WHEREAS, career and technical education (CTE) programs can help schools prepare students for careers in new, fast-growing industries; and

WHEREAS, CTE students can earn academic and technical credentials at the same time, so they graduate equally prepared to pursue a four-year college degree or immediately enter the work force in well-paying careers; and

WHEREAS, demand for CTE programs in New York City is growing such that the number of CTE-dedicated schools and programs has tripled over the past 10 years; and

WHEREAS, the state process can severely delay approval of these programs, since it can sometimes take as long as three to five years for a program to gain approval; and

WHEREAS, elements of state certification policy are outdated or ill-suited to careers in rapidly-emerging professions although they meet high quality career and technical education benchmarks; and

WHEREAS, according to a recent Partnership for New York City survey, employers seeking to form partnerships with CTE-certified schools cite the state’s bureaucracy and slow response times as the major obstacles to creating new CTE programs; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the UFT call on the State Education Department to streamline, rationalize and simplify the CTE program approval process and requirements.