Just in from D.C. and California: Great News About Connecting Classroom & Careers!

This week has seen two significant strides in helping more students get the skills they need to compete the 21st century economy:

Yesterday, the Senate Education Committee unanimously passed a bill to reauthorize the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, essentially confirming that innovative reinventions of programs to prepare graduates for college and career are critical…and that they work. IBM and more than 500 partners in education and industry advocated for Perkins reauthorization over the past six-and-a-half years. If signed into law, the legislation will provide more than $1 billion in annual federal funding for schools like P-TECH –a public, open-admissions grade 9 to 14 program that integrates high school with community college, workplace learning, individual mentoring and paid internships.

And today, the California State Legislature voted to bring P-TECH to the Golden State. As excited as we are about this development, we’re even more excited for the opportunities P-TECH will bring to young Californians –regardless of their zip codes.

As you know, P-TECH prepares graduates for middle-skilled “new collar”jobs, higher education or both. The inaugural school opened in Brooklyn, New York in 2011, and the network now includes more than 100 schools across nine U.S. states (including California) and overseas. Though the majority of P-TECH students comes from historically underserved communities, their collective attendance rates exceed 95 percent, and their on-time graduation rate is four times the national average for community colleges (five times the national average for low-income students).

P-TECH is a model that works. We are thrilled at the latest news about federal funding and California expansion, and will keep driving to bring this opportunity to even more young people around the world.