Access and Equity « Advance CTE Blog

Enhancing Connections through Perkins V: The Crucial Role of Stakeholder Engagement

Monday, April 1st, 2024

The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, commonly known as Perkins V, marks a significant milestone in the evolution of Career Technical Education (CTE) in the United States. Enacted to empower learners with the skills needed for success in a rapidly changing workforce, Perkins V emphasizes the importance of “stakeholder engagement” in shaping and implementing effective CTE programs.

In this blog post, Director of Member Engagement and Professional Learning Dr. Stephanie Perkins explores the key aspects of this activity in Perkins V and its impact on fostering a dynamic and responsive educational ecosystem.

The Role of Stakeholders

Stakeholder engagement in Perkins V is not merely a checkbox but a fundamental driver of success for CTE programs. These partners play a vital role in the planning, development, implementation, and evaluation of these programs. By bringing together diverse perspectives, stakeholders contribute valuable insights that help create a comprehensive and well-rounded educational experience for learners.

Educators are at the forefront of this initiative, working closely with industry partners to design curricula that blend academic knowledge with practical skills. Employers, in turn, provide crucial input on the skills and competencies needed in the workforce, ensuring that CTE programs produce graduates who are not only academically proficient but also well-prepared for real-world challenges.

Community members and parents are also essential partners, offering valuable insights into the local context and helping bridge the gap between education and community needs. Their involvement ensures that CTE programs are culturally relevant and aligned with the aspirations of the learners they serve.

Benefits of Stakeholder Engagement

Relevance and Responsiveness: Engaging with those impacted by CTE ensures that CTE programs stay abreast of industry trends and technological advancements. This responsiveness is crucial for preparing learners with the technical and employability skills demanded by the evolving job market. Additionally, by involving employers in the educational process, Perkins V helps bridge the gap between classroom learning and workplace demands. This alignment is vital for reducing the skills gap and increasing the employability of CTE graduates.
Diverse Perspectives: Stakeholder engagement brings together a diverse range of perspectives, enriching the educational experience. This diversity ensures that CTE programs are designed and cater to the needs of all learners, regardless of their background or aspirations. When directly involved in CTE programs, these partners can allow each learner to see themselves in every career.
Community Support: Engaging community members and parents builds a strong support system for CTE programs. This support is crucial for sustaining and expanding these initiatives, fostering a sense of collective responsibility for the success of learners. Additionally, connecting community resources as a part of wraparound services for learners can improve CTE programs design by helping to meet the needs of each learner.

Challenges and Strategies

While stakeholder engagement is pivotal, it comes with its own set of challenges. Balancing the interests of various partners, addressing conflicting priorities and ensuring sustained commitment can be daunting. To overcome these challenges, communication and collaboration are key. Regular forums, advisory boards, and partnerships can facilitate ongoing dialogue, allowing impacted parties to contribute meaningfully to the CTE ecosystem.

Perkins V heralds a new era in CTE, emphasizing the significance of stakeholder engagement in shaping successful programs. By fostering collaboration among educators, employers, community members, and parents, Perkins V ensures that CTE remains a dynamic and responsive force in preparing learners for the challenges of the modern workforce. Through ongoing dialogue and collective effort, partners contribute to the creation of a robust and relevant educational ecosystem that empowers students to thrive in their chosen careers.

Advance CTE supports states in developing and executing comprehensive, ongoing, and impactful state engagement that begins in Perkins V but can ultimately broaden input and partnership in all work. This year, we have released a suite of supports designed to ensure your Perkins state plan serves as a powerful lever to achieve your state vision for career technical education, and more broadly CTE Without Limits. These supports include:

Monthly Perkins Planning Office Hours,
Opportunities for one-on-one discussion on Perkins data and State Determined Performance Levels (SDPLs) for members,
New mini-briefs on strategies to support special populations in CTE, and more.

Additional resources can be found in the Perkins V section of the Learning that Works Resource Center.

Dr. Stephanie Perkins, Director of Member Engagement and Professional Learning

By Stacy Whitehouse in Public Policy
Tags: Access and Equity, Industry Collaboration, partnerships, Perkins V, Stakeholder engagement

Realizing CTE Without Limits: An Interview with Colorado State CTE Director Dr. Sarah Heath

Wednesday, March 27th, 2024

This month, Advance CTE celebrates the 3 year anniversary of the release of Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education (CTE Without Limits), supported by over 40 national organizations. As part of the celebration, Advance CTE is highlighting the initiatives, outcomes and lessons learned of current and former states who have participated in technical assistance opportunities to conduct the challenging but necessary work to fully realize the vision in their state.

Senior Director of Policy Nithya Govindasamy interviewed Colorado State CTE Director Sarah Heath to revisit the impact of technical assistance on realizing a more cohesive, flexible, and responsive career preparation ecosystem.

**How has the CTE Without Limits influenced the mindset and priorities for CTE in your state?**

CTE Without Limits has influenced the mindset and priorities in Colorado in terms of alignment. Our team has examined our goals and determined how we can better serve learners and how we can get learners ready for things that are connected geographically.

CTE Without Limits has also been central to goals and actions that can be taken to infuse the principles in the Perkins State Plan and strategic plan to ultimately support local leaders and educators. In Colorado, we are trying to connect the principles in the vision and the foundational commitments when evaluating our current goals and the gaps in our goals. We have used it to “check ourselves” and integrated it to support our stakeholder outreach and continue to use it as a bar and checkpoint.

**What do you consider your state’s most impactful work in progress as a result of the CTE Without Limits vision?**

For Colorado, the most impactful work has occurred in our equity-centered work, specifically empowering locals through the Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA) and tying it to CTE Without Limits through the Opportunity Gap Analysis (OGA). In particular, we’ve focused on sub-populations indicators and “checking ourselves” to ensure we were not being too generic in measuring success. Principle 2: Each learner feels welcome in, is supported by, and has the means to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem, pushed us to identify tangible tools to help locals; it also pushed our state team to view data differently and get comfortable with data. Tools like the heat map ease people into the work without the “equity stigma”.

We are also using tools to analyze local performance and to inform local decision making. For example the OGA data was linked to school performance frameworks and school finance to show the intersections. We are training principals and need to train middle-management leaders in our schools to help them to make data-driven decisions to help all learners be successful.

In Colorado, working directly with locals to be more impactful has been a priority. We held a session about this work at CACTA (Colorado Association for Career and Technical Administrators, the Admin Division of ACTE in Colorado), where the designated CTE Directors attend for each district and they are empowered to engage the principals. Rural school districts are supported by Boards of Cooperative Educational Services or BOCES (typically fiscal agents for Perkins) and each have a Superintendent Council, so our team has taken the opportunity to use their meeting structure and support to offer more CTE services.

Additionally, Colorado has taken a “near-peer approach” and is leveraging the relationships with the BOCES and helping the state team connect with local leaders who are not always the designated CTE Director. The Colorado CTE Team is also reflecting on their experiences to ensure the best presenter or connector is available to support these cohorts. For example, the state Program Director for Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy was a principal in a rural school district prior to being on the Colorado CTE Team so it makes perfect sense to connect her to projects where we are expanding the knowledge of our local principals in how to connect CTE data to their school performance data and goal setting.

Colorado participated in the inaugural cohort to provide vision-related technical assistance to states. What is one part of that work (highlighted here) that you have been able to build upon over the past year, and how?

Of the work highlighted in last year’s blog, we focused on Goal 3: “Building Local Leader Data Literacy: Leverage Advance CTE’s Opportunity Gap Analysis (OGA) process to increase data literacy of local CTE administrators and educators and in doing so improve data-focused storytelling of learners’ outcome and identification of program participation and success gaps.” In order to increase the data literacy of locals and teachers, we are offering professional development with a panel of local CTE directors. We are using the CLNA and OGA for action planning, and conducted needs assessment in-person during a statewide CTE roadshow.

In terms of what is next for us, we are intentionally incorporating learner voice into our work. We are focused on “how are we empowering local leaders and their data literacy” and helping them with storytelling. For example, our CTE concentrator graduation rate is 98% while our overall Colorado high school graduation rate is 83%. Elevating these data points and integrating into our storytelling on the local level will assist in destigmatizing CTE. CTE is being seen all over Colorado as a new strategic move in high school education. We are seeing Designed Career and Technical high schools being built in school districts who market their four-year college going culture. We are seeing most districts “up” their CTE programs and want to better serve learners across the board by offering multiple off ramps from industry credentials, Apprenticeship, and college credit.

We’ve been able to engage with families by going to the PTA conference and enhancing their data literacy. We are working with the entire ecosystem to empower local leaders, administrators, principals, parents/guardians, family members and learners and “empower” local communities by equipping them with better information to make more informed decisions. We are also helping connect education to the overall ecosystem through regional level conversations about industry needs and alignment.

What resources or support has been most helpful in moving this work and mindset forward?

For the Colorado team, the technical assistance and the actual resources, such as the Pushing the Limits Roadmap, has been the most helpful. We have used this resource to develop goals, to conduct an assessment of our current system, and develop an action plan. The tools were helpful in identifying the areas that need to be improved and we were able to use the tool to help locals assess their own system.

Another helpful resource was the With Learners, Not for Learners: A Toolkit for Elevating Learner Voice in CTE. We walked through the toolkit and tackled issues such as not “tokenizing” learners by just having them on advisory committees.

Having the tools, resources and support was definitely helpful when determining how to use the various pieces to help locals.

What principles and areas of work connected to the vision are you planning to focus on this year?

Colorado is currently focused on Principle 4: Each learner’s skills are counted, valued, and portable. We are centering this mindset in our work by leaning into Credit for Prior Learning (CPL), portable credit and policy change and matrix, faculty qualifications, and counting all learning that happens. In 2020, Colorado passed HB 20-1002, which enables students and adults to earn postsecondary credit for prior work experience, including work-based learning. A landscape report on CPL was released in 2021 that guides our work:

Through our team that supports concurrent enrollment as well as our work on the Colorado “Student Bill of Rights”, we are working to ensure learners are receiving the correct credit for earned Industry Recognized Credentials when they matriculate to an institution of higher education as well as their CTE high school experiences, even if it does not include concurrent enrollment, and assisting learners with understanding how to link these experiences to their college credits through articulation.

Colorado’s Governor has set a Skills-Based hiring expectation and as a team, we are using this expectation to help our employers who serve on our CTE advisory committees better understand how to post jobs to ensure they are attracting talent based on their skills.

Additional Resources

To learn about how to begin implementing CTE Without Limits in your state or community, read Colorado, Nebraska, and South Carolina’s origin and impact journeys so far.. Resources to learn about and implement the vision can be found on our CTE Without Limits webpage.

Nithya Govindasamy, Senior Director of Policy

By Stacy Whitehouse in CTE Without Limits
Tags: Access and Equity, Colorado, Concurrent Enrollment, Credit for Prior Learning, CTE Without Limits, Data Literacy, learner voice, Opportunity Gap, Stakeholder engagement, state policy

Welcome Jessica (Jessi) Maddox to Advance CTE!

Thursday, March 7th, 2024

Hello! My name is Jessica (Jessi) Maddox, and I am ecstatic to be a part of the Advance CTE team as a senior policy associate. In this role I will be working directly with the upcoming cohorts of the Opportunity Gap Analysis providing customized technical assistance and peer learning opportunities to participating states. I will also collaborate with team members to enhance Advance CTE’s state policy, equity, and data and research strategies by supporting state and local sites in designing and advancing high-quality and equitable career pathways.

A lifelong learner, I was born and raised in Florida, and my family and I recently relocated to Richmond, VA for a change of pace. I began my career in the classroom as a middle school social studies teacher. Part of my position included career exploration with my eighth graders and this is where some of my first interactions with Career Technical Education (CTE) began. After six years in the classroom, I wanted to expand my horizons into educational research and returned to school to obtain a master’s degree in Information. In 2017, I joined the Florida office of the Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant working as a grant manager. In this position I got to interact with a variety of organizations, from school districts to non-profits, working to provide academic and skills-based after-school experiences to students across Florida’s PreK-12 system. I had the opportunity to further explore CTE as part of a college and career readiness initiative and became interested in furthering my knowledge and experiences in this field.

After completing my master’s degree, I was offered a role as an educational policy analyst with the Division of Career and Adult Education within the Florida Department of Education. In this position I was immersed in all things career and adult education full time. From the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins V) and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), to apprenticeship, credentials of value and integrated education and training (IET), I worked closely with each coordinating unit to ensure required data and policy provisions were followed. I helped to build out the business rules or data collection processes for outcomes reporting and program improvement.

In 2023, I began a new position as a work-based learning analyst at the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) working directly with the Virginia Talent + Opportunity Partnership (V-TOP). In this position I created data collection processes and survey instruments to expand the view of the landscape of credit-bearing and paid work-based learning and internship opportunities across the Commonwealth. Outside of work I can be found spending time with my husband and two sons, playing roller derby, or exploring my new surroundings.

By Layla Alagic in Our Staff
Tags: Access and Equity, afterschool programs, Data, Florida, Opportunity Gap, Perkins V, state policy, Virginia, WIOA, work-based learning

Amplifying Learner Voice: How WisCORE Champions Equity Through Learner-Led Conversations

Wednesday, March 6th, 2024

Five states, including Wisconsin, took part in the Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen CTE technical assistance cohort hosted by Advance CTE and ACTE. Inspired by CTE Without Limits: a Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education, they’re using the With Learners, Not for Learners toolkit to involve learners in the design, delivery, and implementation of CTE programs and policies. This post focuses on Wisconsin’s “WisCORE” conference, where learners lead conversations and drive change in diversity, equity, and inclusion across the state’s technical colleges. For this post, Haley Wing, senior policy associate with Advance CTE, interviewed Colleen Larsen, education director for student success at Wisconsin Technical College System, a member of the Wisconsin state team for the Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen CTE technical assistance cohort and the coordinator for the state-wide WisCORE Conference planning and execution committee.

WisCORE: Where Learner Voices Spark Change in Race and Ethnicity Conversations

In October 2023, the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) convened learners, staff, and faculty from across the System for the Wisconsin Technical College System Conference on Race and Ethnicity (WisCORE), a transformative conference dedicated to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the system’s colleges.

The WisCORE conference facilitates collaboration among WTCS colleges, enabling shared effective DEI strategies and building system-wide capacity for creating more inclusive campuses. By emphasizing the voices and experiences of learners, employees, and community members, the conference ensures that DEI efforts are informed by the perspectives of those most impacted, leading to more equitable and sustainable practices.

The WisCORE event and the Wisconsin state team’s work in the Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen CTE technical assistance cohort align seamlessly with the principles of CTE Without Limits, ensuring that every learner feels welcomed, supported, and empowered to succeed within the career preparation ecosystem. The conference and its outcomes elevate learners’ voices, prioritizing inclusion and equity, while establishing accountability and continuous improvement processes.

Student Caucus from WiSCORE

LEARNER TESTIMONIAL

“WisCORE 2023 was my first experience, and it was a pleasant experience. Being able to attend and be involved meant a lot for me as a student. I got to hear other students share their personal stories and experiences within the college setting, as well as within their community. It was reassuring to hear students share similar thoughts and possible solutions on how colleges can improve on how they can create a welcoming space of diversity, equity, inclusion, self-advocacy, and cultural competency to better serve their student population. It’s nice to know that I was not the only student who wanted to advocate in those DEI areas and that the attendees, both staff and student, have a similar inspiration, which is to hear student voices for a sense of direction on how colleges can improve and better serve their students.”

Building Bridges, Brick by Brick: The Collaborative Journey to WisCORE

The idea for the WisCORE conference was borne out of multiple leaders and learners in the Wisconsin Technical College system attending The National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE). Attendees of this conference reported rave reviews, and the requests for additional participants from each technical college quickly increased. During the NCORE 2018 conference in Portland, Colleen attended with others from her state and requested a Wisconsin-dedicated room for their state team. During their debriefing and unpacking the learning from the conference, she asked, “What would you like to do to bring this learning back to our state?”

From that conference room, the team, which included learners, staff and faculty, insisted that Wisconsin needed a dedicated convening to center belonging, connections and solutions to challenges learners frequently face. Leveraging a grant from Jobs For the Future centered on equity, the planning committee, which included learners, created the first WisCORE conference. Leveraging the demand from learners and support from faculty members, the collective advocacy across the state resulted in all 16 technical college presidents agreeing to submit $1,000 from each college budget to support the development and execution of the WisCORE conference. After the second conference, more faculty and learners took an interest in the event and requested that the conference occur annually, which the presidents agreed to support. This sustainable funding ensures the event is possible each year.

Grit and Grace: Lessons from WisCORE’s Road to Success

Planning and successfully executing an event like WisCORE comes with several benefits: learners are in the driver’s seat to lead meaningful change; faculty are made aware of learners’ experiences and opportunities to improve their supports in programs; and learner feedback and input are actualized in changes to policies, practices and more. Understanding these benefits is helpful when navigating the challenges and barriers that may come up when replicating a similar event. Colleen shared the following tips to support this work in Wisconsin and beyond:

Support and develop a culture that values learners as partners: Colleen, other members of her team and learners across the technical college system have clearly articulated the need to center learners’ feedback and input on their educational experiences. Learners came up with the idea for WisCORE and System and college staff coordinated resources to support their vision. Learners facilitate the conference, lead break-out sessions, facilitate caucuses and serve as keynote speakers. Learners have been at the table at every stage of development for the WisCORE conference. The System created a video at the event highlighting the importance of learner voice.
- This environment fosters greater learner engagement and learners are empowered to consult and offer feedback to leaders within the education system. Aligning everyone within your state agency, institution, or organization on the definition, meaning, and value of authentic learner engagement is a great way to ensure everyone is working towards the same goal and feels empowered to take action. Additional resources and recommendations are also in the With Learners, Not for Learners toolkit for beginning meaningful learner engagement work.

Structure opportunities that foster equitable learner engagement: The WisCORE conference is designed with each college in the System invited to attend with a team. The team is required to be at least 50% learner-led. Learners are crucial to the makeup of college teams to ensure they are seen as leaders and have space to facilitate conversations and solutions that impact learners’ experiences most. To create enough space for all learners attending to share their experiences during the conference, each team is limited to 10 members (160 total conference attendees). While the interest is high, the WisCORE Planning Committee considers the space constraints; each year, the WisCORE conference is hosted at a different technical college campus. Given the space available at the colleges, 160 participants for the conference is the max.
- Another equity component of the WisCORE conference and similar learner engagements is the availability and accessibility of attending an in-person conference. If a learner cannot attend the conference in person, the team has previously leveraged hybrid options. This sufficed for the time, however, Colleen mentioned the difficulty of ensuring learners feel included and part of the team when joining sessions virtually. For the 2023 WisCORE conference, the team leveraged Encore Sessions: virtual sessions held after the conference that allows others to engage across the System. In these Encore Sessions, learners present and facilitate topics included in the in-person conference. This adaptability allows for equitable engagement if a learner cannot attend the conference in person.

Focus your efforts to ensure you’re meeting learners’ needs: Events like WisCORE, and similar learner engagement opportunities, emerge from the ground up to inform the collective of opportunities for improvement. When engaging in grassroots work, the swath of information and perspectives can make it challenging to focus efforts. When encountering this challenge with the WisCORE Planning Committee, Colleen elevates choosing a specific engagement theme. For example, for the WisCORE conference, each year, the Planning Committee determines a theme with the inclusion of learner feedback and input. Simply asking learners what they care about and what they would like to discuss when it comes to their CTE experiences is a great way to begin developing a theme and ensuring learners’ needs are met. During the planning process for WisCORE, Colleen mentioned mental health came up as an important theme, as did the representation of indigenous learners and learners with disabilities. This input from learners informed the design of the conference sessions and speakers.
- When learners design programs and strategies alongside us, we create initiatives that genuinely resonate with their needs and break down barriers to their success. Leaders interested in meaningfully engaging learners can begin with a group of learners and ask them what they want to see, implement, develop, and more. If a group of learners is not easily accessible, meeting learners where they are and simply listening to their ideas and input can be a great place to start. While listening to learners, determine where to leverage your resources, capital and more to actualize learners’ ideas for increasing inclusion and closing gaps in access and success metrics.

LEARNER TESTIMONIAL

“I learned the value of advocating for yourself and for others and that there are many out there who are likely facing the issue like us. And how important it is for each individual to be responsible and respectful.”

Beyond Conversation, Beyond Collaboration: WisCORE’s Tangible Impact

As a result of the WisCORE conference, learners and faculty members across the state report the impact of the conference:

Learners across the state are more deeply and meaningfully engaged: The Wisconsin team has seen an increase in learners’ engagement on college campuses. This includes learners serving on committees and interacting with leaders within their college. Due to the high-impact nature of the WisCORE conference, direct action items are addressed and implemented, such as creating dedicated seats for learners on each of the technical college’s president executive committees or boards. Learners on these committees meet with their college’s president’s committee or board to discuss important issues affecting learners and provide input on solutions. Colleges in the state have also designated learner spaces on DEI committees.

Learners are actively shaping conversations about their educational experiences: During the inaugural WisCORE conference, the staff helping to plan the event held an assumption that learners would not be able to ‘handle’ seeing data across the state technical college system. Learners on the planning committee advocated, that in the first year, the conference engaged learners at the conference in a data dive for their college campus. This activity allowed learners to share their feedback and input on root-cause analysis. After this model, some colleges returned this practice to campus and included learners in data reviews. The Wisconsin state team has also seen learners included in regional Perkins needs assessments. Learners are great partners for discussing the root-cause analysis of various data points.

Learners drive diversity, equity, and inclusion on college campuses: The WisCORE conference empowers learners to be agents of change in their colleges’ DEI efforts. Through student panels, breakouts and keynote speeches, learners dive deep into DEI and brainstorm solutions. The highlight is “team time” where learners collaborate with their colleagues to create concrete action plans with at least three actionable steps to advance DEI on campus. This event challenges the traditional top-down approach, prioritizing learner voices and fostering meaningful collaborations for lasting impact.

Looking Ahead: Amplifying Learner Voices Beyond the Conference Walls

As the Wisconsin team looks forward, they continue to leverage learner voice to strengthen CTE. In addition to their work with the WisCORE conference, the team continues to share and elevate promising practices and approaches related to their learner engagement work in the Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen CTE technical assistance cohort. With all learner engagement work across secondary and postsecondary systems, the team continues to center learners and their experiences, support learners as they engage to improve their educational experiences and create sustainable structures to help shift mindsets and practices as it relates to learner engagement work.

For additional information about leveraging learner voice, please visit the following pages on the Advance CTE website:

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate, Advance CTE

By Layla Alagic in CTE Without Limits
Tags: Access and Equity, CTE Vision, CTE Without Limits, inclusivity, Learner Engagement, learner voice, wisconsin

Lawmakers Celebrate CTE Month, Progress on FY24 Remains Uncertain | Legislative Update

Friday, February 16th, 2024

Over the last two weeks, lawmakers in the House and Senate have continued to formally recognize the importance of Career Technical Education (CTE) and celebrated February as CTE Month® in a number of ways. Elsewhere, appropriations leaders continue to work on federal funding measures, Advance CTE endorsed several new pieces of legislation and federal agencies released new equity plans.

New Challenges Emerge in FY24 Funding Process

The Senate remained in session last weekend to pass a highly anticipated supplemental national security aid package. Following that action, the Senate adjourned and is not expected to return to Capitol Hill until February 26. Meanwhile, the House met for an abbreviated work period this week where Republican lawmakers impeached Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. This action in the House will trigger a trial in the Senate when lawmakers return later this month. Due to Senate rules that require addressing this issue upon their return, this upcoming trial may impact ongoing negotiations, largely occurring behind the scenes, on federal fiscal year 2024 (FY24) spending, including the Labor-HHS-ED appropriations measure that funds the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins V) and other programs administered and overseen by the U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Labor (DOL).

At this time, it remains unclear how lawmakers will ultimately move forward with FY24 appropriations legislation beyond the upcoming expiration dates of current funding rapidly approaching on March 1 and March 8. Reportedly, appropriations leaders are currently negotiating potential “policy riders” that some lawmakers are seeking to attach to these funding measures, including Labor-HHS-ED. House lawmakers are currently scheduled to return after a recess period on February 28, leaving only a few days to determine a pathway forward. As these efforts continue to take shape, Advance CTE is continuing to advocate for robust funding for Perkins V’s formula grant program.

CTE Month Continues With Co-Chair Appearances and a New Senate Resolution

Yesterday, House CTE Caucus co-chairs Reps. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) made an appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal program to talk about the importance of CTE and the role it plays in the wider economy. The two leaders fielded questions from viewers and spoke at length about their experiences with CTE, the importance of the federal investment made by Perkins V and highlighted the immense value CTE programs provide to learners, especially by providing multiple pathways to postsecondary education, training and careers. These lawmakers also introduced the Counseling for Career Choice Act, bipartisan legislation that would strengthen career counseling services available to K-12 students. Advance CTE was proud to endorse this legislation upon introduction. In addition, House Education and Workforce Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC) provided floor remarks celebrating CTE month and emphasizing the important role CTE programs have in providing learners with valuable and durable skills.

On the other side of the Capitol, Senate CTE Caucus co-chair Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Todd Young (R-IN), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Ted Budd (R-NC) introduced and passed a bipartisan resolution recognizing February as CTE month within the chamber. “This month and every month, let’s work to expand access to CTE, including by passing my JOBS Act to allow students to use Pell Grants for job training programs, and build an economy that works for everyone,” Senator Kaine remarked upon its passage.

Advance CTE applauds all of these lawmakers for their ongoing leadership on this issue and extends our community’s deep appreciation for continuing to elevate and highlight the significant importance of CTE this month and throughout the year.

Bipartisan Childcare CTE Bill Introduced

Earlier this week, Representatives Annie Kuster (D-NH), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Bonamici introduced the Early Childhood Workforce Advance Act. The legislation would provide new resources for CTE programs and aims to address significant workforce shortages in this critical sector of the economy. “The Early Childhood Workforce Advancement Act intentionally leverages CTE programs and ensures that these efforts are connected to ongoing state and local efforts to strengthen early educator workforce pipelines,” Advance CTE’s Executive Director Kate Kreamer shared upon the bill’s introduction. More information on the proposal can be found here.

ED Publishes Updated Equity Action Plan

At the beginning of the week, ED formally released its 2023 update to the Department’s existing “Equity Action Plan,” outlining new commitments to advance equity in education. ED identified five key focus areas: improving college access and completion rates for underserved students; ensuring equitable resources for learning recovery; expanding educational opportunities for justice-impacted individuals to improve outcomes; advancing equity in career and technical education; and increasing mental health resources in underserved communities. In the plan, ED notes that it hopes to improve data transparency with regards to Perkins V data, host a future webinar series on equity in CTE and propose broadened equity indicators as part of its priorities for potential legislative updates to Perkins V in the years ahead. Read the full plan here.

Steve Voytek, Policy Advisor

By Layla Alagic in Public Policy
Tags: Access and Equity, Career Counseling, CTE Month, data quality, Department of Labor, House Appropriations Committee, Indiana, Justice-involved learners, Labor-HHS-ED, Legislative Update, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Perkins V, U.S. Department of Education, Virginia, wisconsin

State CTE Policy Spotlight: 2023 Policies Expanding Accessible CTE for Special Populations

Tuesday, January 30th, 2024

While policies grouped under “Funding” and “Industry Partnerships/Work-based Learning” categories have consistently remained in the top five key policy trends for the past ten years, the “Access and Equity” grouping has steadily moved up the ladder, ranking from 10th place in 2017 to 3rd place in 2022. In this blog, we will review four policies enacted in 2023 that are founded in improving access to high-quality Career Technical Education (CTE) programs.

As explained in Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career and Technical Education (CTE Without Limits), CTE plays a vital role in creating an inclusive and equitable future, providing learners with the education and training necessary for success in financially secure and self-sufficient careers while meeting industry talent demands. Advance CTE is committed to supporting states as they tackle the various barriers–program costs, transportation, and eligibility among others–that continue to exacerbate the access and equity challenges special populations face when accessing CTE programs.

In 2023, CTE leaders adopted innovative strategies to expand access to CTE in their state. Examples of such strategies can be found in the following policies enacted by California, New Hampshire, and Virginia:

California

In October 2023, California enacted A.B. 368 which expands eligibility for learners who are “underrepresented in higher education” in the state’s College and Career Access Pathways (CCAP) dual enrollment partnership grant opportunity. The CCAP Grant awards $100,000 to local education agencies who are interested in establishing or expanding a partnership with a community college to enable learners at participating high schools to access dual enrollment opportunities. A.B 368 expands access to now include first-time college learners, learners experiencing low-income, learners who are current or former foster youth, learners experiencing homelessness or learners at risk of being homeless, learners with disabilities, learners with dependent children, and undocumented learners. By expanding which populations are considered underrepresented, this policy better aligns with learners identified as special populations in the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins V).

In the same month, California also enacted A.B. 91 which exempts qualifying learners from paying the nonresident tuition rate. Learners who qualify for this exemption are nonresident learners who: experience low income, reside in Mexico, are registered in lower division courses at a qualifying California college, and reside within 45 miles of the California-Mexico border. This policy aims to decrease the financial burden that may hinder nonresident learners from participating in California’s CTE programs by reducing the cost of participation in CTE.

New Hampshire

In October 2023, New Hampshire passed H.B. 364 which authorized the Department of Education to reimburse the full cost of transportation to learners classified as “at-risk learners” who attend alternative education programs at a regional career and technical education center. This policy aims to mitigate the transportation barrier that may prevent learners from participating in New Hampshire’s CTE programs by covering the cost of transportation to CTE centers.

Virginia

In March 2023, Virginia enacted S.B. 1430 which required the Department of Education to convene a “stakeholder workgroup” to offer recommendations on improving access to paid work-based learning experiences for English Learners. The workgroup was directed to submit their recommendations to the Governor and the Chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Senate Committee on Education and Health by November 1, 2023. No information is available yet on the outcome of the working group, but their recommendations are expected to be published in early 2024. This policy aims to analyze barriers that hinder English Learners from participating in CTE by creating a workgroup tasked with providing strategies to mitigate these barriers.

For more strategies to expand access to CTE for special populations, check out the “Maximizing Access & Success for Special Population” briefs prepared by Advance CTE and ACTE for:

Foster Youth
Non-traditional Learners
Out-of-Workforce Individuals

Coming in February 2024: Advance CTE and ACTE’s eleventh annual State Policies Impacting CTE: 2023 Year in Review and Advance CTE’s 2023 State Policy Tracker, which will examine CTE and career readiness policies across the nation. While the report focuses on policy trends, the tracker comprises every CTE-related policy enacted within each state.

View the 2022 state policy tracker here.

Velie Sando, Policy Associate

By Layla Alagic in Achieving Equitable and Inclusive CTE, Public Policy
Tags: Access and Equity, California, college and career readiness, CTE Policy, CTE Without Limits, Dual and Concurrent Enrollment, New Hampshire, Perkins V, special populations, state policy, Virginia

The Future of Dual Enrollment Policy and Programs

Monday, January 29th, 2024

Late last year, the College in High School Alliance (CHSA) released “The Next Phase of Dual Enrollment Policy: A Vision for the Field,” laying out a set of critical priorities to ensure all learners get the full benefit of early postsecondary opportunities. As a member of CHSA’s Steering Committee, Advance CTE is excited about the potential—and ambition—of this new vision and what it can mean for learners, in Career Technical Education (CTE) and beyond, across the country.

The vision starts with a goal: states eliminating access gaps for participation and success for historically marginalized students in college in high school programs by 2030. To achieve this goal, it will take a mix of critical state- and national-level imperatives and commitments, including:

State Imperatives:
- Setting a Statewide Vision (and goal) for Dual Enrollment informed by the experiences and needs of learners and designed with intention about how it can fit into other statewide priorities, such as CTE and career pathways.
- Doubling Down on the Equity Mission by intentionally removing barriers and providing supports for historically underrepresented students in dual enrollment programs, such as learners with disabilities, learners of color and learners experiencing low income.
- Focusing Policy on Intentional Dual Enrollment Experiences to ensure learners only engage in “intentional acts of dual enrollment.” This is particularly relevant for CTE learners as dual enrollment courses should be aligned with their programs of study, as encouraged by the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins V).

National Imperatives:
- Setting a National Vision for Dual Enrollment by Raising Expectations for Policy Support, which includes having a common federal definition that is more comprehensive than what is in law now and signals clearer expectations for quality and program design.
- Aligning the Field on Key Terms in Policy, given the vast array of state-level definitions and interpretations for college in high school programs (within and across states).
- Examining New and Emerging Policy Trends to ensure quality assurance and equitable access in areas such as online programming and creative funding models.

Importantly, this vision was not developed in a vacuum. Rather, it is the result of a year-long strategic planning process that engaged CHSA’s steering committee members (Achieving the Dream, Advance CTE, Bard Early College, JFF, KnowledgeWorks, The Middle College National Consortium and The National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships) as well as policymakers and practitioners from across the nation. It builds on years of policy adoption and implementation—elevating what has worked and where more attention is critically needed. That is key as it will take individuals at all levels working in concert to advance and achieve this new vision for dual enrollment.

Going forward, CHSA is committed to making this vision a reality at the state and national levels by publishing new resources that elaborate upon the various components of this vision; providing direct technical assistance to states to help them develop visions that promote equity, set inclusive goals and expand intentional dual enrollment; and convening policymakers to support ongoing collaboration in this space.

As noted in Without Limits: A Shared Vision for Career Technical Education, “the current landscape of college in high school and postsecondary transfer policies and programs is overly complicated, often results in loss of credit and does not consistently support equitable access and success.” As dual enrollment rates continue to rise and more learners, including CTE learners, participate in college in high school opportunities, it is more important than ever that we ensure our systems are designed to be equitable, meaningful and intentional. Advance CTE is excited and proud to be part of this work.

Relevant Resources

Kate Kreamer, Executive Director

By Layla Alagic in Achieving Equitable and Inclusive CTE, Public Policy
Tags: Access and Equity, college in high school, CTE Vision, CTE Without Limits, Dual and Concurrent Enrollment, JFF, Perkins V, Program Alignment, systems alignment

Delaware CTE Youth Leaders Take the Mic

Thursday, December 7th, 2023

Last month, I had the privilege of attending a briefing at the U.S. Department of Education, led by a group of Career Technical Education (CTE) learners from the state of Delaware. Their expertise and passion demonstrated the true power, inspiration and innovation that can come from centering learners in matters of policy and practice within CTE.

Over the last year, Delaware participated in Advance CTE’s Leveraging Learner Voice to Strength CTE’s technical assistance cohort and this visit to Washington DC was a culmination of this effort. Over the year, Delaware recruited CTE youth leaders to participate in two cohorts:

One cohort is working to redesign their state’s teacher preparation program of study. Going forward, Delaware is committed to ensuring learners are engaged in the development and re-approval of CTE programs of study as those directly experiencing those pathways, and this group of learners is providing input into both the teacher pathway and the policy and process going forward. As Dr. Jon Wickert, State CTE Director for Delaware noted, “We are looking to CTE youth leaders in how we name programs, how we design programs. Programs should be designed in the ways learners want them to function.”
The other cohort, focused on building capacity around Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging in CTE classrooms and Career Technical Student Organizations (CTSOs), co-designed and co-led the state’s 2023 Fall Leadership Conference, which had over 750 middle and high school CTSO learners participating. As Madison Retzlaff, one of the youth leaders and the state president for Educators Rising, shared, “Every voice matters…and everyone should feel a sense of belonging in CTSOs and CTE.”

To prepare these learners to serve as leaders at both the state and local levels, Delaware worked with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago to provide training around culturally responsive instruction and practices.

Presenting to senior leadership within the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education (OCTAE), including Assistant Secretary, Dr. Amy Loyd, learners explained the construct of culturally responsive teaching practices that they collectively developed and refined as the CTE Youth Leadership Team and how they are individually committing themselves to the implementation of culturally responsive teaching in their roles as CTSO leaders and CTE peers. Jennae Overton, state president of Business Professionals of America (BPA), led the presentation and Ahmad Edwards, who participates in Future Health Professionals (HOSA), offered thoughts on what culturally responsive teaching means to him as a CTE youth leader, noting “I will implement culturally responsive practice [by] honoring each student’s voice. I want every student to be able to open up and express how they feel about a certain topic.”

Armed with a greater understanding of culturally responsive practices and the ins and outs of CTE in Delaware, the learners are now engaging their school-level leaders and teachers on how they can improve access and equity at the district, school and classroom levels. Dr. Wickert reflected that “As a result of this work, we have become more thoughtful on local engagement,” adding that even though the state has invested dollars to encourage a greater focus on equity at the local level, it wasn’t moving the bar as quickly or as far as they had hoped. “With the learners driving this mission and work, I believe it will have a greater impact at the classroom level,” said Dr. Wickert.

As Dr. Michael Hill-Shaner, the Education Associate/Culturally Competent Workforce Lead at the Delaware Department of Education regularly says, “It’s our job to build the stage, turn on the lights and pass the mic.” This briefing and the arc of the last year demonstrate the true power of passing the mic. I personally cannot wait to see what these learners do next and how Delaware and other states continue to live up to the promise of the second principle of CTE Without Limits so that each learner can truly feel welcome in, be supported by and have the means to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem.

Additional Resources:

Kate Kreamer, Executive Director

By Layla Alagic in Achieving Equitable and Inclusive CTE
Tags: Access and Equity, CTE Without Limits, Delaware, Department of Education, learner voice, OCTAE

New Skills ready network Highlight Blog: Career Connected Advising in the Middle Grades

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2023

The New Skills ready network (NSrn) is part of JPMorgan Chase’s substantial portfolio in support of an inclusive economy and workforce. This five-year commitment is part of the New Skills at Work initiative to prepare people for the future of work and their $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity. With a dedication to building equitable career pathways, the New Skills ready network connects six sites — Boston, Massachusetts; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Nashville, Tennessee — with local partners with the intentionality necessary to build a strong workforce ecosystem for all learners.

For this highlight blog, Advance CTE Senior Policy Associate Haley Wing met with Erin Jacques, MyCAP District Coordinator, and Marsha Innis-Mitchell, Executive Director of Postsecondary Initiatives for Boston Public Schools to discuss career-connected advising in middle grades. Erin and Marsha are both partners of the New Skills ready network Boston, Massachusetts, project team.

The Boston, Massachusetts project team for the New Skills ready network believes in a city where all young people can engage in high-quality career learning that supports exploration, informed decision-making and preparation for the future. The team aims to dramatically increase the number of Black, Latinx, special education, and English Learner students who participate in and persist through engaging, relevant, and equitable career pathways and are prepared to enter meaningful careers.

Overview

Over the past three years, the Boston, Massachusetts, project team has been transforming systems to drive equitable education and career outcomes for all learners. The project team has achieved significant milestones in the development of high-quality, equitable career pathways including addressing structural and institutional barriers to equitable career pathways and creating a holistic and seamless advising system to support learners. In year three of the New Skills ready network initiative, the project team prioritized expanding access to coordinated, holistic and equitable college and career advising. The 2022-2023 school year was the first of college and career-connected advising in the middle-grades and project team members from Boston Public Schools shared how they leveraged cross-department collaboration, offered supports to identified priority schools for the rollout and lessons learned throughout the process.

Leveraging Cross-Department Collaboration to Support Expanded Access to Career-Connected Advising

In expanding access to college and career advising, Boston Public School members of the initiative’s project team strengthened their implementation of the My Career and Academic Plan (MyCAP). MyCAP is a learner-centered, multi-year planning tool designed to provide learners with ongoing opportunities to plan for their academic, personal, social and career success. Additionally, because MyCAP is student-centered, there is a large focus on anti-bias and equity to inform, advise and mentor learners. This includes expanding learners’ thinking about what is possible and positioning them to move forward in ways they envision future success.

Implementing MyCAP with fidelity across Boston Public Schools requires sustainable and deepened staff capacity at the district’s central office as well as at the school level. Marsha and Erin both support cultivating and maintaining strategic partnerships across the district to align with MyCAP priorities. The collaboration and partnerships during this first year of expanded access to middle-grade learners included leveraging family liaisons who support informing learners and families of opportunities within Boston Public Schools and activating counselor teams that support caseloads of learners in the middle grades. The project team also expanded its reach to include community partnerships that operate in the college and career areas to better serve middle-grade learners. The advantage of bringing these partnerships into the fold allowed greater support for learners with exposure to skills and experiences that support college and career readiness and success (see image).

To actualize expanded access to MyCAP, the project team identified a cohort of schools with grade configurations in the middle grades (grades 6,7 and 8). The team then worked across departments within the school district to increase the capacity to deliver training, guidance and resources to the identified priority schools. Training for school-level staff includes step-by-step instruction on using the tool and leveraging the accompanying resources to draw connections between learners’ interests and college and career opportunities.

To support schools in their efforts, the district staff recommends schools leverage formalized MyCAP plans that articulate how schools will accomplish MyCAP implementation and the set of experiences they will provide for learners over the course of the school year. Due to the intentionality of the district leadership, plans include support systems like additional counselors pushing in, leveraging collaboration with partners and additional guidance from the district team to support the work.

Impact of Expanded Access to MyCAP

As a result of the Boston, Massachusetts project team expanding access to high-quality college and career advising through MyCAP, 45% of 7th-grade learners and 42% of 8th-grade learners in the identified priority schools have completed at least one MyCAP task in the first year of expansion. Additionally, the number of district and school-level staff that are being trained on MyCAP continues to increase; in the first year 150 staff were trained and over 200 individuals have been trained as of October 2023. The group of 200 includes staff representing all of the district’s secondary schools and a dozen of lower-elementary schools.

The district team and school-level staff are also making greater connections with MyCAP to other bodies of work such as transition planning and special education efforts. MyCAP supports the development and implementation of efforts to support learners’ postsecondary readiness and transitions; these components are also in alignment with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). Transitional planning is integral to IEPs and MyCAP is transition planning for learners.

Lessons Learned from Launching Expanded Access to MyCAP

Additional capacity building: A key component of the expansion of MyCAP includes additional capacity building. The project team explicitly highlighted that this work is not possible without a district-level staff member dedicated to serving and supporting school-level staff to implement MyCAP. Erin’s role allows the capacity to sit down with school-level staff to increase counselors’ leadership abilities and competencies. As mentioned earlier, the district provides resources to support this work, however, resources and guidance documents are only useful if there is a staff member to support walking through the planning and implementation process.

School counselor involvement is critical: At the school level, school counselors are needed to support the planning, collaboration and implementation of MyCAP. In schools where the expanded access efforts have been implemented, there is a counselor who has built their team within the school, trained their team and teachers, and informed administrators of the planning and implementation process. This is especially important considering scheduling within school buildings and ensuring that MyCAP is integrated into and across advisory blocks within schools.

Adequate training is essential to advocacy: In addition to better serving learners in their career and college planning, the project team has also noted the increased advocacy efforts of counselors within schools that are implementing expanded access to MyCAP. The project team has noticed when school-level counselors are adequately trained and supported, they take ownership of the implementation process and leverage their leadership to mobilize their peers. This can include accurately communicating the vision of MyCAP, identifying how and when it connects to other school-level staff’s work, offering support to leverage MyCAP and advocating for systems within the school that support learners’ postsecondary success. This is especially exciting to witness given there is no mandate to implement or leverage MyCAP in Boston Public Schools, and signals to the district that in the sea of competing priorities, school counselors, administrators and staff are identifying MyCAP as foundational to learners’ transitions to and through college and careers.

Replicating Expanded Access to College and Career Advising

Providing learners access to high-quality college and career advising is a critical component of supporting learners’ transitions, readiness and preparation for the workforce. Leaders who are interested in replicating the efforts of Boston Public Schools should:

- Prioritize cross-sector capacity building: identify who in the community can come together to help make the effort a shared responsibility.
- Leverage a relationship-centered approach: build the capacity and system to respond to school-level staff’s needs with grace, flexibility and transparency.
- Center learners and their experiences: focus the work of the initiative to implement systems and processes that are most impactful for learners and their communities.

Looking Ahead

As the project team looks forward, they plan to continue the momentum of expanded access to MyCAP and plan to bring in more schools with earlier grade bands like elementary schools in the district. As MyCAP training and implementation expands, the team continues to have a deep focus on equity, aligning inclusive education goals and activating MyCAP at points of transition within learners’ journey.

To learn more about Individual Career and Academic Plans, read Implementing Individual Career and Academic Plans (ICAP) at Scale in the Learning that Works Resource Center. This brief highlights promising practices for ICAP implementation at the state and local levels in Colorado, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin and provides recommendations for further state and local work to scale ICAPs.

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

Read our other New Skills ready network Highlight Blogs from 2023:

By Layla Alagic in CTE Without Limits
Tags: Access and Equity, Boston, career advising, career pathways, career readiness, Equity, ICAP, inclusivity, Massachusetts, New Skills ready network, pathways

2023 Advance CTE Fall Meeting Vision-Focused Workshops: Staff Reflections

Thursday, November 2nd, 2023

Advance CTE’s 2023 Fall Meeting featured two rounds of interactive workshops based on the five foundation commitments of our vision, CTE Without Limits – equity, quality programs and instructors, public-private partnerships, and data and collaboration. These sessions allowed attendees to collaborate together to incubate innovative ideas in these specific topic areas and elevate Career Technical Education (CTE)’s impact in each state. Read our staff’s recaps and reflections on each workshop:

Foundational Commitment 1: Removing Geographic Barriers for Learners Through CTE Without Borders

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

The Foundational Commitment 1 Workshop: Removing Geographic Barriers for Learners Through CTE Without Borders led participants through small and large group discussions and analysis to expand access within and across state borders.

Jennell Ives, Director of the Secondary-Postsecondary Transitions Team at the Oregon Department of Education, offered a strategy for state teams working to expand access that includes an intensive two-day workshop. In this two-day workshop, she recommended states bring together cross-sector teams and champions across agencies to flesh through an action-planning process that addresses expanding statewide access to high-quality CTE and work-based learning opportunities across secondary and postsecondary institutions. Narrowing the time and space to solely focus on expanding access within and across state borders is a strategy to jump-start the work of expanding access and ensuring all partners, actions and responsibilities are aligned and actionable.

Foundational Commitment 2: Creating Opportunities with Stakeholders to Ensure Quality and Impact

Tunisha Hobson, Director, State Policy Implementation

Marcette Kilgore, Texas’ State CTE Director, introduced the process of engaging stakeholders in a program of study refresh which served as a catalyst for an implementation tour to ensure regions in the state were aware of changes to the state’s approved list of programs. The development process included the completion of a skills gap analysis, conducting listening tours, establishing statewide CTE advisory committees and offering and processing public comments through digital submissions. Participants learned about the use of a piloted software, Calibrate, a Skills Engine product created by the Center for Employability Outcomes within the Texas State Technical College System. The Calibrate system allowed employers to enter preferred skills by individual job profiles developed in alignment to the Department of Labor’s Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes.

The Texas Education Agency uploaded the course standards for every program of study which were created by grouping occupations by SOC code. An analysis of the alignment between course standards and industry-identified valuable skills was conducted to determine the gaps the agency needed to address as a priority and to schedule course reviews and rewrites/updates. The remainder of State Director Kilgore’s presentation focused on how this input was not limited to the pilot software but also included steps taken to engage the state’s CTE advisory committee, visit regions in the state and offer public comment opportunities which provided a more structured approach to supporting the redesign.

Yolanda Flores, a member of the Postsecondary State CTE Leaders Fellowship at Advance CTE – Sponsored by ECMC Foundation, presented her real-world project focused on increasing adult learner awareness of opportunities available in manufacturing programs and subsequent in-demand high-wage jobs in Florida. She included an analysis of English Language Learners (ELL) and their access and supports while participating in the program. Her project includes an intervention through hosting a one-day exploration event for adult learners inclusive of ELL. The event not only increased awareness for the learner population, but it also identified for educators and industry partners other necessary interventions for addressing the needs of many more industries and learner groups. Flores was awarded a $170,000 grant to continue the work highlighted in her project to continue expanding access for learners.

Foundational Commitment 3: Advancing the National Career Clusters Framework

Paul Mattingly, Senior Policy Associate

Sheri Smith of Indigo Education Company and Alexandria Wright of WestEd’s Center for Economic Mobility provided an update on the National Career Clusters Framework Revision Project. The National Career Clusters® Framework is undergoing a modernization effort to ensure it remains responsive and relevant to both the world of work and learner needs for decades to come.

Participants in the workshop learned about the mixed method approach utilizing quantitative and qualitative methods for a data-informed process in updating the Framework. Additionally, participants learned of the progress that has been made recently with the Industry Advisory Groups and about the National Implementation Survey to gain knowledge about current and desired future use of the Framework and further support the engagement with those that use the Framework. During the group activities, attendees identified the most important uses and biggest challenges of utilizing the Framework for a variety of stakeholders.

Foundational Commitment 4: Data Dashboard Confessional – Ensuring Data are Actionable, Transparent and Trustworthy

Dan Adams, Associate Director, Data & Research

Dr. Jeffrey Fletcher, Lead Education Consultant at Iowa Department of Education, Bureau of Community Colleges and Postsecondary Readiness framed Iowa’s success with building and using Data Dashboards as involving three specific benchmarks: collaboration with grant recipients; collecting complete/correct data; and limitations such as data matching. The resulting data dashboards are allowing Iowa to monitor student outcomes from enrollment, through different levels of education, successful completion of education, and gainful employment.

Donna Lewelling, Director at the Office of Community Colleges and Workforce Development at Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission described Oregon’s work standing up a postsecondary data dashboard. Critical to Oregon’s success has been building data literacy among those collecting and those using postsecondary CTE data. Oregon’s work is relational, and resources have been devoted to building and sustaining the relationships necessary to create useable data dashboards, as well as providing technical assistance to the field in using data to identify opportunities and obstacles to student success.

Foundational Commitment 5: Seamless Transitions: Continuously Improving Alignment Across Sectors

Eliza Fabillar, Senior Advisor

Alex Perry, Policy Advisor, Foresight Law and Policy, introduced the College in High School Alliance, a national partnership to advance dual enrollment and early college policy. Dual enrollment is growing nationwide, but more work is needed to develop consistent policies to achieve access to dual enrollment for all learners. States need to develop a common vision across sectors, expand the equity mission tied to dual enrollment by focusing on special populations, and be intentional about implementing policies that will advance dual enrollment. At the national level, policymakers and practitioners need to establish common definitions and examine policies and practices that support or hinder progress.

Nancy Ligus, Advance CTE-ECMCF Fellow and Director of Workforce, Continuing Education and Economic Development at Pierpont Community College shared her work on a local workforce system. She differentiated systems versus ecosystems and provided a successful example from West Virginia. She also defined team characteristics that can ensure scalability and elaborated on strategies to form an ecosystem approach as a viable solution toward workforce and economic development goals.

Read our other blogs in the 2023 Fall Meeting recap series:

By Layla Alagic in Advance CTE Fall Meeting
Tags: Access and Equity, Career ClustersÂ®, CTE Data, CTE Vision, CTE Without Limits, dual enrollment, ECMCF, ECMCF Fellows, Geographic barriers, Oregon, texas

Posts Tagged ‘Access and Equity’