Bill to bolster Career and Technical Education awaits Snyder’s signature

The Marquette-Alger Career and Technical Education Committee was supposed to meet tomorrow, but that gathering has been cancelled. The reason – Stu Bradley, one of the champions of the New Age curriculum, has been invited by Governor Snyder to take part in the MMC Modification Legislation signing.

The series of legislation is comprised of House Bills 4465 and 4466, and Senate Bill 66. Career and Technical Education is the underlying theme of the package, which modifies the graduation requirements for high school students to allow for more vocational training.

“I think the biggest change in this bill is that it allows students to substitute a CTE class for some of the other required Michigan Merit Curriculum, especially the foreign languages,” noted Brian Sarvello, CTE Director/Educational Consultant at Marquette-Alger RESA. “When the foreign language requirement came in a couple of years ago, it really blocked a lot of our students from taking these courses. They are now able to substitute one of their CTE classes in place of one year of foreign language. That’s a big change for us. We see this as providing more flexibility to our students. More students are going to be able to schedule a CTE class as a result of this.”

Each measure contains bits and pieces from both State Senator Tom Casperson and State Representative Ed McBroom.