Career and technical education is a critical component of a number of Federal education and training initiatives that are designed to help support the development of a 21st Century workforce. Career and technical education is unique in that it fuses challenging academic curricula with relevant skill training in order to prepare secondary and postsecondary students for the workplace. The central goal of Federally supported career and technical education programs is to provide students with strong academic and technical preparation, so that students can successfully enter the workforce or pursue additional education. The purpose of S. 250, the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2005, is to reauthorize and improve the federally supported career and technical education programs last reauthorized by the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Amendments Act of 1998.