The U.S. Education Department (ED) on Monday announced it is nixing recently revised data collection requirements for Perkins V programs. ED called the Biden administration requirements “a misguided regulatory reporting scheme” that would require states and the local career and technical education (CTE) programs to comply with burdensome and unnecessary reporting.
“The last-minute Biden-era information collection under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (Perkins V) would have piled on thousands of hours in additional reporting compliance requirements on states, high schools, and community colleges that can be better spent on equipping the American workforce with the skills necessary to rebuild our economy,” the department said in a release.
The changes to state plan requirements and related annual data collections, which the Biden administration finalized in December, aimed to standardize how states and local Perkins V recipients collect and report information related to CTE student performance. ED said Monday it will reinstate the prior versions of the State Plan Guide and the Consolidated Annual Report Guide.
Congressional Republican leaders had targeted the Biden administration’s plans when they were first proposed in the fall. Various CTE groups, including Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education, opposed the reporting requirements.
“These efforts are regulatory in nature, mandating specific data collection approaches and related reporting methods that go far beyond the statutory requirements and intent of Perkins V, and do not help states or local programs create additional benefit or value for learners,” the groups wrote in a January 24 letter to ED.
