A recent study by the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LBFC) sought to identify barriers to career and technical education in Pennsylvania. One of their approaches was to analyze the waitlists for each program at each school. In the pursuit of this information, LBFC discovered that the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) does not collect these figures from career and technical schools.
 
In order to address barriers to career and technical education, and the current capacity of our institutions to provide this training where it is in demand, PDE and the General Assembly should have an understanding of the interest in each program in each region of the state. For these reasons and more, we will be introducing legislation to require career and technical schools to report the number of students on the waitlist for each program to PDE each year.
 
The impact on schools will be minimal, as they are already required to submit certain data to the state each year, and they will be able to submit this information digitally. PDE will then have to share this information with the General Assembly, which is also a small addition to existing reporting requirements. Collecting this information will better inform PDE and lawmakers of where investments should be made to address workforce trends.
 
Please join us in support of this simple reporting requirement to better inform the future of career and technical education in the Commonwealth.