SB 346 Closing the Skilled Trades Gap & Ensuring Equal Opportunity for All Public School Students

March 24, 2021

Erin Davis Valdez

Erin Davis Valdez is an education policy director at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She has been passionate about the transformational power of education all her life, having been given the gift of being homeschooled. She taught for over a decade in Austin-area schools and served as an assistant principal at a charter school in Lewisville. These experiences have given her the opportunity to see first-hand how students can thrive when they have excellent options.

Benefits of Career and Technical Education for Students

The Texas Workforce Investment Council reports many benefits for Texas students who participate in CTE programs in high school, including:

Higher graduation rates (95.6% of CTE participants vs. 89.1% of all students).
Better academic performance in Algebra I and English II on state assessments.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, “eight years after their expected high school graduation, the median annual earnings for CTE concentrators were higher than for non-concentrators.”

Testimony in support of SB 346 submitted to the Senate Higher Education Committee

View Full Publication

Erin Davis Valdez

Related content

Ammon Blair Testimony | U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee

TPPF Comments on FCC Net Neutrality Rulemaking

Round Rock ISD Caught Pushing Politics in the Classroom