career pathways « Advance CTE Blog

Perkins Regional Meetings April and May 2023: Key Takeaways

Thursday, June 8th, 2023

Over April and May 2023, Advance CTE hosted three Perkins Regional Meetings across the country in Minneapolis, Baltimore and Phoenix, with over 200 leaders from across 40 states and territories which was made possible through support from the Gates Foundation. The agenda for the three meetings was designed for state leaders from secondary, postsecondary and workforce development to connect and collaborate on ways to enhance their current Career Technical Education (CTE) systems and programs.

States participated in keynote presentations, workshops, roundtables focused on supporting special populations and cross-state sharing sessions with the intent of building and strengthening the career preparation ecosystem for all learners across the nation. State leaders and our Advance CTE team were both energized by the engagement and inspired by the dedication of all those that attended the meetings and are working to create a high-quality and equitable system that supports all CTE learners.

While each state has its own unique challenges, accomplishments and opportunities, certain recurring themes emerged across multiple states. The national CTE landscape is one of great opportunity but will need support to provide access to high-quality experiences for all CTE learners.

Key Takeaways

Accomplishments

Strong partnerships and support between private industry, education and government leaders to support economic development
Implementation of needed improvements garnered from Comprehensive Local Needs Assessments (CLNA) at the state and local levels
Collaboration and cooperation among state workforce agencies and departments of education and higher education during the Perkins Regional Meetings
Work-based learning (WBL) program guidance on how to focus staffing and funding resources

Challenges

CTE instructor training, recruitment and retention
Staff turnover at both the local and state level
Data management, collection and utilization
Collaboration between secondary, postsecondary and workforce development
Capacity building to meet the demands of learners and region-specific needs

Using the information gained at these meetings, CTE leaders will be able to build upon the accomplishments and help provide resources, tools and support to address the challenges within the current system, with an eye towards how states will leverage the potential to revise or update their Perkins V state plans as their original four-year plans come to a close next spring. Advance CTE continues to be available as a resource to provide best practices, information on innovative policies on the horizon and technical assistance to states to achieve our shared vision of Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education (CTE Without Limits).

As states work to address the challenges they face, Advance CTE has numerous resources available below and through the Learning that Works Resource Center to assist with goal set and challenges identified during the meeting:

Perkins V Supports Teacher Recruitment and Retention
This resource discusses the mechanisms in Perkins V that support teacher recruitment and retention, an overview of how this appears in Perkins V state plans and examples of how states are tackling the challenge of recruiting and retaining qualified and diverse CTE instructors.
Championing High-Quality Data
This brief addresses the importance of a unifying vision for education and workforce that draws upon and regularly uses postsecondary CTE data to measure progress and guide state policy and practice.
Beyond the Numbers: Design Principles for CTE Data Reporting and A Toolkit for Communicating CTE Data
This report, developed with input from a shared solutions workgroup of national and state experts, provides nine principles for developing effective and accessible CTE data reporting tools. A companion toolkit contains guidance, best practices and tools that CTE leaders can use to create communications to help stakeholders better understand and act on CTE data.
Coordinating Across Perkins V and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act
This guide looks at six opportunities to promote coordination across Perkins V and WIOA as states develop and implement plans under Perkins V.
Strengthening Career Pathways Through the Power of State and Local Partnerships
This resource is the third in a series of policy briefs centered on strengthening career pathways. It offers promising practices for leveraging the strengths of state and local leaders to cultivate sustainable, scalable partnerships and advance high-quality career pathways.

Save the Date for our next in-person opportunity to connect and receive support from Advance CTE! Our 2023 Fall Meeting: Elevating CTE’s Impact, will be held October 16-18 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Paul Mattingly, Senior Policy Associate

By Layla Alagic in Uncategorized
Tags: career pathways, CLNA, CTE instruction, CTE Without Limits, Data Collection, data quality, Industry Collaboration, Learning that Works Resource Center, Perkins, Perkins V, Postsecondary Education, Secondary, turnover, WIOA, work-based learning, workforce development

New Skills ready network highlight: Interview with JPMorgan Chase Vice President Deshaun Mars

Wednesday, June 7th, 2023

The New Skills ready network is part of JPMorgan Chase’s (JPMC) 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 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.

As part of ongoing blog topics providing updates on this initiative, Deshaun Mars, Vice President, Global Philanthropy (Job Skills,) and Brice Thomas, Policy Associate engaged in a discussion to highlight JPMC’s view of the initiative and how this work advances JPMC’s philanthropic portfolio and ultimately building high-quality local and state career pathway systems.

How does the work being done in the initiative support the rest of JPMC’s Global Ready Initiative (GCRI) job, skills, and philanthropy portfolio?

As a firm, we are focused on creating a more equitable labor market, and we support policy solutions, organizations and initiatives that help upskill and train the workforce of today for future jobs.

More specifically, our Global Career Readiness Initiative prepares young people, particularly those from historically underserved backgrounds, to build skills and enter the labor force through quality jobs.

This investment highlights the importance of intentional engagement between the education (K-12/higher ed) and business/employer communities to support students and arm them with the resources, skills and access to meaningful career pathways to help power the economy and workforce of the future.

How do you see JPMC leveraging the work being developed through the initiative?

Businesses are grappling with a challenging labor market – there are more job openings than qualified people to fill the roles. This investment helps fill that gap by increasing access to skills, training and resources for young people so they are better prepared to enter the labor force with the skills employers need most.

We are learning how deep cross-sector relationships and partnerships can support young people, communities, and business outcomes. Within our own workforce, we are applying these same principles to transform how we prepare people to compete for well-paying jobs and successful careers.

With multiple sites across the world, we’re able to share best practices and lessons learned to bolster engagement and strengthen the investment.

How does JPMC plan to continue supporting the sites?

Intentional collaboration and partnerships are key to the ongoing support of these sites. We are connecting our local market leaders and the firm’s work across other bodies of work to these partners to help them scale, build capacity and think long-term.

Since we are past the midpoint of this initiative, what do you hope to see from the participating sites?

Continue investing in building out the long-term infrastructure of career pathways so this work is not dependent on one funder.

As sites progress on implementation and sustainability, what encouragement would you share in their continued progress?

We understand how difficult this work is. That is why we made a longer-term investment so our sites have the time to put the infrastructure in place to support and build the local economies of the future.

The New Skills ready network has also supported the creation of several publications and resources designed to engage and support the field. Advance CTE’s Learning that Works Resource Center houses hundreds of reports, briefs and toolkits designed to advance high-quality CTE for our members. The State Work-Based Learning Innovation Tracker, for instance, compiles the work-based learning toolkits from all 50 states to serve as up-to-date models of best practices. Our latest resource from this initiative, the Credit for Prior Learning Messaging Toolkit, provides effective messages targeted to key audiences and strategies for dissemination to increase participation in Credit for Prior Learning among adult learners.

JPMC, New Skills ready network, and Advance CTE remain committed to helping all learners have access to high-quality career pathways.

Brice Thomas, Policy Associate

By Layla Alagic in Achieving Equitable and Inclusive CTE
Tags: career pathways, Colorado, Equity and Access, Indiana, JPMorgan Chase, Massachusetts, New Skills ready network, Ohio, skills training, tennessee, texas

Launch – A Shared Commitment to Advancing High-Quality & Equitable Pathways

Thursday, February 16th, 2023

In Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education (CTE Without Limits), Advance CTE and the 40-plus organizations who signed on to the vision, call for “a career preparation ecosystem that offers each learner access to and the means to succeed in any high-quality CTE program or experience that leads to success in their career of choice.” In the Call to Action, we go on to say “We recognize that this work cannot happen overnight but will require a shared commitment and shared ownership among our leaders and practitioners at the national, state and local levels and across education, workforce development, industry and philanthropy. Only together — through persistence, resilience, bravery, boldness and commitment — can we realize the possibility and aspiration of a new career preparation ecosystem that provides each learner with limitless opportunity.”

It is within this spirit that makes Advance CTE’s participation in the new initiative – Launch: Equitable & Accelerated Pathways for All – so exciting and critical. While Advance CTE is extremely proud of the work we do to support our members and the broader CTE field, we know if we want to change the trajectory of every learner in the nation, we cannot do this work alone.

Launch is a truly unique initiative in that it involves five national partners (Education Strategy Group, ExcelinEd, JFF and New America), six national funders (The Annie E. Casey Foundation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Joyce Foundation and Walton Family Foundation), and cross-sector teams from across 11 states (Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas and Washington).

The partners, funders and state and local teams came together around a shared commitment to quality, equity and innovation – and ready to roll up our sleeves and do the hard work of confronting systemic barriers, particularly those faced by historically marginalized populations, activate the policy and practice levers that will drive scale and sustainability, and generate next-generation solutions to keep our field moving at the pace that our learners and industry demand. Between the Impact and Innovation Cohorts, at the end of the two-years, we will have incredibly strong proof points at the state and local level and new ways of designing pathways systems than we couldn’t have imagined today.

We are grateful and ecstatic to be on this journey with the partners, funders and state and local teams to build the career preparation ecosystem that is truly cohesive, flexible and responsive.

Kate Kreamer, Deputy Executive Director

By Kate Blosveren Kreamer in CTE Without Limits
Tags: career pathways, Launch

Midpoint Highlights of the New Skills ready network

Monday, October 31st, 2022

In February 2020, JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced its New Skills ready network initiative, which bolsters the firm’s efforts to support an inclusive economic recovery. This effort is part of both their $350 million, five-year New Skills at Work initiative to prepare people for the future of work and their $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity.

While there was a lot of excitement – and some uncertainty – about how exactly the work would unfold, we had no idea that, in just a few short weeks after the launch, the world would change as we knew it. Plans of in-person leadership team meetings, extended needs assessments that included focus groups of learners, industry partners and other key stakeholders, and network-wide convenings were all put on hold or adjusted due to the pandemic.

While the ramp up may have slowed down and plans evolved, what never changed was the commitment of the six sites, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Advance CTE and our national partner, Education Strategy Group (ESG) to the ultimate vision of this initiative – to dramatically increase equitable access to and success in high-quality career pathways and experiences that lead to good jobs for all learners across these communities. This became even more important as the pandemic laid bare the deep and abiding inequities in our education system, workforce and society, particularly for learners and communities of color.

We are now two-and-a-half years into the five-year initiative and there is a lot to celebrate! New Skills ready network is a bold and audacious initiative that aims to achieve both systems change at the ecosystem level while also improving programmatic opportunities for learners and industry partners in real time. It is no easy feat to build a career preparation ecosystem that engages and brings along K-12 districts, two- and four-year institutions, intermediaries, state agencies and industry partners – while also implementing new pathways, advising structures and other critical programmatic improvements at the school and institutional level.

So what have we learned?

Programmatic improvements are critical but can always be swept away with a change in leadership, funding or priorities. To achieve true sustainable change and equitable opportunities requires a focus on the overall systems. We’re impressed at how sites are focusing on the system-level work of building true buy-in, deepening partnerships between the state and local level and across institutions, and strengthening data collection, sharing and use across partner organizations.
Equity must be at the core of the work – as both a moral and economic imperative. As such, sites are engaging learners and families to understand their motivations and concerns, assessing the cultural wealth and assets within school buildings, providing ongoing professional development to system leaders and instructors to build shared understanding of systemic barriers to equity and other key activities.
In order to build sustainable systems, sites can’t simply add new pathways and related experiences, but also must transform or sunset what isn’t working – be it outdated advising models, misaligned pathways or work-based learning that isn’t accessible or meaningful to learners.
New Skills must be built into the communities’ broader career pathways ecosystem. Given the increased interest and investments in career pathways over the last decade, we are finding that the work supported by New Skills is an accelerant to those efforts – or even the glue that holds them together.

For more on site-specific progress, check out the:

2021-22 New Skills ready network snapshots and annual report.
Videos and graphics, released by ESG, elevating the sites’ “big bets” for the year ahead.

Kate Kreamer, Deputy Executive Director

By Stacy Whitehouse in Uncategorized
Tags: career pathways, Colorado, Data Collection, Equity and Access, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Skills ready network, Ohio, tennessee, texas

State CTE Policy Update: Ohio’s Manufacturing Pathways

Thursday, October 27th, 2022

October 7 was National Manufacturing Day but, in Ohio, the celebration lasts the entire month. . Ohio uses this time to raise awareness of the various manufacturing pathways available to learners in the state and inspire those learners to join. Ohio already has significant investments in the manufacturing economy which generates more than $125 billion. However, knowledge of how many different skill sets and jobs are available in the industry is still not widespread. By taking advantage of Manufacturers Month, this post highlights the innovative ways Ohio is uplifting the manufacturing pathway as well as leveraging the support of The Ohio Manufacturers’ Association (OMA), which is bringing awareness to various grants and programs, some of which have been made recently available to Ohio residents.

In August, the OMA was named one of the 32 finalists for the “Good Jobs Challenge” grant, a $500 million grant created by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. Over the next three years, around 1,000 of the OMA’s member-employers will benefit from the new funding, which is designed to support local industry partners in their efforts to coordinate, develop and promote workforce solutions in manufacturing. The OMA is currently seeking to enroll 6,000 individuals in one or more training programs that lead to a job offer or upskilling opportunity.

In addition to the work OMA is doing to promote the manufacturing pathway, Ohio offers the TechCred program, an initiative highlighted in Advance CTE’s area technical center research, which is designed to reimburse employers that pay for credentialing of their employees. This program specifically targets technology-focused credentials but has an easy-to-use website for employers to check which credentials are reimbursable and allow them to submit new tech credits for consideration. The program has been active since 2019 and has provided over 48,000 tech-focused credentials to Ohio manufacturing employees.

Ohio has also used legislation to advance manufacturing pathways beyond Manufacturer Month. Last year Senate Bill 166 was enacted that mandates that the Department of Education in partnership with JobsOhio create a program that provides funding to incentivize work-based learning programs offered to learners in a Career Technical Education (CTE) program and allows the creation of virtual and hybrid CTE programs to be offered. These work-based learning programs must be aligned with Ohio state standards but may also be offered remotely or through a hybrid modality to learners enrolled in a CTE program. This legislation is a great step towards enabling learners to access CTE without borders by ensuring that virtual opportunities are quality, equitable and meaningful.

Ohio is doing its part to create a strong manufacturing ecosystem that is accessible to its learners. All states can participate in manufacturing month by following some of their examples by:

Building and supporting strong industry partnerships;
Building pathways and removing barriers for necessary industry credentials; and
Providing innovative and equitable work-based learning opportunities for learners.

Here are some helpful resources:

Brice Thomas, Policy Associate

By Stacy Whitehouse in Public Policy
Tags: career pathways, CTE Legislation, manufacturing, Ohio, work-based learning

New Resource: Elevating Family Voice in Career Pathways

Wednesday, October 5th, 2022

Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education (CTE Without Limits) calls on leaders to ensure that each learner feels welcome in, is supported by and has the means to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem. One avenue Advance CTE is utilizing to realize this vision is the New Skills ready network, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. funded initiative which draws on cross-sector partnerships in six cities composed of state, regional and local partners. Building flexible and responsive career pathways systems at each level requires leaders to provide meaningful and ongoing mechanisms for elevating learner voice, and the voices of learners’ families and communities, to share their unique experiences and have direct and ongoing input into the design and delivery of career pathways.

As state leaders continue to assess and adjust program throughout the career pathways continuum, including CTE, steps should be taken too identify the full scope of institutional barriers in policies and programs, develop learner-centric programs and interventions and build trust with marginalized learners and communities to ensure their voices and perspectives are brought to the forefront of decisions.

In support of this effort, Advance CTE’s new brief, Elevating Family Voice in Career Pathways, includes five strategies as well as actions, tools and resources leaders can leverage to effectively and meaningfully engage families in every stage of career pathways development.

This resource details the challenges and opportunities associated with family engagement and provides promising approaches to comprehensive family engagement practices. Some examples of promising approaches and strategies that are meaningfully engaging families include:

A New York school district is adopting an asset-based approach to family engagement by mitigating the challenges faced by families that hinder their engagement with the school system. The Sherburne-Earlville Central School District implemented initiatives aimed at collectively responding to the economic deprivation experienced by families the district served. The superintendent collected information from parents and families to understand their challenges and provided financial resources to ease their financial burdens. The district built trusting relationships with families and leveraged their engagement to inform the development of programs available to learners. As states remedy the barriers to meaningful engagement with families, leveraging similar practices to ensure families of all backgrounds have the access and opportunities to engage with leadership to elevate their voices, experiences and expertise of supporting their learners can be successful.
School districts in Indiana and Washington are establishing family engagement as a system-level priority by integrating family engagement as commitments in their equity agendas. Indianapolis Public Schools and Highline Public Schools have equity policies that guide the strategic direction for the districts’ efforts to reduce and dismantle inequities. The policies signal a district-wide commitment to equity, including recognizing the value and importance of family engagement to learner success. Both districts leverage family advisory groups and other engagement series that provide meaningful feedback to district leadership. As state leaders prioritize family engagement, embedding the priority in policy will ensure the practices continue regardless of shifts in personnel. States can ensure family engagement remains a priority throughout systems and achieve engagement goals with families with clear and actionable priorities that signal to the community their commitment to elevating family inclusion.
The Denver, Colorado, New Skills ready network site lead organization, The Attainment Network, is building capacity for family engagement. The intermediary organization supports Colorado’s career pathway ecosystem in meaningful community and family engagement by developing comprehensive learner and family engagement strategies including a community of practice to help identify barriers to success and inform decisions around policies and programs. With strategic collaboration, states can leverage their partners to embed family engagement in every stage of career pathway development to ensure equity and provide meaningful and ongoing mechanisms to elevate family, learner and community input.

Read about more promising examples and five implementation strategies in Elevating Family Voice in Career Pathways For more resources on developing high-quality career pathways, please visit the New Skills ready network series page in the Learning that Works Resource Center .

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

By Stacy Whitehouse in Publications
Tags: career pathways, Colorado, Indiana, Learner Engagement, learner voice, New Skills ready network, New York, Washington State

New Skills ready network Site Highlight: Cultivating Strong State-Local Partnerships in Indianapolis, Indiana

Tuesday, October 4th, 2022

This post is part of a blog series highlighting promising practices from the New Skills ready network, an initiative of JPMorgan Chase & Co. For more information about the initiative, please see the bottom of this post.

For this post, Senior Policy Associate Dan Hinderliter interviewed Indiana State CTE Director Anthony Harl and Ascend Indiana Vice President and Co-founder Stephanie Bothun about driving intentional connections between state and local partners. In Indiana, the Office of Career and Technical Education (CTE) is embedded in the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet (GWC), which serves as the state’s workforce board. Ascend Indiana (Ascend) is an initiative of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership and acts as a non-profit talent and workforce development intermediary connecting education and industry.

Building Systems Around Common Goals

One major component of the New Skills ready network is a focus on systems-level change involving a variety of stakeholders at both the state and local levels. The Office of CTE in Indiana naturally sits at the intersection of education and work, but the creation of the GWC in 2018 and the subsequent move of the Office of CTE underneath the umbrella of the GWC further allowed the Office of CTE to have a foot in the talent development space and a foot in education. This change spurred many of the partnership conversations that may not have sparked otherwise. The New Skills ready network subsequently sparked an official partnership between the Office of CTE and more local partners, like Ascend.

While state-level initiatives were designed to be relatively independent, both the Indiana Office of CTE and Ascend were clear that participation in and development of these initiatives were about building a larger ecosystem to create linkages and build relationships that support young people on their education and career path. Though Ascend and the Office of CTE did not have an initial objective of an intentional partnership, they quickly connected over a shared understanding of a core mission – that all young people in Indiana, especially those from underrepresented and underserved populations, have access to the skills and pathways that allow them to get to postsecondary or in-demand training opportunities, ultimately as a route to the career they want.

Review of Indianapolis outcomes data revealed further CTE completion and postsecondary attainment gaps that disproportionately affect Latinx and Black learners, illustrating specific needs in the Indianapolis community that Bothun, Harl, and other New Skills ready network team members knew needed to be addressed.

This mutual touchstone allows for open and regular conversations that build between and across initiatives. In turn, this creates a connection, coordination, and cohesion between stakeholders working towards this similar goal and objective. Because partners are often the same on different state initiatives, conversations from one initiative carry across other conversations. The trust and goodwill built through collective work toward common goals allows each initiative and project to be successful as each partner recognizes the commitment each other partner has toward the overarching goal.

“It’s about a web of connections and networking – a really passionate group of individuals that are all trying to, through their own little niche, just make things better for Indiana.” – Anthony Harl, State CTE Director, Indiana Governor’s Workforce Cabinet

Collaborative Problem-Solving

Since this initial partnership developed through the New Skills ready network, Ascend and the Office of CTE have collaborated on quite a few other initiatives to solve specific problems connected to this core mission. Ascend was already building out programs around modern youth apprenticeship; as a result of existing work and new relationships, Ascend was able to connect directly to statewide apprenticeship initiatives and help support whole-scale progress at the state level. Ascend also now helps organize and collaborate with the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet on a statewide youth apprenticeship community of practice, initiatives around career advising, and on federal Department of Labor grants. They have also previously collaborated on a state-wide subcommittee to provide recommendations to support work-based learning.

Both local and state leaders realize that while individual challenges of overhauling career pathways, improving equity in CTE programs, or creating statewide modern youth apprenticeship programs might be overwhelming, collaborations between partner levels allow teams to tackle issues collectively. As a naturally positioned convener of these groups, the Office of CTE can regularly help inform on who is best positioned to take on what work across the state. Because of their long-standing role in education and workforce development, the state can also provide historical context to many of the challenges, including what work has been tried before and what stakeholders had previously been consulted. The GWC also has a more comprehensive understanding of what work is in whose locus of control including what policy or funding levers can be activated or who can best be mobilized to take on specific workstreams and can provide insight into scalability and feasibility for larger scale initiatives.

“We’ve rallied to this point in our community, we all know the problems are too big for anybody to solve individually. And it’s really been such a powerful motivator, I think for all of us to say, ‘What are all the ways we’re collectively tackling these issues, maybe from slightly different lenses?’” -Stephanie Bothun, Ascend Indiana

On the other hand, local groups like Ascend can provide specific insight into implementation, including what works well in a pilot, what specific resources might need to be developed or what unforeseen challenges are arising. This interplay allows for expanded collaboration around all areas and facilitates progress that would not otherwise have been possible independently.

Successful Strategies and Lessons Learned

As part of the conversation, Bothun and Harl shared a few key strategies for developing and maintaining the partnerships and communicated some takeaways for other states and local partners working to build better partnerships of their own:

While natural collaboration is possible, an initial spark is necessary. Federal law, like the Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment component of the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V), or grant-funded initiatives like the New Skills ready network require cross-level collaborations. It’s often these mandated conversations that provide the impetus for collaboration. As state leaders create programs or initiatives, building in components that require stakeholders to have regular, collective conversations can be the spark that an initiative needs to begin the partnership process.
Partnerships are relational, not transactional. Participating in these conversations and collaborations requires a recognition that one group is unable to do everything alone. This means showing up, participating, and demonstrating commitment to the work. Both Bothun and Harl reiterated that explicit and demonstrated investment of one’s time, energy and expertise indicates to other partners that a stakeholder is committed, which in turn brings others more wholly into the project.
Constant communication is key. Regular communication efforts not only help exhibit the commitment of a group to an initiative, but also help those stakeholders be proactive about upcoming work. Open communication channels can further be a way of remaining transparent about delays, removing surprises, or easing barriers to difficult to access information, like student data.
Partnership means a shared value add for both parties. In order for both partners to fully commit to the work, there must be a demonstrated value add, whether that’s pushing to bring a greater visibility to others work, aligning objectives on other projects, or even just challenging one’s thinking.

Dan Hinderliter, Senior Policy Associate

About the Blog Series

In 2020, JPMorgan Chase & Co. launched the New Skills ready network across six domestic sites to improve student completion of high-quality career pathways with a focus on collaboration and equity. As a national partner in the New Skills ready network, Advance CTE strives to elevate the role of state capacity and resources in advancing project priorities and gain a unique perspective on promising practices to strengthen state-local partnerships across the country.

This blog post continues a series that highlights innovative tools and initiatives produced across Boston, Massachusetts; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Nashville, Tennessee, that advance the initiative’s four key priorities and serve as a guide for state leaders in their work to create cohesive, flexible and responsive career pathways.

For more information about the New Skills ready network, please visit our Learning that Works Resource Center.

By Stacy Whitehouse in Uncategorized
Tags: career pathways, Indiana, New Skills ready network, systems alignment

Legislative Update: House Advances FY23 Perkins V Funding Measure

Friday, July 1st, 2022

This week the House Committee on Appropriations considered and marked up its federal fiscal year 2023 (FY23) Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill– legislation that would provide funding to the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor as well as the programs that these agencies administer and oversee.

House Lawmakers Advance FY23 Education Funding Bill

The House Committee on Appropriations has been busy the last few weeks finalizing each of the 12 individual spending bills that compose the federal government budget. As shared last week, the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies marked up and passed the federal fiscal year 2023 (FY23) Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Bill. This bill was further amended and later approved by the full committee on Thursday, June 30, by party-line vote 32-24. This legislation, which provides funding for the U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Labor (DOL), as well as the programs these agencies administers, will now be knitted together later this month as part of a wider FY23 spending package House Democrats hope to pass in the near future.

If enacted, the funding measure would provide $45 million for the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act’s (Perkins V) basic state grant program– a funding increase that exceeds President Biden’s request for this program and is aligned to what Congress provided in FY22. As CTE programs grapple with inflation and employers struggle to meet their labor needs, Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education have continued to work with partners on Capitol Hill to secure an even larger investment in FY23 for this critically important program. The proposal also includes $50 million in additional funding for President Biden’s “Career Connected High School” initiative which, if enacted, would provide competitive grants to consortia of applicants. In addition, related report language from the bill would direct ED to improve data collection efforts to better understand CTE teacher shortages.

Advance CTE expects the full House chamber to take up all 12 individual spending bills that compose the federal budget later this month. Further activity in the Senate on federal appropriations is still forthcoming and will likely resume when lawmakers return from their annual July 4 recess on July 11.

Steve Voytek, Policy Advisor

By Stacy Whitehouse in Uncategorized
Tags: basic state grant, career pathways, Carl D. Perkins Act, Department of Education, Department of Labor, House Appropriations Committee, Perkins V

Legislative Update: Walsh Testifies on FY23 as FCC Releases New Funding

Friday, June 24th, 2022

Over the last two weeks, the U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh testified before Congress on the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) federal fiscal year 2023 (FY23) budget request while lawmakers in the House advanced FY23 appropriations legislation with implications for Career Technical Education (CTE) funding. Advance CTE also endorsed legislation aimed at promoting career awareness this week, while the Senate held a hearing on the pandemic’s impact on students’ learning. In addition, the Federal Communications Commission disbursed additional connectivity funds as part of a wider effort to provide affordable access to high-quality internet connections and devices, while the U.S. Department of Education (ED) published new rules for Title IX.

Labor Secretary Walsh Testifies on USDOL FY23 Budget Request

Last week U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh testified before the House Education and Labor Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee regarding his Department’s FY23 budget request. Secretary Walsh and members of the committees discussed a wide range of topics including apprenticeship programs and other issues impacting workforce development efforts. Archived webcasts of these hearings, including testimony, can be found here and here.

House Lawmakers Release and Markup FY23 Education Funding Bill

On Thursday, June 23, the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies held a hearing to consider and markup the FY23 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Bill. If enacted the bill would provide a 13 percent increase for ED and a nearly 12 percent increase for DOL over FY22 enacted funding levels. According to a preliminary summary document from the committee, the legislation proposes a $45 million increase for the Carl D. Perkins Act (Perkins V) basic state grant program — a 3.3 percent increase over FY22 enacted levels. The bill would also provide an additional $75 million for Student Support and Academic Enrichment state grants– a program authorized under Title IV-A of the Every Student Succeeds Act. In addition, the legislation proposes significant increases to core formula programs authorized under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) as well as for apprenticeship programs.

Late Thursday evening the subcommittee advanced this legislation by voice vote for further consideration by the full House Appropriations Committee—a next step that is currently scheduled for June 30. An archive webcast of the markup, including bill text, can be found here. Additional details about this spending package are still forthcoming and Advance CTE anticipates having additional clarity regarding the committee’s priorities next week ahead of the full committee markup.

Advance CTE Endorses Career Counseling and Awareness Legislation

This week, Representative Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA) and Derek Kilmer (D-WA) introduced the Creating Opportunities to Thrive and Advance Act (COTA)– legislation that, if enacted, would expand career counseling and awareness efforts funded by WIOA. Specifically, the legislation would allow certain WIOA funds to be used to allow for public outreach efforts highlighting CTE programs that lead to in-demand occupations and sectors. Advance CTE endorsed this legislation this week with the organization’s Executive Director Kimberly Green commenting, in part, “Understanding the career options available in high-growth, high-wage and in-demand fields is crucial for success in today’s economy. Advance CTE commends the introduction of this legislation which will promote awareness of the Career Technical Education programs that lead to these opportunities, helping to ensure more learners are empowered to pursue rewarding careers now and in the future.” More information about the bill can be found here.

Senate HELP Committee Holds Pandemic Learning Hearing

On Wednesday, June 22, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a hearing titled “Supporting Students and Schools: Promising Practices to Get Back on Track.” The hearing focused on the impact of the pandemic on student learning and how schools are working to reverse student learning loss and get them back on track. During the question and answer portion of the hearing, Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) raised the issue of teacher shortages in critical areas such as CTE. She noted, in part, that “in Nevada, we’re hearing that we have about 1500 CTE educator positions, currently unfilled due to insufficient resources” and asked witnesses how best this persistent challenge could be addressed moving forward. An archived webcast, including witness testimony, can be accessed here.

ED Proposes New Title IX Rule

On Thursday, June 23, the U.S. Department of Education proposed a set of changes to Title IX regulations—rules that are intended to prohibit sex discrimination at federally funded schools. The announcement coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Title IX and would expand these protections for transgender students among a host of other changes that determine how K-12 and postsecondary institutions must respond to complaints of sexual discrimination, harassment, or assault. The proposal will be published on the Federal Register soon, with ED inviting the public to comment and provide feedback on the proposal. In the meantime, an unofficial version of the proposal can be accessed here.

ED Hosts Pathways Event

On Tuesday, June 21, the U.S. Department of Education hosted a virtual event titled “Pathways in Action.” The event convened experts and stakeholders including community colleges, employers, school districts, workforce development boards, and community-based organizations to share perspectives and best practices for how to advance high-quality career and college pathways for more learners. The event also emphasized the various roles that federal agencies have in implementing these pathways efforts as well as identifying areas where more improvements are needed to ensure that each learner can benefit from these opportunities. The convening is part of ED’s wider efforts to promote a proposed “Career Connected High Schools” initiative as part of its FY23 budget request. More on the event can be found here.

DOL Hosts Good Jobs Summit

Also on Tuesday, June 21, the U.S. Department of Labor hosted a “Good Jobs” summit– a full day event highlighting how the Biden Administration is administering and prioritizing job quality through federal investments. The summit featured the release of a “Good Jobs Principles” which identifies specific aspects of what constitutes quality employment. Launched at the start of 2022 and led by DOL, the Good Jobs initiative is a multi-agency effort to promote and improve quality employment opportunities for more workers. More information can be found here. In addition to these efforts, President Biden recently announced a Talent Pipeline Challenge which encourages stakeholders to commit to supporting workforce development efforts, including aspects of these ongoing initiatives.

FCC Announces New Funding Commitments

Recently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the first wave of funding commitments from its most recent third filing window for the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF). Created as part of the American Rescue Plan, the ECF Program allows eligible schools and libraries to apply for financial support to purchase connected devices like laptops and tablets, Wi-Fi hotspots, modems, routers, and broadband connectivity to serve unmet needs of students, school staff, and library patrons at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Securing initial funding for the ECF was one of Advance CTE’s legislative priorities during the public health emergency. This new wave of funding includes over $244 million in funds to support 259 schools, 24 libraries and 1 consortium. $5.1 billion in total funding has been approved to date as part of previous ECF funding windows.

Steve Voytek, Policy Advisor

By Stacy Whitehouse in Public Policy
Tags: career advising, career pathways, Communicating CTE, COVID-19, Department of Labor, FCC, HELP Committee, House Appropriations Committee, Student Supports, Title IX

Early innovations and lessons emerge in Year Two New Skills ready network Annual Report and Site Snapshots

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2022

Today, Advance CTE and Education Strategy Group (ESG) released an annual report and site snapshots for year two of the New Skills ready network initiative. The five-year initiative, part of JPMorgan Chase and Co.’s $350 million global New Skills at Work program and $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity, aims to improve student completion of high-quality, equitable career pathways to gain skills needed for the future of work, particularly among learners of color and other historically marginalized learners.

The New Skills ready network focuses on six domestic sites as illustrated in the graphic below. As a partner in this initiative, Advance CTE strives to elevate the role of state capacity and resources in advancing project priorities. Additionally, we have gained a unique perspective on promising practices to strengthen state-local partnerships across the country.

Looking across each of the snapshots, key priorities emerged as trends for the six sites.

First, many sites continued or finalized the mapping and analysis of career pathways to determine alignment and quality across learner levels. Indianapolis, Indiana, for example, completed their process that was started in year one of evaluating their career pathways against a criteria review tool, which examined access for non-traditional populations, credential attainment, course sequencing, and connection to labor market information, among other criteria. The review also aligned the pathways with the state’s Next Level Programs of Study (NLPS), statewide course sequences which aim to improve consistency, quality, and intentionality of CTE instruction throughout Indiana.

Career advising initiatives were also a major theme for sites in year two, as sites considered how to expand support for learners through a career journey. The Nashville, Tennessee, team prioritized aligned career advising from middle school through postsecondary, with the goal of expanding individualized support. This work, built upon a college and career advising framework developed in year one, was implemented by College and Career Readiness Coaches embedded in select Metro Nashville Public Schools.

Boston, Massachusetts, set expansion of work-based learning as a key focus for year two, as multiple sites discussed how to align work-based learning efforts across learner levels and open more apprenticeship and virtual learning opportunities. The Boston Private Industry Council, the Workforce Investment Board and Boston Public Schools collaborated to ensure a shared commitment to work-based learning and strengthen data collection efforts surrounding participation in work-based learning. Other sites established common definitions of work-based learning to ensure that all partners were consistent in discussions about access.

The snapshots also previewed work for year three of the initiative, as each site recently participated in action planning processes that informed future work. Each site has ambitious goals for year three, largely informed by lessons learned in preceding years. Some sites, like Columbus, Ohio, are continuing communications and messaging work supported by learner-tested messages that seek to inform learners about available career pathways supports and opportunities. Other sites, like Denver, Colorado, are continuing data collection and analysis efforts, finalizing data frameworks, and aligning data systems across institutions. Finally, some sites such as Dallas, Texas, are aligning their efforts with other initiatives in their cities and ensuring that all partners can equitably support learners citywide.

Visit Advance CTE’s New Skills ready network series page to read the full annual report and a snapshot of each site’s innovative partnerships and early accomplishments across the four project priorities. Our New Skills ready network collection page provides additional resources for strengthening career pathways.