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States Make Progress in Strengthening Meaningful Learner Engagement in CTE

August 22nd, 2023

Career Technical Education (CTE) programs must be designed with learners, not simply for learners, to be responsive to their diverse needs at every stage of the CTE continuum. Being responsive to diverse learner needs can occur only if learners have direct and ongoing input into the design and delivery of CTE programs and experiences. This blog provides an overview of the Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen CTE Technical Assistance cohort; highlights the states in the cohort that are meaningfully engaging CTE learners to inform CTE programs and policies; and shares links to resources to support states in engaging CTE learners.

Over the past seven months, Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) provided training, resources and coaching to help states identify opportunities to engage learners more meaningfully in the design and delivery of CTE programs and experiences. The cohort of states (Colorado, Delaware, New Hampshire, Oregon and Wisconsin), engaged in six 90-minute virtual sessions and individual coaching sessions to work through the Learner Voice Toolkit to develop and execute on strategies for leveraging learner voice in CTE policies and programs.

Over the course of the technical assistance sessions and coaching calls, each state team developed a comprehensive Action Plan to leverage meaningful learner engagement in the development of CTE programs and policies. The Action Plans are guiding the states’  actions over the next year to improve and systematize their learner engagement. 

Action Plan Development

The development of the Action Plan took place in stages. States first completed an organizational capacity assessment to understand the existing structures, policies, relationships and resources that can support the expansion of learner engagement practices. 

States then identified high-level goals in which they envisioned what meaningful learner engagement would look like in their states to support CTE program improvement, CTE policy development, learner supports, Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA) process improvement with learner engagement and more. After identifying the goals, states mapped the actions that needed to be taken in order to achieve their goals. 

Through the development of each state’s Action Plan, states included learners’ feedback and input. States engaged learners in focus groups, interviews, surveys, advisory board meetings and more to capture their input and reflect their thoughts in the Action Plans. States in the cohort were supported by Advance CTE with a pool of funds to compensate learners for their time and expertise engaging with state agencies. Over the course of the Action Plan development phase, states in the cohort engaged more than 400 learners.

Early Areas of Success

Prioritizing learner engagement in the development of Action Plans is not a common practice, however, states in the technical assistance cohort are already seeing the value of more meaningfully engaging learners in CTE program development and improvement. 

Wisconsin learned from learners in their state the type of communication they prefer for engagements, the compensation rate they need to engage in events and meetings, the areas of CTE that student voices are most needed and the roles they are most interested in engaging in. 

New Hampshire leveraged the input from learners from their statewide survey to develop a toolkit for regional and local practitioners to improve learner engagement at their CTE centers. 

Colorado and Oregon engaged learners in a mix of focus groups and surveys to learn what they enjoy about CTE, challenges they experience in CTE programs and ways their state agency can do a better job of incorporating learner voice. Both states focused on engaging learners who were not typically included in focus groups or surveys to ensure they had a broad range of voices.

Delaware leveraged learners’ input and leadership and now has two simultaneous learner-led cohorts supporting the development of a new teacher preparation program of study and leadership training for Career and Technical Student Organization (CTSO) leaders. The learners leading the cohorts support the state agency and foster deeper engagement with their peers across their state to expand the reach of meaningful learner engagement. 

Looking Ahead

As the official cohort technical assistance sessions come to a close, states in the cohort will continue to engage in coaching sessions with Advance CTE and ACTE to actualize the goals they identified in their Action Plans. 

Additionally, Advance CTE will continue to hold space for state leaders to come together to discuss opportunities to improve meaningful learner engagement in CTE in Community of Practice sessions. These one-hour sessions will be held bimonthly from August 2023 through February 2024 and will be open to all states interested in learning more about meaningful learner engagement in CTE. To register to attend the Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen CTE Communities of Practice, please fill out the form on this page. 

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate, Advance CTE

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Funding Career Technical Education: Secondary CTE Funding Basics

August 21st, 2023

Providing high-quality Career Technical Education (CTE) requires robust, sustained funding designed to be responsive to the evolving and diverse needs of industry and learners. State leaders make decisions every day on how to direct funding where it is needed most and having knowledge about how other states are funding secondary CTE will help with decision making. Adequate and equitable funding allows learners to engage in a cohesive, flexible and responsive career preparation system as described in Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Eduction (CTE Without Limits). This blog provides a background on CTE funding and describes various models and approaches states use to fund secondary CTE.

States rely on a mix of federal, state and local policies to provide funding sources for secondary CTE.1 The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins V*) is the primary federal investment in secondary and postsecondary CTE. A state’s share of funding is determined by a statutory formula based on the age distribution of the state’s population and its per-capita income. The remaining 15 percent of allocations are used to support state leadership and administration activities.2 States have flexibility in determining how funds are allocated between secondary and postsecondary CTE, with an average of 62 percent of funding going to secondary programs and 38 percent supporting postsecondary programs for fiscal year 2022 (FY22).3

CTE programs can be costly to run because of the need for specialized equipment/facilities, smaller class sizes and additional staffing.4 Federal funding through Perkins V alone cannot meet those costs, so many states make a financial commitment to support CTE. Local and philanthropic partners also support CTE at the district level. Funding at the state level for secondary CTE is varied and complex.

However, there are distinct processes that can be organized into several state models. To categorize state funding models for FY22, Advance CTE used the definitions of foundational and categorical funding and the respective approaches found in State Strategies for Financing Career and Technical Education5; additionally, a new definition of hybrid funding was developed.

Foundational funding finances programs out of general state aid formulas. Local administrators must decide how funds should be distributed across educational priorities (which may or may not include CTE).6

Categorical funding is dedicated funding for CTE programs that is distributed to Local Education Agencies (LEAs) to support CTE. These approaches — which may include cost-based, student-based and/or unit-based formulas — typically target state funding for the use of CTE programming.7 There are three approaches to how LEAs receive this funding: 

  • Cost-based approach — LEAs are compensated for CTE services based on their actual reported costs from the prior academic year. States may cap or limit the rate at which eligible expenses are reimbursed.8
  • Student-based approach — States distribute funds relative to the number of CTE learners enrolled based on the full-time equivalent or average daily membership calculation in an LEA.
    9
  • Unit-based approach — States distribute funds based on a set of educational units (and their related costs) used to deliver CTE. Units may include pupils, instructors, equipment or materials.10

Hybrid funding is a new funding model formulated by Advance CTE that reflects states that implement components of multiple categorical funding approaches. 

States may also direct funding specifically for area technical centers (ATCs) to deliver CTE programming. This funding is often in addition to one of the previously stated models, which fund secondary CTE programs more broadly across a state. More information about ATCs can be found in Advance CTE’s website: A 50-State Analysis of Area Technical Centers.11

Advance CTE recognizes that state leaders desire more in-depth information about secondary state CTE funding to maximize current models or to pursue reforms towards more effective and equitable funding models. To meet this need, stay tuned for the release of our 2023 State of CTE: An Analysis of State Secondary CTE Funding Models in late August! The research report and accompanying website provide insights into current national trends in state secondary CTE funding and recommendations to enhance equity in the design and delivery of funding. 

*As amended by the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act 

Dr. Laura Maldonado, Senior Research Associate

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New Skills ready network Highlight Blog: Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen Career Pathways

July 26th, 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.

Denver, Colorado’s vision for the NSrn initiative, aims to “dramatically increase the number and diversity of students who complete selected high-quality career pathways that start in high school, continue into and through higher education, and lead to good jobs in Denver’s labor market.”

Over the past three years, the project team has achieved significant milestones in the development of high-quality, equitable career pathways including building a shared data framework, aligning work-based learning opportunities within high-quality career pathways and enhancing the learner experience when transitioning from secondary to postsecondary institutions. Under the leadership of the site lead, The Attainment Network, the project team leverages strategic cross-sector partnerships while centering equity and learner voice to enhance and improve their career pathways work. 

A critical component of the Denver, Colorado, site work includes centering and leveraging the voices of learners to understand their experiences, barriers and opportunities and shaping career pathways aligned with their needs.In April 2023, The Attainment Network held their second annual Learner Voice Symposium which brought together an audience of educators, employers and policymakers to hear directly from Colorado learners what they seek in career-connected pathways and how they define success.

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate, Advance CTE, interviewed Rana Tarkenton, Chief Operating Officer, The Attainment Network to discuss the importance of leveraging learner voice in career pathways and how others might replicate their efforts to meaningfully engage learners in the design and implementation of career pathways.

Overview of the Learner Voice Symposium Event

The purpose of the Learner Voice Symposium is to elevate highlights from learners’ diverse perspectives and backgrounds and provide actionable insights to improve and expand pathways for all learners. The Symposium serves as a reminder to partners of the reason why they engage in this work and elevates the voices of learners who are not always invited to the table when developing and implementing career pathways. Learners, who are not simply the receivers of the work of career pathways, but rather the experts in their experiences, provide critical feedback to leaders. 

The Symposium fills a gap in the career preparation ecosystem in Colorado; leaders developing career-connected pathways are continuously striving to improve the system and learners are disconnected from the leaders who need to hear their voices most. The Attainment Network identified this gap and provides career pathway partners the space to listen to and reflect learner voices in their work in the form of The Symposium. 

The Symposium held virtually on Zoom, included a keynote speaker who is a practitioner that engages with learners frequently and specializes in community engagement, and breakout sessions that are co-led by learners who are compensated for their time and expertise. The Symposium is attended by a wide audience including practitioners in secondary and postsecondary education, college and career advisors, state agency providers, policymakers and employer partners.  

Participants have the opportunity to attend breakout sessions of their choosing covering topics like authentic youth engagement in career pathways, immigrant and undocumented learner experiences, non-traditional learners and pathways and more. Presenting organizations that support the sessions include Ednium, The San Luis Valley Boys & Girls Clubs, Emily Griffith Technical College, MSU Denver and more.

All of the information shared during The Learner Voice Symposium is centered on elevating the experiences of learners and incorporating their voices in the development of career-connected pathways. At the close of The Symposium, The Attainment Network announced their Learner Voice Grants that organizations and institutions can apply for to support and enhance their meaningful learner engagement efforts. 

Impact of The Learner Voice Symposium on the New Skills ready network 

The learner engagement in The Learner Voice Symposium supports the Denver, Colorado, New Skills ready network team in their communications strategies as they develop materials and messaging to better connect learners and families to career-connected pathway opportunities. Additionally, Denver Public Schools (DPS), a secondary partner for the New Skills ready network site, and the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) are two of the grantees for the Learner Voice Grant. DPS and CDHE leverage the grant funding to support their learner engagement work in the development of local and state-level career pathways. 

With more than 175 attendees of The Symposium, The Attainment Network models meaningful learner engagement for its system-wide network. The Network, being a statewide intermediary, supports strengthening the career pathway ecosystem and strengthens relationships with system partnerships that impact learners. 

Further, the Denver, Colorado, project team also elevates the voices and feedback from learners in state-level policy. The Attainment Network, alongside the Colorado Department of Education and the Colorado Community College System, led an effort to design, collect, and report on community input to inform the HB22-1215 Secondary, Postsecondary and Work-Based Learning Integration Task Force (Study of Expanding High School Programs).

Recommendations delivered to the Task Force focus on equitable access to and successful expansion of high school programs across all regions of Colorado with a focus on traditionally underserved populations and those who have not accessed relevant programming in their educational experience. The discovery process of community feedback collection leveraged community organizations, educational organizations, and local partnerships.

Replicating Meaningful Learner Engagement

Leveraging learners’ input and feedback in the development of career pathways, CTE programs and policies is a valuable component of program improvement. Leaders who are interested in replicating The Learner Voice Symposium should prioritize including learners whose voices are historically underrepresented, leveraging partners who can support recruiting learners to bring them to the table and co-creating the event with partners and learners to ensure the content fills the needs for the ecosystem.

The Attainment Network engages in the planning and execution of The Symposium with an equity lens to ensure a diverse representation of learners, speakers and attendees. The Network also backward plans by prioritizing the outcomes they want the event to achieve from the start of the planning process to ensure there are sessions with meaningful outcomes and takeaways for attendees. 

The planning and execution of an event of this size includes a lot of logistics and leaders should consider adequate staffing, preparation that helps to keep audiences engaged and ensuring the videos and notes from the event are accessible once the event is over. The addition of a visual scribe enhances the experience for attendees throughout the session, as well as providing engaging artifacts to further share learnings after the event and marketing for future events. 

Looking Ahead

As The Attainment Network enters year four of the New Skills ready network, the project team is working towards holding more learner and community engagement events to continue the work of leveraging learner voices, input and feedback in the design and delivery of career pathways. The Network team is currently working on analyzing themes from The Learner Voice Symposium to inform the design of their Colorado Pathways Conference on September 19 – 20. The two-day conference will focus on pathways-focused education-to-workforce systems across the state and country. 

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

 

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College in High School Series: Using Perkins Reserve Funds to Support Dual Enrollment CTE Programs

June 22nd, 2023

Montana is looking at innovative ways to support its career technical education (CTE) early post-secondary opportunities by giving learners earlier access to dual enrollment offerings. This blog features Montana and the use of Perkins funding to expand access to dual enrollment opportunities for all CTE learners.  

Using Perkins Reserve Funds to Support Dual Enrollment CTE Programs

In 2018, the Strengthening Career Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) increased state reserve funds from 10 to 15 percent. Reserve funds must be used to foster innovation in Career Technical Education (CTE) and promote program alignment with high-skill, high-wage or in-demand careers. States have flexibility with how they allocate reserve funds and there is opportunity for local and regional areas to develop and expand early postsecondary opportunities (EPSOs) and invest in enhancing secondary to postsecondary transitions to ensure credit transfer or articulation for more learners.

Montana under the Montana Board of Regents, has used reserve funds to drive college acceleration through early postsecondary CTE opportunities in the state and increase secondary to postsecondary articulation agreements. As a result, Montana saw significant increases in dual enrollment participants and their program success rates. According to the Montana Perkins V State Plan, the number of learners taking dual enrollment courses doubled from 2014 to 2018, while the number of dual enrollment learners matriculating into a Montana University System institution tripled.

The state uses a competitive Perkins Reserve grant process to support the Montana Career Pathways (MCP) initiative – to increase awareness of secondary CTE programs and activities, as well as options for postsecondary degrees and credentials that align to the learner’s pathway. Competitive grants are available to tribal colleges, two-year colleges, community colleges and consortia.

Recipients can use Perkins Reserve grant funds to employ full-time dual enrollment coordinators and CTE dual enrollment exploratory activities. The coordinators serve as liaisons between secondary and postsecondary institutions and work closely with learners in helping them identify a pathway related to a career in a program their institution offers. In addition, coordinators serve as liaisons between faculty and staff and create collaborative spaces for secondary and postsecondary faculty by facilitating meetings to discuss articulation agreements and course transfer as well as collaboration with business and industry. Grant funds also allow for recipients to create CTE career exploration activities that connect secondary (middle and high school learners) with postsecondary learners, and staff to local industry partners for hands-on and meaningful CTE experiences.

Since the initial allotment of Perkins Reserve funds (under Montana’s previous state plan) has been hugely successful statewide, the Department has decided to continue the allotment into their updated Perkins V State Plan, strengthening and scaling its offerings while specifically committing to work with tribal colleges and special population learners. As such, the state continues to prioritize funding activities related to career exploration, CTE dual enrollment, and promotion of state-level CTE programs of study such as Montana Career Pathways, industry-recognized credential attainment and work-based learning opportunities. 

To learn more about how CTE early postsecondary opportunities such as dual enrollment serve learners, check out Advance CTE’s resource on Intentional Acts of Dual Enrollment: State Strategies for Scaling Early Postsecondary Opportunities in Career Pathways.

For more in-depth information on Montana’s work, please visit the following resources: State of EPSO, Montana Perkins Plan, Montana State Plan

Suela Cela, Senior Policy Associate

 

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College in High School Series: a Look at CHSA’s State Policy Roadmap

June 14th, 2023

Advance CTE serves as a steering member of the College in the High School Alliance,a coalition of national, state, and local organizations collaborating to enable high school students to enroll in authentic, affordable college pathways toward postsecondary degrees and credentials offered with appropriate support. This blog, the second in a series, highlights the CHSA’s Unlocking Potential guide that elevates findings and work states are doing to design and deliver high-quality college in the high school programs. 

Resource Overview

College in High School Alliance (CHSA)’s Unlocking Potential: A State Policy Roadmap for Equity & Quality in College in High School Programs provides a comprehensive set of policy recommendations for states looking to expand equitable access to college and high school programs. This guide provides policy recommendations as well as actionable items for state and local administrators and concludes with other examples of state tools and resources.

Background:

College in High School Alliance defines college in high school programs as dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, and early college high school. These programs are formed via partnerships between school districts and accredited institutions of higher education to provide high school-age students postsecondary experiences that lead to college credentials or degrees. 

The number of students participating in College in High School Programs has increased to provide opportunities to more than 5.5 million secondary learners, with Career Technical Education (CTE) courses making up one-third of enrollments (1). While these programs have proven popular and in high demand, enrollment demographics do not reflect the full diversity of the learner population. Significant opportunity exists for reducing barriers to accessing College in High School Programs for all learners, especially those in low-income communities, learners of color, learners from rural communities and first-generation college-goers.

Unlocking Potential provides recommendations and highlights work for state policies that advance the goals of equity and quality for college in high school programs in six categories:

The numbers in the image represent page numbers from the resource guide, per each category.

  • Equity Goal and Public Reporting:  
    • Set an equitable and statewide public goal for increasing the participation and success of traditionally underserved learners in the early postsecondary groups
    • Disaggregate public reporting and accountability for progress toward the goal
    • Practices in Louisiana, Montana, Minnesota, and Washington are highlighted 
  • Program Integrity and Credit Transfer: 
    • Support and promote high-quality early postsecondary opportunities
    • Create cross-sector partnerships between secondary and postsecondary teams
    • Create articulation agreements to remove barriers on student transfer opportunities
    • Practices in California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota and Texas are highlighted 
  • Finance: 
    • Design funding mechanisms that remove financial barriers for low-income and moderate-income students who want to participate in early postsecondary opportunities
    • Practices in Arkansas, Georgia, Nebraska, Utah, Vermont and Washington are highlighted 
  • Course Access and Availability: 
    • Remove course access and availability barriers for all learners 
    • Maximize learners’ college credit attainment experiences through international pathway opportunities and by providing academic and career exploration opportunities
    • Practices in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine and Virginia are highlighted 
  • Instructor Capacity
    • Develop strategies to recruit, provide support, and diversify the pool of instructors with the appropriate qualifications to teach college in high school programs
    • Create high-quality partnerships between K-12 and postsecondary partners as college in high school programs 
    • Scale college in the high school programs and create sustainability
    • Practices in Hawaii, Kansas, Minnesota and Ohio are highlighted 
  • Navigator Support: 
    • Prioritize student navigational support.
    • Enhance the current advising mechanisms. 
    • Practices in California, Colorado, Montana, Ohio and Tennessee are highlighted 

The policy recommendations are presented along a continuum: foundational, advanced, and exceptional policies. Foundational policies are those that every state must have to best support its learners.

For example, under the Equity Goal and Public Reporting, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) data reporting requirements would be considered a foundational policy. On the other end of the spectrum, states can enhance these same data reporting requirements by creating tool kits and providing technical assistance to empower local use of data to remove barriers for learners and create more equitable programs. 

To learn more about how CTE early postsecondary opportunities (EPSO) such as dual enrollment serve learners, check out Advance CTE’s report on The State of CTE: Early Postsecondary Opportunities. This 50-state report, provided in partnership with College in the High School Alliance reveals key findings on how EPSOs serve CTE learners and provides recommendations for state leaders to leverage state infrastructure and collaboration to advance equity in these experiences.

  1. The State of CTE: Early Postsecondary Opportunities
  2. Unlocking Potential

 

Suela Cela, Senior Policy Associate

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CTE Without Borders: Meeting Rural Learners Where They Are

June 13th, 2023

CTE without borders allows learners to engage in learning opportunities of their choosing regardless of their locality. Learners have the flexibility and support to engage in learning opportunities no matter where they live and no matter whether they are engaging in online or hybrid learning or attending courses and programs on school campuses outside of their home districts or local institutions. 

CTE without borders calls attention to the geographic dimension of equity and the disparities among learners related to access to high-quality programs that can prepare them for the workforce. Often, learners are excluded from enriching CTE programs and work-based learning opportunities due to geographic barriers.1 This issue is most common for learners in rural locations but is also experienced in suburban and metropolitan areas. To ensure that the CTE community remains flexible to meet the needs of learners and industry across the country, leaders should enable their CTE systems to provide expanded access to high-quality CTE programs and work-based learning opportunities.

The second release of Advance CTE’s new resource, the CTE Without Borders Policy Playbook, highlights the infrastructure that should be established to expand access to high-quality CTE and work-based learning opportunities and ways leaders can remove barriers to ensure learners and families are informed and supported in expanded access within and across states. This final release in the series articulates the remaining four of six focus areas critical to expanding access to high-quality CTE and work-based learning:

  • Incentivizing Access With Flexible and Sustainable Funding;
  • Capturing Learners’ Credits, Credentials and Experiences;
  • Optimizing the Conditions for Virtual and Hybrid Learning Opportunities; and
  • Informing and Supporting Learners and Families.

State CTE leaders can learn how to build the infrastructure to expand learners’ access to high-quality CTE and work-based learning opportunities and consider strategies that remove barriers to support learners as they navigate through their CTE programs.

This final release features promising state and local practices from across the country including Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, Wyoming and more; strategies to actualize each focus area; and resources to support state and local leaders in providing expanded access within and across states.

Visit the Learning that Works Resource Center to read the final release in the series and for additional resources to support CTE Without Borders.

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

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College in High School Series: Q&A With College in High School Alliance Coordinator Alex Perry

June 6th, 2023

Advance CTE serves as a steering member of the College in High School Alliance, a coalition of national, state, and local organizations collaborating to enable high school students to enroll in authentic, affordable college pathways toward postsecondary degrees and credentials offered with appropriate support. This blog series elevates resources and work states are doing to design and deliver high-quality college in the high school programs. For the first blog in this series, Advance CTE interviewed Coordinator of the College in High School Alliance (CHSA) Alex Perry, to learn how the organization supports state CTE leaders. 

When was College in High School Alliance (CHSA) established and who were its founders? Was there a catalyst for its inception?

The College in High School Alliance (CHSA) was founded in 2017. The original five founding members of our Steering Committee – Bard College, Jobs for the Future (JFF), KnowledgeWorks, the Middle College National Consortium, and the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships – had been working together informally for a couple of years prior to the formal creation of CHSA, and were very successful in working together to create new policy and funding incentives for dual enrollment through the Every Student Succeeds Act reauthorization process in 2015. 

Together, we saw the power of the collective and that collaboration on items of shared interest netted positive results for our work and the learners that we serve. CHSA was born from that promise – that we could collectively advance policy reforms to improve learner access and success to dual enrollment. Two years later, CHSA added Advance CTE and Achieving the Dream to its Steering Committee to expand the core collaboration.

What are college in high school programs, why are these programs important for a learner’s journey, and how do they intersect with Career Technical Education (CTE)?

College in high school programs are partnerships between high schools and institutions of higher education that allow high school learners to earn college credits. These programs go by many names across the country including dual enrollment, dual credit, concurrent enrollment, early college high school, Running Start, etc.

These programs have a strong intersection with Career Technical Education (CTE) as approximately one-third of dual enrollment programs have a CTE focus to them.1 Additionally, structured CTE programs like youth apprenticeship include learners taking college courses in high school as part of the apprenticeship structure. Dual enrollment in CTE is a key avenue for encouraging learners to complete postsecondary credentials and enter the workforce with appropriate skills and credentials for economic success. 

College in high school programs are quite popular currently, but there is still unequal access for learners. How does CHSA center equity in college in the high school program conversations?

Equity is at the very core of our work with policymakers. We know college in high school programs like dual enrollment can be very successful in boosting postsecondary access and success for learners – but we also know that access is unequal. Populations experiencing equity gaps are the same populations of learners who are seeing the biggest declines in postsecondary access and success, for whom an intervention like dual enrollment might be life changing. Policy, and particularly federal and state funding, should be used to provide learners who need it the most with potentially life changing opportunities.  

Based on CHSA’s work, what findings would you highlight for state CTE leaders in particular?

In March of 2022, CHSA and Advance CTE published The State of CTE: Early Postsecondary Opportunities resource, based on a nationwide survey of state CTE leaders about early postsecondary opportunities (EPSOs) like dual enrollment. The findings make clear the charge for the work ahead, which involves continuing to lean in heavily on the mission to increase equity for learners, thinking about systemwide supports for learners, better data collection and improving credit transfer.

What new questions has CHSA’s work raised that you would like to apply to future research?

With the influx of dual enrollment opportunities happening across the nation, it is really important that we continue to explore questions around outcomes for learners, assessing what the research can tell us about the number and kind of course experiences that are optimal for learners to promote their college and career success. Additionally, we must begin to look into the different designs of dual enrollment programs to better understand how program design influences learner outcomes from diverse learner populations. 

CHSA has recently worked on a resource that highlights 150 research questions specific to the field, and a forthcoming publication will be feature questions with the highest priority.

To learn more about Early Postsecondary Opportunities please visit The State of CTE: Early Postsecondary Opportunities in the Advance CTE resource center.

Suela Cela, Senior Policy Associate

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Innovating State Systems through CTE Without Limits

June 1st, 2023

Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education (CTE Without Limits) was released in March 2020 with the support of over 40 national organizations. In October 2021, Advance CTE launched a technical assistance opportunity called Advancing CTE Without  Limits, which sought to support states in a project to coordinate systems, improve equity goals, strengthen policy or otherwise align with a CTE Without Limits principle. The year-long Advancing CTE Without Limits project ran from March 2022 to March 2023. This blog series shares the details, outcomes and lessons learned from projects across the three participating Pushing the Limits state teams – Colorado, Nebraska and South Carolina. 

Over the past year, three states – Colorado, Nebraska and South Carolina – leveraged CTE Without Limits in their states to improve Career Technical Education (CTE) practice through technical assistance and strategic planning. Each state took a different approach and focused on a different CTE Without Limits principle, but ultimately each state centered its project around leveraging tools and resources already at its disposal to realign and refocus state practice for all CTE learners. All three states took an innovative approach to revitalizing existing policy and strategy and the alignment work vital to their year-long projects is already paying dividends. For more information about each state’s project check out the previous posts in this blog series.

This year, Advance CTE is continuing to help states innovate their state systems through CTE Without Limits. Earlier this year, we opened an application for technical assistance to help states specifically interested in strategic planning and alignment support. Four states – Indiana, Nevada, Oregon and Rhode Island – are working with Advance CTE and Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) coaches to build strategic goals, centered around a statewide theory of action, or revamp state plans for the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V). The initiative, Innovating State Systems through CTE Without Limits, will run from June 2023 to June 2024.

While previous technical assistance efforts were focused on individual state projects, this year’s project builds specifically on the strategic planning process. Each state will create a 12-month action plan and will have opportunities to begin to pilot some of the initiatives embedded in their new strategic plans. Each state will build a statewide team made of stakeholders within and outside of their CTE agency to ensure their strategic goals meet the needs of learners, families, educators and administrators statewide. Participating state team members will also engage in quarterly cross-state sharing sessions to discuss insights and lessons learned. 

Advance CTE Senior Advisor and project lead Eliza Fabillar hopes the value of this technical assistance opportunity will be clear: “The Innovating State Systems initiative will help participating states develop and implement strategic priorities to strengthen the career preparation ecosystem for all learners, which will lay the groundwork for continued quality implementation after the project period. Advance CTE members will also benefit from lessons learned, which will be shared with the CTE community.”

Kickoff meetings with each state’s State CTE Director have already started and progress will continue throughout the next year. Stay tuned for future updates about this project. 

For more information about CTE Without Limits, visit https://careertech.org/without-limits. To begin processes like this in your own state or locality, view our CTE Without Limits roadmaps and view this resource recap to see how to use these tools step-by-step. 

Dan Hinderliter, Senior Policy Associate

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Pushing the Limits: South Carolina

May 25th, 2023

Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education (CTE Without Limits) was released in March 2020 with the support of over 40 national organizations. In October 2021, Advance CTE launched a technical assistance opportunity called Advancing CTE Without  Limits, which sought to support states in a project to coordinate systems, improve equity goals, strengthen policy or otherwise align with a CTE Without Limits principle. The year-long Advancing CTE Without Limits project ran from March 2022 to March 2023. This blog series shares the details, outcomes and lessons learned from projects across the three participating Pushing the Limits state teams – Colorado, Nebraska and South Carolina. 

Project Focus

South Carolina has made it a priority to build and create aligned state systems that can support all CTE learners to move seamlessly through their education and career journey. To accomplish this vision, South Carolina approached their Advancing CTE Without limits work through the lens of Principle 1: Each learner engages in a cohesive, flexible and responsive career preparation ecosystem.

South Carolina focused on three main objectives:

  1. Needs Assessment: Conduct a needs assessment to identify strengths and gaps within the state’s comprehensive local needs assessment (CLNA) process and outcomes (i.e., rural, middle school and students with disabilities). 
  2. Guidance and Support for Local Implementation of Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA): Provide strategic collaboration, peer learning, training and support to implement a more strategic process around CLNA.
  3. Building State Leader Data Literacy: Participate in professional development through Advance CTE’s Opportunity Gap Analysis to learn the root cause analysis process and get technical assistance to increase data literacy to address learner opportunity gaps. 

 

Project Outcomes

Through monthly coaching and technical assistance provided by Advance CTE and Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) staff, South Carolina focused on evaluating its comprehensive local needs assessment process and outcomes with an emphasis on continuous improvement. Surveys were developed for state and local stakeholders to gather their input on both the implementation of the CLNA and the practical application of results of the CLNA process. Results of the survey showed that the CLNA process itself had been valuable, and it had served to strengthen connections across the career preparation ecosystem. However, at the state and local levels, stakeholders were not fully utilizing the information gleaned from the CLNA process. At the state level in particular, leaders from across agencies were not as engaged with each other around the CLNA results as the state desired.  

This led the state CTE agency to start a quarterly interagency meeting to increase cross-sector team collaboration and support a high-quality career preparation ecosystem. To ensure sustainability of this strategic collaboration among their state agencies, South Carolina has put into practice a shared-ownership structure, where a different agency takes the lead in developing the shared agenda and leads the conversations. The first meeting included sharing results from the CLNA and the survey. 

South Carolina also used the CLNA to inform the development of regional “snapshots” of data. The snapshots were published accompanied by a workshop and guidance to support the regional perspective being used in the state for the CLNA. 

South Carolina has also designed differentiated support for the regions based on the needs assessment and survey of regions. These efforts have helped increase knowledge and staff capacity in the strategic use of data for the CLNA process. 

The South Carolina team also participated in the Opportunity Gap Analysis workshop to learn to conduct root cause analysis, identify ways to address opportunity gaps for all learners and provide guidance to their local educators on how to build a comprehensive career preparation ecosystem.  

Lessons Learned

One of the primary lessons learned through this project for South Carolina was to focus on making sure that the results of the CLNA are being used and not treated as a compliance exercise. 

Recommendations

States are highly encouraged to look at CLNA results across all their eligible entities or regions and to identify common themes with a lens towards developing new policies, programs, technical assistance and professional development to help address the needs commonly identified across the state. In addition, states should make it common practice to provide technical assistance to local districts on how they can change their behaviors to better address needs.

Stay tuned for future updates about South Carolina’s continued efforts and for more information about other states’ Advancing CTE Without Limits projects. For more information about CTE Without Limits, visit https://careertech.org/without-limits.  

To learn more about planning and implementing the principles of CTE Without Limits in your state, check out Pushing the Limits: A Roadmap for Advancing CTE Without Limits.

For more information on better using the CLNA to drive quality and equity within CTE systems and programs of study, read Lessons in Collaboration and Innovation: The Impact and Promise of the Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment.

Nithya Govindasamy, Senior Advisor

Alisha Hyslop, Senior Director of Public Policy, ACTE

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Pushing the Limits: Colorado

May 10th, 2023

Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education (CTE Without Limits) was released in March 2020 with the support of over 40 national organizations. In October 2021, Advance CTE launched a technical assistance opportunity called Advancing CTE Without  Limits, which sought to support states in a project to coordinate systems, improve equity goals, strengthen policy, or otherwise align with a CTE Without Limits principle. The year-long Advancing CTE Without Limits project ran from March 2022 to March 2023. This blog series shares the details, outcomes and lessons learned from projects across the three participating Pushing the Limits state teams – Colorado, Nebraska and South Carolina. 

Project Focus

Colorado has taken significant steps to improve equity in Career Technical Education (CTE), with a focus on ensuring that all students have access to high-quality CTE programs and opportunities. 

The Colorado State CTE team made a concerted effort to better align their CTE Strategic Plan with the CTE Without Limits vision principles by conducting a review of their strategic plan through the lens of Principle 2: Each learner feels welcome in, is supported by and has the means to be successful in the career preparation ecosystem. 

Colorado’s team focused on three key objectives:

  1. Needs Assessment: Conduct a needs assessment to identify strengths and gaps of the current CTE system and identify the CTE-specific actions that need to be taken to close gaps and remove barriers for learners. 
  2. Internal, Equity-Focused Professional Development: Elevate the commitment at the state level to ensure equity within CTE through convening an internal team to develop a plan and participate in professional development on equity utilizing the Brave Dialogues resources. 
  3. Building Local Leader Data Literacy: Leverage Advance CTE’s Opportunity Gap Analysis 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. 

 

Project Outcomes

Through technical assistance sessions with Advance CTE staff, Colorado developed an equity strategy to help bridge the current CTE strategic plan and work on their next State Plan for the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (expiring in 2024). Colorado has shared their equity plan and progress with local CTE Directors at a kickoff meeting where the Opportunity Gap Analysis process and Brave Dialogues training was conducted. Colorado will continue to create spaces to execute implementation of the plan grounded in Principle 2 at their CTE administrators’ convenings during this year. 

Colorado established internal team-level goals around each action step within Principle 2 and embedded them into individual performance goals. The Colorado team elevated their focus on CTE program equity, access, and inclusion by settling on an overall goal that is connected to the state CTE strategic plan’s foundational elements and “job-specific” goals to promote a culture of shared growth around competency in equity. 

Colorado launched the Opportunity Gap Analysis Workshop training and the Brave Dialogues equity training at The Colorado Association for Career & Technical Administrators (CACTA) conference. Colorado had an overwhelming response from the field about how much they appreciated being “called in” to the conversation and supported through professional development.

Colorado state CTE leaders continue to work towards advanced implementation of Principle 2 and were able to meet certain benchmarks over the course of the year:

  • The Colorado CTE team provided feedback about their increased comfortability and feeling of competency to lead conversations and conduct a gap analysis that leads to achieving Principle 2: “Each learner feels welcome in, is supported by and has the means to be successful in the career preparation ecosystem.”
  • Colorado achieved a more than 5 percent increase in work-based learning participation for learners who have identified as Black, American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian/Pacific Islander and Latinx.

Lessons Learned

To address the identified gaps in CTE enrollment, Colorado is working on targeted marketing materials and campaigns to increase awareness about CTE to bolster the pipeline of interested learners. They have made tremendous strides with some school districts and colleges to address barriers to increase enrollment. Colorado is building a team of champions who can advocate for the importance of expanded access and equity for all learners in CTE and articulate the numerous benefits both for the state’s economy as well as for Colorado’s future workforce. 

Colorado stressed that the sustainability of this work will be achieved through the continued utilization of the Opportunity Gap Analysis tools as part of Colorado’s Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA) process and through building intentional linkages between Principle 2 work and the CTE strategic plan to further benchmark and establish goals tied to CTE data and local performance. Colorado’s team is also committed to work on their own language, implicit bias, personal and professional growth and development as equity-minded leaders. 

Stay tuned for future updates about Colorado’s continued efforts or for more information about other states’ Advancing CTE Without Limits projects. For more information about CTE Without Limits, visit https://careertech.org/without-limits.  

To learn more about planning and implementing the principles of CTE Without Limits in your state, check out Pushing the Limits: A Roadmap for Advancing CTE Without Limits.

Nithya Govindasamy, Senior Advisor

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