Legislative Update:
May 4, 2005

House Passes Perkins Reauthorization

Dear NTPN members:

On Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 416-9 to approve H.R. 366, the Perkins reauthorization bill titled the "Vocational and Technical Education for the Future Act." The Senate had passed its own version (S. 250) on March 10 by a vote of 99-0.

Reauthorization of Perkins has proceeded in a relatively bipartisan manner indicated by such favorable vote totals. However, what is not revealed in these votes is that the House version differs from the Senate version on the following points. The House version does not include a separate funding stream for Tech Prep and reduces allowable administrative expenses from 5% to 2%. Although there was strong Democratic opposition to the losses on these two issues, they agreed to support the House bill, but expressed hope that both would be restored when the House and Senate conferees meet to work out the differences in the two bills.

The conferees have not been appointed and it is not clear when the conference will take place. It seems that the next action needed to keep Tech Prep as a separate funding stream is to contact the House and Senate conference members when we know who they are, or if your representatives are not on the committee, ask them to use their persuasion on those that are.

We will keep you updated and let you know when the conferees are announced. Please be ready to make the contacts and to encourage all those you know who are interested in continuing Tech Prep through 2011 to do the same. Thanks for your interest and actions on behalf of Tech Prep.

Sincerely,   David L. Bond, Ed.D. Director