Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased to join the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson), my friend and co-chair of the Career and Technical Education Caucus, to recognize February as Career and Technical Education Month. In Rhode Island and across the country right now, employers are struggling to find workers with the skills that they need to fill jobs in STEM, in manufacturing, in IT, and so many other skilled trades. Hundreds of thousands of high-skilled, high-paying jobs are open right now, going unfilled, and this number is growing. To close the skills gap, we must better align education and industry to make sure that what we are teaching in classrooms is better meeting the needs of real-world companies right now. We must increase work- based learning and build education pathways to help students become career and college-ready. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support investment in CTE in the 115th Congress, including by reauthorizing the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act to adapt our workforce to the 21st century economy. Mr. Speaker, this act passed with strong, bipartisan support in the last Congress, and I hope we can quickly bring it up again to pass it with strong bipartisan support in this Congress as well. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson) for his leadership. ____________________”