Sacramento – Students and teachers focusing on careers related to home economics received unified support in their bid to retain a key education program today when the Senate Education Committee overwhelmingly approved Assembly Bill 666 by Assemblymember Betty Karnette along bipartisan lines. 

AB 666 would extend the sunset date of the Home Economics and Career Tech (HECT) Incentive Grant Program although funding, which depends on annual appropriation within the state budget act, has yet to be set aside.

“The new focus on career technical education is long overdue, but we cannot let this engine of excitement steamroll over valuable, existing programs,” Karnette stated. “We should especially protect programs that directly prepare students for occupational success without creating a new bureaucracy, and get those programs the funding that they need.”

Without AB 666, the HECT program would be eliminated on January 1, 2008.  Karnette proposes to extend the program for an additional five years and would require that the program be reviewed for efficacy by the Superintendent of Public Instruction.  Areas of instruction funded by HECT grants include:

• Child Development and Education
• Consumer Services
• Fashion Design
• Food Science, Dietetic and Nutrition
• Food Service, Hospitality and Tourism
• Interior Design.

“The economy is increasingly becoming service-based and we need to retain programs that prepare students to succeed in that environment,” Karnette added.

Created in 1998, the HECT program requires cumulative grant funds to be evenly distributed amongst rural, suburban and urban school districts, as well as small, medium and large schools.