seventh Basic Education Funding Commission hearing.

Co-chairs state Rep. Mike Sturla, D-Lancaster, and Sen. Kristin Philllips-Hill, R-York, lead the 15-member commission, which is charged with reviewing the distribution of state funding for basic education to Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts and providing a report of its findings to the General Assembly.

Statewide, there are more than 80 career and technical education centers, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and in 2021-22, there were 68,576 total students enrolled.

The hearings are intended to address the Commonwealth Court’s Feb. 7 ruling that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unconstitutional and must be reformed. A similar session occurred Thursday at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus, near Uniontown.

Mike offered the commission two suggestions that could help CTE programs.

The first: allow for more flexibility in the use of state-sponsored equipment grant funding, which is available on two tiers: supplemental and competitive.

“Many CTE programs do not have the staff resources or the partnership connections to apply for the competitive grant,” Mike said. “Could the funds from both grants be combined and distributed according to need — without the matching grant requirement?”

The second: allow for more flexibility in the state funds allocated for career and technical education by providing funding to cover CTE program start-up costs.

The current funding covers existing programs, but it “hinders our ability to keep pace with labor market needs,” Mike said.

Students in Pittsburgh can gain industry-recognized certifications, dual enrollment credits, and preparation for high-wage, high-skill and high-demand careers through CTE, she said.

But this can only be accomplished with equipment that mirrors real-world environments complemented by teachers who are industry professionals, according to Mike.

Dropout rates impacted

Darby Copeland, president of the Pennsylvania Association of Career and Technical Administrators and executive director of the Parkway West Career and Technology Center, also testified.

There is growing evidence, Copeland said, that CTE helps reduce high school dropout rates.

“Quality career and technical education requires informed leadership, a supportive organizational structure, highly qualified teachers and support staff, and an uncompromising adherence to high standards and expert advice from business and industry,” Copeland said.

Copeland said the college credits for industry credentials can often be as high as 24-30 credits, which encourages students to pursue further education.

“In many cases, students in CTE programs can leave their career and technical center with enough college credits to be considered a sophomore in college and finish their associate degree in one year and a bachelor’s degree within three years of graduating high school,” Copeland said.

CTE programs are supported by state, federal and private grants along along with funding from local school districts.

This current method of funding was determined in the mid-1960s by guidelines from the state Department of Education, according to Copeland.

Much of the federal Perkins grant allocation, for example, is being used to support special education students in academic and CTE subjects, “reducing the amount of federal dollars available for CTE instructional equipment and program improvements,” Copeland said.

The reason? There’s a lack of dedicated special education funds, according to Copeland.

Funding from the various grants has gone toward supporting salaries, air conditioning, new lighting, student transportation, equipment and technology, professional staff development, student supplies, new virtual reality opportunities and more, Mike said.

Expensive programs

However, Mike said, CTE programs are expensive. Equipment can cost $30,000 or more, the cost of transportation has more than doubled over the past three years, industry certification vouchers have increased in price and the cost of the latest technologies have increased.

Copeland said most CTE programs lack minimum funding needed to support existing and new programs.

Some school districts, according to Copeland, have decided to limit the number of students enrolled in CTE in order to reduce their budgetary costs.

Each individual school district determines which students are enrolled in CTE programs, and that selection process can vary, Copeland said, and it can be “very subjective and arbitrary.”

School districts also have elected to reduce staff to save money, Copeland said, resulting in the elimination of school counselor positions. Guidance offices are usually the primary and possibly only source of information about CTE, he said.

This reduction in counselors can have the greatest impact on students who are disadvantaged — both academically and economically, according to Copeland.

“A great number of disadvantaged students depend on career and technical education for their only entrance to their career pathway,” Copeland said. “Many disadvantaged students are unaware of the postsecondary and career opportunities available through CTE, and they often get minimal specific career information from their counselor.”

Copeland recommended that the Legislature maintain the stable base” for the Basic Education Subsidy and appropriates the supplemental funding for CTE instructional equipment at the same or higher level.

He also suggested additional funding to support the modernizing and/or development of new CTE programs in high priority occupations along with funding to increase the availability of career counseling and information.

”The need to provide state-of-the-art facilities, equipment and programs is the most critical issue facing Pennsylvania’s career and technical schools.”

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