It’s February, so it’s CTE Month once again, a time for all ten of the career and technical student organizations (CTSOs) and related professional associations to talk about the value of career and technical education and SkillsUSA week was celebrated February 8-14. 

In honor of SkillsUSA Week, on February 10, we held a great Web Conference. The conference was 30 minutes long, and it covered a variety of topics, including our connection to the new Obama administration, new programs and activities, use of our advocacy site to reach Congress, the media and special messages from our national high school and college student presidents. The Web Conference has been archived, and it can be viewed at the following link. The link goes to a full audio and video version of the broadcast, and it can be paused or forwarded/reversed during viewing. Go to http://web.ganconference.com/?meeting=3913885

The CTSOs have already requested a meeting with the new U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and we’ve also requested an appointment with the head of the Office of Management and Budget. In addition, we’ve made several proposals to the administration relative to the CTSOs.

I’ve also met with Margaret Romer, the person handling scheduling at the U.S. Department of Education, and I’ll be joining the directors of the other CTSOs in submitting a list of national events for the administration to consider in the president’s and secretary’s schedules.

On January 29, on behalf of all of the student organizations and the Association of Career and Technical Education (ACTE), SkillsUSA sent the official news release for CTE Month to 1,400 news outlets nationwide using VOCUS, our online public relations contact system. Another media advisory went out on February 6 to nearly 400 education publications using the same system. The releases have generated some reaction. I did an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune Review last week and a story was published on February 8. The link to the story is: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_610740.html. And, on February 5, Tom Holdsworth did an interview on CTE with a representative from Edutopia, a publication and Web site, on “what works in public education” published by the George Lucas Foundation.