LANSING – Sen. Goeff Hansen is supportive of Governor Rick Snyder’s budget proposal dedicating millions of dollars to funding programs to promote career and technical education, but he also wants to ensure measurable success for that funding over time.

“I agree with career tech, I agree with moving towards making it more applicable to the jobs we have today, but I just want to make sure that … there’s a reason we put the dollars in that we did and we have some way to measure what the results are,” Hansen (R-Hart), chair of the Senate Appropriations K-12, School Aid and Education Subcommittee, said.

On Wednesday, Hansen, along with Sen. Phil Pavlov (R-St. Clair) and Sen. Hoon-Yung Hopgood (D-Taylor), heard testimony supporting the proposed funding from various administration officials. The governor has so far proposed $17.8 million in early/middle college programs that provide an associate’s degree and high school diploma in five years.

Hansen took particular interest in what exactly success would look like under this proposal, namely how many students are deemed a success. To that end, Stephanie Comai, director of the Talent Investment Agency in the newly created Department of Talent and Economic Development, said it would difficult to give a “hard and fast number” on that.

But Patti Cantu, career and technical education director for the Department of Education, said the state does a follow-up on every student who has completed the program within 18 months of graduation.

“Our career and tech education programs as they exist today are poised to do this work. It’s part of what they’ve been doing for some time,” Cantu said.

Pavlov expressed some concern whether directing all this funding to one use might squeeze students out of other CTE or similar opportunities, but Cantu said the programs are limited due to their cost to run and lack of available teachers.

“I see it as providing additional options in areas that maybe local districts hadn’t thought of before,” she said.

And early/middle college programs are focused on getting students tied to the skills that are needed, which is accomplished by area businesses working with schools to develop a curriculum that addresses only what is necessary in that region, Robbie Jameson, speaking for the Snyder administration, said. Once all parties have reached an agreement, then they can apply for funding for their programs, she said.

In light of that, Hansen expected to be looking at funding CTE programs again. He hoped that in about three years the programs can be better analyzed as to whether they were successful.

“From what I understand, three years is pretty good to be able to tell where it’s going,” he said. “I’m going to be on this for four years, so I can do three years and then we’ll take another look at it and see if it’s appropriate the way we’re doing it.”

In the meantime, Cantu acknowledged the state and other stakeholders ought to consider a better marketing strategy of the money and programs available.

“We need to make sure parents and students know about these opportunities available to them,” she said. “We have a huge decline in the number of counselors in our schools … so it’s difficult to get that information about careers and career planning for those students.”

But part of that equation, Hansen said, was ensuring that these credits were in fact transferrable for students, whether to a community college or four-year institution.

“As we get into this more with the high schools, we can’t tell them one thing and then it’s not going to happen,” he said. “It’s a great program … but only if we can use it.”

Mike Hansen, president of the Michigan Community College Association, told the committee that the Legislature created a committee two years ago to look at ensuring a seamless path for students wishing to transfer credits, whether earned in high school or at the community college, to another institution. He said the only agreement that came out of that was to ensure 30 general education credits, but his association feels that “ultimately what should transfer is that associate’s degree, the 60 credits.”

Sen. Hansen pledged to work on the issue throughout his term as chair of the subcommittee.

“We need to make sure we have these agreements in place through each of these facilities,” he said.

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