At a time when the workforce needs more dental hygienists, air conditioning repair technicians and welders, a San Joaquin County-based lawmaker is leading an effort to muster more funds for vocational education.
Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, D-Stockton, said San Joaquin County schools will receive an additional $4.2 million for career technical education programs. The funding became available after state education officials agreed to fully distribute all $450 million in state-approved CTE funds to eligible school districts in this latest round of funding.
The infusion will be used to train students in specialized skills for careers that go beyond what is possible with a high school diploma alone.
In addition, Ransom authored a bill to make permanent changes to the California Career Technical Education Incentive Grant Program, which is currently administered by the state Department of Education. The current formula and its requirement for matching funds has resulted in $115 million being sent back to the general fund in the past five years, rather than going to train vocational workers of the future.
The program provides $300 million annually for CTE programs, provided the money is available in the budget. But it also requires a two-for-one dollar match by school districts seeking to use the funding. If schools can’t produce matching funds, they aren’t eligible for the state money. Any unused funds at the end of the fiscal year are returned to the state’s general coffers.
Ransom’s bill seeks to adjust the funding formula to make sure that all monies appropriated as CTE incentive grants are fully allocated to program applicants. The bill doesn’t require the department to do away with the match requirement, only that it adjust its formula to ensure all funds are distributed to districts and none of the monies are returned to the general fund.
The proposed legislation, which passed the Assembly in May, is now awaiting a vote in the Senate. If approved there, it will go on to Gov. Gavin Newsom to be considered as a new law.
In San Joaquin County, the additional CTE funding will be a big boost. The Stockton Unified School District will see a $1.8 million increase for career and technical training, giving the district a total of $3.6 million for such programs.
“In Stockton, we saw hundreds of thousands of dollars disappear from one year to the next while students lost opportunities to explore careers and build skills for their futures,” Ransom said in a statement. “I am proud that we worked with the state to fix this and get these dollars where they belong, into our classrooms, expanding career pathways.”
Similarly, Lodi Unified will get a boost of $1.1 million, Manteca Unified secured an increase of nearly $760,000 and Tracy Joint Unified will receive roughly $126,000 in additional funding.
“When we invest in career technical education, we are directly investing in the future of our students and the success of our regional economy,” Joaquin County Office of Education Superintendent Troy Brown said in a statement.
Other California school districts received some big payouts too. Districts in Contra Costa County, which applies as a consortium, requested $9.3 million for the 2025-26 school year, but received only $6.2 million. Their funding this fiscal year will be $10 million.
Career training is on the rise. A 2018 study by the Public Policy Institute of California found that vocational courses are popular among high school and community college students. In the 2016-17 school year, nearly 800,000 high school students took at least one job-oriented course.
“If current trends continue, roughly one-third of new jobs in California will require some training beyond high school but less than a four-year degree,” the study predicted.
The most popular vocational courses being taken at the time were in the fields of arts, media and entertainment; information and telecommunications; agriculture and natural resources; and health and medical technology, the PPIC study showed.
More recently, data from the U.S. Department of Education showed a 10% increase in enrollment for K-12 CTE programs for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, according to reporting by the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan think tank.
Ransom, a Democrat, has garnered bipartisan support for Assembly Bill 1590.