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Research Round-up: Leveraging Data for Equitable Education and Workforce Alignment

July 26th, 2023

Advance CTE’s “Research Round-Up” blog series features summaries of relevant research reports and studies to elevate evidence-backed Career Technical Educational (CTE) policies and practices and topics related to college and career readiness. This month’s blog highlights the different data sources that can be leveraged to identify and address any inequities that are present in postsecondary CTE programs. These findings align with Advance CTE’s vision for the future of CTE where each learner feels welcomed and has the means to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem.

Credential Engines’ Equity Advisory Council (EAC) report, and the subsequent recommendations, present a tiered approach for using data to ensure that CTE programs are equitable for all learners.

Overview

The primary questions that this report sought to address were twofold:

What are the data points that students and workers need to know–and that providers should make public–in order to make their most informed decisions about whether a program and credential can lead to an equitable outcome for them?
Which data use principles should be incorporated into counseling, guidance, navigation and pathway tools and services to ensure that data are the most effective for students and workers to achieve their most equitable outcomes?

This report groups data into three tiers based on the complexity level to analyze or publish the data.

Tier 1: These are data points that all providers should be able to analyze and publish now.
- EX: Compliance data, enrollment, completion, etc.
Tier 2: These are data points that all providers should be actively working on being able to analyze and publish.
- EX: Credential transparency, financial return on investment, placement information, etc.
Tier 3: These are data points that point to where the field is headed, and providers should be assessing how to build capacity to analyze and publish them.
- EX: Transfer and credit mobility, support and tutoring services, labor market alignment of the credentials that learners are earning, etc.

These “critical equity data points” are important to track in order to advance understanding and action about equitable pathways, transfer and recognition of learning. While each consecutive tier may require more in-depth analysis, this work will be critical in building a complete understanding of the learner experience and learner outcomes in these pathways.

Recommendations

In their report, the EAC also identified key principles to help maintain equitable data practices. These included:

Adopt data practices to foster an environment where outcomes are improved for every learner
Disaggregate data (such as program’s earnings and employment outcomes) through publically available channels
Emphasize credentials of value that are relevant for learners
Consider learner voice and need when designing tools to ensure data is accessible and inclusive
Provide professional development for those interacting with the data, and leveraging the value of linked open data

These principles rely on a statewide commitment (inclusive of workforce, industry, educational institutions, and government leadership) to making data accessible to ensure that every learner has the opportunity and information required to make the best decision about their career trajectory.

Advance CTE’s Career Readiness Data Quality and Use Policy Benchmark Tool also supports state leaders’ use of accurate, timely, and disaggregated data to investigate barriers to access and take action to ensure equity, access and success for historically marginalized learners.

To access additional resources on data quality and use, please visit Advance CTE’s Learning that Works Resource Center.

Amy Hodge, Membership & Policy Associate

Tags: Access and Equity, Credentials of Value, CTE Data, Data Collection, data quality, industry credentials, learner voice, Research
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Research Round-up: The Impact of the High School CTE Education Teacher Pathway Initiative Grant

May 31st, 2023

Advance CTE’s “Research Round-Up” blog series features summaries of relevant research reports and studies to elevate evidence-backed Career Technical Educational (CTE) policies and practices and topics related to college and career readiness. This month’s blog highlights a study produced by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education (OCTAE) on the impact of the High School CTE Education Teacher Pathway Initiative Grant. These findings align with Advance CTE’s vision for the future of CTE where each learner is supported by and has the means to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem.

In 2017, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education (OCTAE) launched the High School Career and Technical Education (CTE) Teacher Pathway Initiative (also referred to as CTE TPI). Last year, OCTAE published The Impact of the High School CTE Education Teacher Pathway Initiative Grant, a report on the outcomes of these three-year grants and the specific activities that the five grantees implemented to increase the pipeline capacity of high-school CTE teachers. These findings can inform state leaders on best practices for recruitment and retaining high-quality CTE instructors.

The study, conducted by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), focused on the following questions to examine the challenges and potential solutions encountered during grant implementation and to summarize grantee activities:

What do grantees see as the major factors contributing to shortages of secondary CTE teachers in their state or community?
How have grantees used CTE TPI funding to alleviate CTE teacher shortages?
What challenges have grantees experienced in implementing their CTE TPI activities, and what strategies are they using to overcome those challenges?
Are there early indicators of success in alleviating CTE teacher shortages?

Grants were awarded to two state departments of education, a regional education service center, a community college system and a school district:

Grantee Findings and Activities

In the first collection of data in 2019, grantees were surveyed about what they saw as the major factors influencing the shortages of secondary teachers in their state or community. The five major issues identified were:

Disparities in compensation and work-life balance between in-demand industry positions and teaching
Lack of higher education programs to train potential CTE educators
Challenges navigating the CTE teacher licensure process and requirements
The differentiated education and experience required to teach different CTE content areas
Exams in teaching skills or content areas

The table above shows the activities pursued by each grantee with the following outcomes:

New Jersey Department of Education: 53 industry professionals enrolled in an educator preparation program and 9 current teachers completed a program to help them transition to CTE teaching.
Tennessee Department of Education: 61 teachers enrolled in new school district-led educator preparation programs, and 39 teachers and 30 mentors piloted a new regional mentoring model.
Southeast Kansas Education Service Center: 165 new CTE teachers and 63 mentors participated in at least 1 year of a structured mentoring program.
Portland Community College: 48 industry professionals and 27 current teachers transitioning to CTE teaching enrolled in an educator preparation program and community of practice.
School Board of Broward County: 100 teachers gained certification in business education, computer science, or engineering and 23 teachers implemented a new CTE course.

Promising Practices for States

Chronic teacher shortages were only exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and without taking immediate action, these gaps may continue to grow. The findings from this study speak to the variety of strategies that state and local CTE leaders can employ to increase the number of CTE instructors:

Broad Professional networks: Establishing broader regional or statewide professional and/or mentoring networks through which new CTE teachers can access support from peers and more experienced CTE teachers is particularly important for new CTE teachers to combat what many teachers refer to as “professional isolation.”
Tailored Mentorship: Mentorship is clearly a needed support, particularly when it is aligned with new CTE teachers’ content areas or tailored to meet the individual’s professional needs.
Accessible Instructor Shortage Data: Grantees were unable to access systematic data regarding where and in what content areas high school CTE teachers are needed. This information must be collected from the district level, aggregated to the state level, and made accessible to coordinate an effective response to addressing staffing shortages.
Proactive Certification Planning: Educational institutions that are interested in recruiting current non-CTE teachers for CTE positions can make advance planning for moving teachers into those roles an explicit component of their strategy. The investment of preparing teachers for certification and licensure might be most impactful when accompanied by an institution-level commitment to directly translate teacher preparation into expanded CTE programs and an increase in CTE course opportunities for students.
Data Sharing through Partnerships: Whenever possible, grantees should solidify agreements with partners as partnerships launch or within grant applications that allow participant-level data sharing and a flow of information across organizations to monitor participant progress. This data sharing allows grantees to offer better support and enables flexibility in supporting CTE teachers.

For additional learning, visit Advance CTE’s Learning that Works Resource Center to access reports on how states can leverage Perkins V to Support Teacher Recruitment and Retention and State of the States 2022: Teacher Compensation Strategies.

Amy Hodge, Policy Associate

Tags: CTE Teacher pipeline, CTE teachers, Florida, kansas, New Jersey, Oregon, recruitment, tennessee
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Research Roundup: Prior Learning Assessment as a Strategy for Upskilling Learners

April 26th, 2023

Advance CTE’s “Research Round-Up” blog series features summaries of relevant research reports and studies to elevate evidence-based Career Technical Educational (CTE) policies and practices and topics related to college and career readiness. This month’s blog highlights prior learning assessment as a strategy for upskilling learners by offering college credit for previous academic and professional experiences which aligns with CTE Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education where each learner’s skills are counted, valued, and portable.

Prior learning assessment (PLA) is a strategy being utilized by postsecondary institutions to increase enrollment and retention of learners in their CTE programs. PLA, which is similar in design and implementation to credit for prior learning (CPL) offers benefits for both learners and institutions. These programs are effective options for adult learners that have work or academic experience but lack the credentials and the information they need to upskill to complete a degree.

Methods of PLA include:

The PLA Boost Report

The PLA Boost, released in 2020, was collaboratively produced by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) and the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL). This study examined the use and impact of prior learning assessment (PLA) on adult outcomes using enrollment, credit-earning and degree-earning data from 72 postsecondary institutions of more than 465,000 learners of all ages, focusing in particular on more than 232,000 adult learners (defined as learners age 25 and older) from 69 of the participating institutions that were able to provide the most detailed data on PLA credit-earning.

Findings: The shared benefits of PLA to learners and institutions

When postsecondary institutions acknowledge previous education and training through PLA, it removes a barrier to returning to the classroom for adult learners by decreasing the cost of earning their degree.

Based on the report’s findings, learners can save money by taking advantage of PLA: The adult students in this sample saved an estimated average of $1,481 at two-year public institutions, $3,794 at four-year publics, $10,220 at four-year privates, and $6,090 at for-profits when considering the lower costs of PLA compared to course tuition.

In addition to saving money, PLA allows the learner to save time and reportedly, increases feelings of motivation and validation. PLA was strongly associated with higher rates of credential completion for adult learners. The 24,512 adult students who earned PLA credits had a credential completion rate of 49 percent over the seven-and-a-half-year observation period, compared to 27 percent among adult students with no PLA credits.

Adult students with PLA were more likely to persist and continue to complete their degree at their participating institution. Adult students with PLA earned an average of 17.6 more credits from institutional courses compared to adult students without PLA.

Study Limitations

The sample was overly representative of predominantly online institutions, some of the results (most notably for the sector and for race/ethnicity groups) were influenced by a handful of large institutions or by institutions where key student groups were concentrated, and there were too few students in some of the race categories (Native Hawai‘ian/Other Pacific Islander and American Indian/ Alaska Native). While this study was able to demonstrate the benefits of PLA, the sample of adult learners was relatively small. Forty percent of the participating institutions reported participation rates of under three percent of adult learners with PLA. Disaggregating this data also revealed low participation rates for female, low-income and Black adult learners compared to other subgroups. It is worth noting that, despite variation in the extent, all learner subgroups experienced credential boosts from PLA.

Recommendations and Additional Resources

Now is the time to invest in PLA. PLA offers a solution for increasing credential attainment by extending an opportunity for adult learners to upskill and/or return to complete their degrees. The data shows us that access to PLA is not equal across adult learner groups. In order to provide access for all adult learners institutions should critique their data to better identify the gaps in access and to leverage the full potential of these programs.

To learn more about strategies to increase participation in PLA and CPL, check out the Credit for Prior Learning Messaging Toolkit. This toolkit provides effective messages targeted to key audiences and strategies for dissemination to increase participation in Credit for Prior Learning among adult learners who are pursuing career pathways and CTE programs of study that lead to jobs in in-demand fields.

For state and local CTE leaders looking to increase their data literacy, Advance CTE’s Train the Trainer: Opportunity Gap Analysis Workshop focuses on the skills that leaders need to investigate outcome gaps and perform root cause analysis. These sessions will provide the necessary training and resources to support state leaders in addressing gaps in access to high-quality CTE.

Amy Hodge, Policy Associate

Tags: Adult Learners, Credit for Prior Learning, Equity, postsecondary, prior learning assessments, student outcomes
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Research Round-Up: Analyzing Enrollment Gaps in South Carolina’s Health Sciences Career Cluster

March 27th, 2023

Advance CTE’s “Research Round-Up” blog series features summaries of relevant research reports and studies to elevate evidence-backed Career Technical Educational (CTE) policies and practices and topics related to college and career readiness. This month’s blog highlights findings from a replicative study that explores educational inequity within the South Carolina CTE Health Science Career Cluster®. These findings align with Advance CTE’s vision for the future where each learner can access CTE without borders.

CTE programs offer learners the opportunity to build their awareness of different career options through exposure to activities that promote early exploration to more explicit skill development through work-based learning and apprenticeships. When well designed, these programs achieve robust and equitable enrollment that supports local and state economic growth by aligning with relevant and high-wage industries.

One recent dissertation, Educational Equity Patterns within South Carolina Career and Technical Education (CTE): A Replication Study, authored by Nickolas Sumpteris describes the outcomes of replicating a previous study by Fuller Hamilton. Fuller Hamilton analyzed STEM CTE enrollment patterns in Illinois by the racial/ethnic make-up and sexual characteristics of all students within the state. Since no CTE educational equity research exists in South Carolina, Sumpter sought to apply this same analysis to South Carolina’s CTE Health Science Career Cluster.

Fuller Hamilton et al. (2015) showed considerable differences in enrollment of male participants in the STEM career cluster compared to females and how these enrollment patterns correlated to other enrollment patterns within career clusters at the state and national levels. The original study also showed that all racial/ethnic groups in Illinois, except white students, were generally underrepresented in CTE programming. In addition, learners within marginalized groups identified as special populations under the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) experienced significant success in obtaining high-demand skills as a pathway to college or the career of their choice when enrolled in CTE courses.

The population represented in Sumpter’s paper consisted of high school learners enrolled in CTE within South Carolina during the 2018-19 school year. Secondary data was collected from a sample of 196,318 CTE enrollees and examined using descriptive analysis procedures. Sumpter’s research questions for this replication study were:

RQ1. What are South Carolina students’ CTE enrollment patterns, by sex, in both Health Science and Non-Health Science career clusters?
RQ2. What are South Carolina students’ CTE enrollment patterns, by race/ethnicity, in both Health Science and Non-Health Science career clusters?
RQ3. What are South Carolina students’ CTE enrollment patterns, by region, in both Health Science and Non-Health Science career clusters?
RQ4. What are South Carolina students’ CTE enrollment patterns, by socioeconomic status, in both Health Science and Non-Health Science career clusters?

Findings

The study in South Carolina found inconsistencies in the levels of equity that existed within race, ethnicity, and sex. These inequities were also present regarding regional effects and socioeconomic status.

Sumpter concluded with recommendations for future research:

Conduct a qualitative or mixed-method study to explain further the enrollment patterns of CTE programs in South Carolina.
Address the inequities in South Carolina by:
- improving the underrepresentation of educators by sex and race/ethnicity;
- recommending equity audits;
- examining access and availability of opportunities within CTE programs;
- encouraging all educators to actively adopt and advance the equity agenda from the original study.

Additional Resources

Analyzing the Health Science Career Cluster was significant because the healthcare field represents a major employer in South Carolina and is one of the largest growing fields nationally. By improving the enrollment of underrepresented groups in the Health Science Career Cluster, South Carolina can improve the quality of life and the labor market for its residents.

State, local CTE and career pathways leaders can learn more about effectively harnessing learner group data using Advance CTE’s Achieving Inclusive CTE Goal-Setting Tool. The Achieving Inclusive CTE Goal-Setting Tool strives to equip state and local CTE and career pathways leaders to approach program participation, outcomes data, and goal setting with an inclusive and representative lens. With this goal-setting tool, leaders can more intentionally plan to recruit, engage and support underrepresented learner groups to increase access to high-quality CTE programs and career pathways.

Amy Hodge, Policy Associate

To read more of Advance CTE’s “Research Round-Up” blog series featuring summaries of relevant research reports and studies click here.

Tags: Career ClustersÂ®, CTE Data, Equity and Access, gender equity, Health Science, Illinois, South Carolina
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Research Round-Up: CTE Concentration Stays Strong Against the Challenges Posed by the COVID-19 Pandemic

March 1st, 2023

Advance CTE’s “Research Round-Up” blog series features summaries of relevant research reports and studies to elevate evidence-backed Career Technical Educational (CTE) policies and practices and topics related to college and career readiness. This month’s blog examines how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted CTE concentration rates. The findings align with Advance CTE’s vision for the future of CTE where each learner has the means to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem.

Due to the specific hands-on delivery and instruction requirements of career and technical education (CTE) courses, the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting online instruction posed new challenges for CTE programs and concentrators. The study, A Multi-State Analysis of Trends in Career and Technical Education, explored the level of impact of the coronavirus pandemic on CTE concentration rates using administrative data across five states: Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Tennessee, and Washington.

Methodology

The analysis sample for each state was defined as first-time ninth graders observed consistently over their four years in high school. The population of learners, CTE concentrators, was selected for observation because the definition of a concentrator is more similar across states than the definition for CTE participation. Another reason that the authors chose to observe rates of CTE concentrators rather than completers was that indicators for program completion were not readily available across the state populations.

The following tables share the concentrator definitions used as well as a breakdown by race/ethnicity and geography of the learners observed to aid state CTE leaders in aligning the findings with their own learner populations.

The study was conducted by researchers Carly Urban, Celeste K. Carruthers, Shaun Dougherty, Thomas Goldring, Daniel Kreisman, and Roddy Theobald and examined the following questions:

Did CTE concentration rates change at the start of the coronavirus pandemic?
Did gaps in concentration rates change by student race, ethnicity, gender or identified disability status?
What are the differences in concentration rates across rural and urban areas and have these gaps changed over time?
Were CTE concentrators more likely to graduate from high school and did this change at the start of the pandemic?
Which career clusters have seen the largest changes in participation?

Findings

CTE concentration rates changed minimally in the featured states at the start of the pandemic, with the exception being Tennessee, where the class of 2020 was significantly more likely to concentrate in CTE than the previous cohorts.
The gaps in CTE concentration by gender, race and ethnicity largely did not widen at the start of the pandemic.
The gaps in CTE concentration by identified disability status did not widen in any state for the first cohort impacted by the pandemic (SY16-17). However, one year into the pandemic, concentration rates for students with an identified disability in two states fell compared to students without an identified disability.
In Michigan, Montana, and Tennessee, students in rural areas appeared more likely to concentrate in CTE than students in urban areas post-pandemic. In Massachusetts, CTE concentration was higher in urban than rural areas. While the two groups have virtually no difference in concentration rates in Washington.
CTE concentrators are more likely to graduate from high school than non-concentrators in all five states both before and after the pandemic.
Changes in CTE clusters were relatively small when comparing the cohorts who were on track to graduate just before and after the pandemic. The fields with the largest positive and negative changes to concentrator rates varied by state.

Recommendations for Members

While these findings are descriptive and suggest that CTE concentration rates did not drop at the onset of the pandemic, the researchers have recommendations for state leaders to continue to support the successful coordination of CTE programs.

Preliminary findings indicate that the ways states adapted CTE education at the onset of the pandemic maintained concentration rates for learners with a disability. However, concentration gaps widened for learners with disabilities in subsequent years in some states, signaling that more attention must be given to meeting these learners’ needs in program design.
States should consider the mode of communication they’re currently using to monitor the change in demand for or inability to supply specific CTE programs in schools.
States should continue to track and improve the quality of the outcome data they gather from CTE programs.

To learn more about how states can approach continuing to develop effective and accessible CTE data reporting tools to advance this report’s final recommendation, check out Advance CTE’s Beyond the Numbers: Design Principles for CTE Data Reporting. This guide provides state and local leaders with the necessary tools to inform early design and development of CTE data reporting tools or as a checklist to ensure their final reports align with best practices for access and usability.

To read more of Advance CTE’s “Research Round-Up” blog series featuring summaries of relevant research reports and studies click here.

Tags: Coronavirus, COVID-19, CTE concentrators, CTE Data, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Secondary CTE, Secondary CTE Concentrator, tennessee, Washington State
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Research Round-up: Graduation, College, and Employment Outcomes for CTE Learners with Identified Disabilities

January 31st, 2023

Advance CTE’s “Research Round-Up” blog series features summaries of relevant research reports and studies to elevate evidence-backed Career Technical Educational (CTE) policies and practices and topics related to college and career readiness. This month’s blog highlights Career Technical Education and the graduation, college, and employment outcomes for CTE learners with identified disabilities. These findings align with Advance CTE’s vision for the future of CTE where each learner is supported and has the means to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem.

Last spring, the Career and Technical Education Policy Exchange (CTEx) at the Georgia Policy Lab published Graduation, College, and Employment Outcomes for CTE Students with Identified Disabilities. This report examines the relationship between CTE participation and transition outcomes for learners with an identified disorder and for learners receiving special education services for different identified disabilities.

For learners with identified disabilities, participating in career and technical education (CTE) programs in high school appears to positively impact graduation rates and a higher likelihood of securing employment in the year after high school. This report utilizes administrative data from three states, including Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Washington. This analysis is based on data from the 2007-08 through 2015-16 ninth-grade cohort data in Massachusettes, 2009–10 through 2013–14 ninth-grade cohorts in Tennessee, and 2010–11 through 2015–16 ninth-grade cohorts in Washington. This decision was made to address the different learner population sizes; some categories (e.g., specific disability categories) were relatively small within a single high school cohort

Graph: The chart below offers summary statistics for the population of interest across the three states. The blue bar signifies learners with an identified disorder, and the red bar signifies learners without an identified disorder

The authors examined how CTE concentration for learners with an identified disorder relates to three outcomes:

High school graduation rate within five years of their first year of ninth grade.

CTE concentration rates for learners with an identified disorder vary across states and disorder types. Concentration rates for learners with specific learning disabilities, communication disorders, or health disorders are relatively high in all three states.

Across all three states and different identified disabilities, learners with an identified disorder who concentrate in CTE are more likely to graduate from high school than non-concentrators. While not identical, these states have similar concentrator definitions. These differences by CTE concentration status and disorder type vary across the states but tend to be the largest in Massachusetts.

Graph: Five-year graduation rates by CTE concentration and disorder categories

Postsecondary attendance at two-and four-year institutions.

In Massachusetts, learners with an identified disorder who concentrate in CTE and graduate from high school are less likely to attend college. By contrast, learners with a recognized disorder in Tennessee are more likely to enroll in college if they concentrate in CTE than if they do not. In Washington, the relationship between CTE and college enrollment varies across disorder categories. The gap in college attendance among learners with an identified disorder tends to be smaller between CTE concentrators and non-concentrators in Tennessee and Washington, though in Tennessee, learners with autism who concentrate in CTE are much more likely to attend college than non-concentrators.

Graph: College attendance rates among high school graduates by CTE concentration and disorder categories

Employment rates following graduation.

Learners with an identified disorder who concentrate in CTE and graduate from high school are more likely to be employed at least half-time in the year after graduation than non-concentrators. This pattern is consistent across all identified disorder types in Massachusetts and Tennessee and across most identified disorder types in Washington.

Graph: At least half-time employment rates among high school graduates by CTE concentration and disorder categories.

While the authors noted that their findings were descriptive and may not account for unobserved differences between learners with an identified disorder that are high school CTE concentrators and those with an identified disorder who are not high school CTE concentrators, the results do support existing research trends. Given the differences across states, the authors suggested that state leaders investigate trends in their educational context. Additionally, there may be an opportunity to improve access to these programs for those groups that reported much lower program enrollment rates than learners in other disorder categories.

Suggested follow up reading: Advancing Employment for Secondary Learners with Disabilities through CTE Policy and Practice. This report provides a policy landscape of state-level efforts to support secondary learners with disabilities in CTE programs based on a national survey of State Directors and was produced in partnership with University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School.

To read more of Advance CTE’s “Research Round-Up” blog series featuring summaries of relevant research reports and studies click here.

Amy Hodge, Policy Associate

Tags: Access and Equity, CTE concentrators, CTE Research, Massachusetts, Research Review, Secondary CTE Concentrator, tennessee, washington, Washington State
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Research Round-up: New Reports on Work-Based Learning Address Impacts for Learners and Institutions

December 6th, 2022

Two recent reports from JFF and New America highlight the benefits of different workforce development programs; apprenticeships and work-based learning (WBL), and the opportunity to increase equitable access to these programs for every learner.

Addressing disparities in apprenticeship participation may fast-track non-traditional learners into living wage jobs.

JFF’s Center for Apprenticeship & Work-Based Learning published a report analyzing young people’s apprenticeship participation through an equity lens. The Current State of Diversity and Equity in U.S. Apprenticeships for Young People utilizes data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Registered Apprenticeship Partners Information Database System to analyze youth apprenticeship participation from fiscal years 2010-2020.

This report showed that, in total, 389,8860 young people (ages 16-24) started a Registered Apprenticeship program between 2010-2020. This rate outpaced overall youth employment.
The average exit wage of $30 per hour for young people completing apprenticeships is much higher than the median wages among all young people, which suggests that work-based learning facilitates movement into well-paid jobs.
The data demonstrate that learners participating in apprenticeships are more likely to be white than non-white (63 percent compared to 35 percent) and more likely to be male.

Average Hourly Exit Wage by Gender and Race/ Ethnicity for All Youth Participants in Apprenticeships, FY 2010-2020

This report identified “occupational segregation” as the explanation for the drastic differences in exit wages across lines of race and gender. For example, the data showed that the top occupation for female learners, pharmacy technician, paid $12 per hour compared with $26 per hour for the top male occupation of electrician. Similarly, these findings suggest that Black apprentices’ average exit wage of $23 (compared to $32 for Hispanic workers and $30 for white workers) is likely attributable to the large share of Black apprentices participating in heavy trucking and tractor-trailer programs, which paid $18 in exit wages.
This report noted the shared benefits of increasing equitable access to workforce training programs: “When employers tap into a broader swath of talent, they often see a positive return on investment via healthier bottom lines and greater innovation, thanks to the wide range of backgrounds and experiences these apprentices bring to the job.”

Paid, postsecondary work-based learning pilot programs may be an effective tool for improving learner retention.

New America recently published case studies of postsecondary institutions that have piloted paid work-based learning programs. This report, “What Everyone Should Know about Designing Equity-Minded Paid Work-Based Learning Opportunities for College Students” highlights the findings from case studies of emerging paid WBL program models across the country to understand the motivation, goals, and design of paid WBL opportunities available at two-year colleges. The findings include implications for state policymakers and college stakeholders in career services, academic advising, and workforce development.

Paid WBL programs appear to correlate with improved learner retention strategy. Learners appear to value and engage more in paid WBL opportunities on campus or in the local community since transportation was previously an obstacle.
Institutions featured in these case studies funded paid WBL programs through multiple sources, from Higher Education Emergency Relief Funds (HEERF), Pell grants to supplement student employment, and internal funding sources from the institution’s general operating budget.

While the learner populations across these reports vary, common themes can be drawn from the key findings of these two reports:

Workforce programs benefit participants by increasing earnings and providing opportunities to gain in-demand skills, and in turn, these benefits are also enjoyed by adjacent stakeholders, including employers and postsecondary institutions.
Understanding learner barriers can create more equitable access for underrepresented learners in these programs.
- Braiding funding sources can allow states to design more equitable programs and supports that facilitate young adults’ transition into competitive wage jobs.
States and postsecondary institutions still need support in collecting data on longitudinal workforce outcomes for those who complete work-based learning and apprenticeship programs.

Additional Resources

Amy Hodge, Policy Associate

Tags: Access and Equity, apprenticeship, postsecondary cte, work-based learning, workforce development
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ECMC’s Question the Quo Survey Reinforces Interest in Skills-Based Education Among High School Learners

October 20th, 2022

This month’s blog highlights results from the ECMC Group’s, “Question the Quo” national surveys. Conducted in partnership with Vice Media, ECMC Group launched the Question The Quo campaign to empower high school students to learn about the various postsecondary education options available and take the career path that’s right for them. This campaign supports a vision for the future of CTE where statewide systems are designed to equip learners with the knowledge they need to skillfully navigate their own career journey and utilize data to implement responsive programs.

Survey Overview

To inform this campaign, ECMC Group has conducted five national surveys to encourage teens to evaluate education beyond high school while considering cost, parental and role model influences, and societal norms. These surveys were conducted February 2020-February 2022 and polled over 5,000 teens aged 14-18. Learners were asked to share their thoughts and plans for their future education and careers amidst an ever-changing environment marked by hybrid classrooms and a rapidly changing economy.

Overall, the net survey findings uncovered that learners are focused on gaining the skills necessary to secure a job after graduation, and want more information on the avenues to do so. A majority (63 percent) of teens wish their high school provided more information about the variety of postsecondary opportunities available. A vast majority (89 percent) say higher education needs to make changes to place greater emphasis on career preparedness and exploration.

Key Finding: Career and technical education programs address learners’ desire for more skill-based education that aligns with the needs of the job market.

Over half of survey responses indicated that learners view skills-based education programs (e.g nursing, STEM, trade skills, etc) as an intelligent choice in today’s labor market despite reporting a limited knowledge of CTE programs. Survey responses also showed a noticeable increase, 10 points from May 2020, in learners’ expressed likelihood to attend a postsecondary CTE institution. State leaders can leverage this type of learner data to rethink how they can assist learners in identifying the programs that will result in in-demand skill attainment.

Additional results from the most recent survey in May 2022 can be found here.

Additional Resources

State leaders can capitalize on learners’ desire to build labor market skills by utilizing effective messaging to emphasize the connection to postsecondary CTE programs. Advance CTE’s report, “Communicating Career Technical Education: Learner-centered Messages for Effective Program Recruitment” provides insights on strategies for designing tailored messaging for recruiting each learner. The accompanying message triangle serves as a guide for building effective messaging aligned with learner interests.

State CTE leaders can find these and other resources about the strategies in the Learning that Works Resource Center.

Amy Hodge, Policy Associate

Tags: Communicating CTE, learner voice, Research
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Research Round-up: Addressing Stop-Out to Reengage Students and Increase Credit Completion

September 27th, 2022

Advance CTE’s “Research Round-Up” blog series features summaries of relevant research reports and studies to elevate evidence-backed Career Technical Educational (CTE) policies and practices and topics related to college and career readiness. This month’s topic, Addressing Student Stop-Out, supports a vision for the future of CTE where statewide systems and supports are in place for each learner to feel welcome in, supported by and prepared to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem, and identifies some effective strategies for supporting learners to increase postsecondary retention and completion.

Defining “Stop-Out” and Learner Demographics

“Stopped out” students are those adult learners with some college experience but no credentials.

According to a recent National Student Clearing House report, approximately 39 million individuals in the United States qualify as having Some College, but No Credentials (SCNC). Unfortunately, this often leaves learners with the debt of attending a postsecondary institution or program without any benefits from earning a credential.

Based on 2020 National Student Clearinghouse data, learners enrolled full-time achieved a retention rate of 59.5 percent and a persistence rate of 68.7 percent. Those metrics, however, were significantly lower for part-time learners, at 42.3 percent and 49.3 percent respectively.

Retention is defined in this report as the continued enrollment (or degree completion within the same higher education institution in the fall terms of a learner’s first and second year. Persistence is defined in this report as the continued enrollment (or degree completion) at any higher education institution– including one different from the institution of the learner’s initial enrollment– in the fall terms of their first and second year.

Who is the most vulnerable to stopping out? Data trends from the National Student Clearinghouse show that racial and ethnic minorities are overrepresented among SCNC learners. Based on a subset of the 39 million SCNC students who entered college in 2013 or later, this report found that Black and Latinx SCNC students collectively made up 42.8 percent, compared to 34.3 percent of undergraduates.

Source: (National Student Clearinghouse 2022)

Wraparound Services and Other Supports to Address Student Stop-Out

Persevering to Completion, a report published in collaboration with the Lumina Foundation and Higher Ed Insight (HEI), uses survey data to understand better the experiences of SCNC learners and the supports that helped them return to college.

For this study, HEI surveyed students from a cohort identified by the National Student Clearinghouse as having stopped out and then returned to college between 2013 and the end of 2018. In 2021, HEI surveyed a subgroup of these students to learn more about whether they’d completed a credential in the interim, what their reasons were for re-enrolling, and what happened when they re-enrolled.

Among the key findings:

Students reenrolled for personal and professional reasons;
Financial barriers were significant factors for students completing their credentials;
Flexible institutional supports like academic counseling, opportunities for credit transfer and a rolling admissions process had an impact on adult learners; and
Key supports related to the timing and delivery of courses included the availability of online and/or hybrid courses, classes that were offered frequently, and convenient class times.

Factors that respondents identified as helping to facilitate their return to college included:

Proactive outreach by postsecondary institutions to their stop-outs and other adults who are researching degree programs;
Messaging focused on the needs of returning adult students, particularly regarding the cost and time required to complete a credential;
Access to easily navigable admissions and degree program information; and
Readily available assistance to answer questions and support returning students through the process of re-enrolling.

State CTE leaders can lead on this issue by taking a supporting postsecondary leaders in systemic evalutions of current supports for stopped out learners to facilitate their re-enrollment. Additional resources about the strategies to equitable support postsecondary learners can be found in the Learning that Works Resource Center.

Amy Hodge, Policy Associate

Tags: Access and Equity, Postsecondary Attainment, Student Supports
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Research Round-up: Perceptions of and Participation in Alternative Credentials

August 25th, 2022

Advance CTE’s “Research Round-Up” series features summaries of relevant research reports and studies to elevate evidence-backed Career Technical Educational (CTE) policies and practices, as well as topics related to college and career readiness. This month’s topic, Alternative Credentials, advances a vision for the future of CTE where statewide systems and supports are in place for each learner’s skills to be fully counted, valued, and portable, and highlights the potential benefits of alternative credentials for both learners and employers.

Defining Alternative Credentials

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, alternative credentials can be loosely defined as any micro-credential, industry or professional certification, acknowledgment of apprenticeship (registered or non-registered), or badging that indicates one’s competencies and skills within a particular field. Other common characteristics of alternative credentials include:

These credentials typically take less time to complete;
Focus on specific skills;
Are stackable;
Are verifiable; and
Are often aligned to industries and can be frequently delivered digitally.

The key takeaways from three recent reports on the perceptions and outcomes of alternative credentials suggest that skills-based hiring offers a competitive alternative to the traditional, four-year degree job requirement and benefits both employers and employees.

Research shows a growing need to think outside of the traditional four-year degree.

Jobs for the Future (JFF) and American Student Assistance (ASA)’s white paper, “Degrees of Risk: What Gen Z and Employers Think About Education-to-Career Pathways…and How Those Views are Changing”, illustrates the shifting perceptions of alternative credentials

When trying to determine their next steps after graduation, Generation Z youth are becoming increasingly wary of the cost and time to complete a traditional four-year degree. Almost 86 percent of learners today receive financial aid; the average student loan balance accumulated over four years ranges from $25,880 to $107,520. Knowing this, they are open to the idea of non-degree pathways and credentials to help build job readiness skills in order to accelerate their timelines for entering the workforce.
Employers who are willing to look outside of the traditional four-year degree are looking for a certain threshold of experience (typically measured in years) to satisfy skill requirements. This could suggest that potential candidates who have completed an apprenticeship or work-based learning have an advantage over traditional college applicants who may not yet have accumulated work experience.

For employees, alternative credentials may have a return on investment that is competitive with the traditional degree track.

The Midwest Economic Policy Institute co-authored “Apprenticeship as a Career Development Alternative” with the University of Illinois’ Labor and Employment Relations division to examine registered apprenticeship programs in the state of Wisconsin. The report analyzes enrollment, hours worked, and wages earned by learners, to demonstrate the market value of alternative credentials when learners are considering their postsecondary options.

Wages earned by workers who have achieved journey-level experience start at $67,200 annual salary, on par with annual earnings for workers with bachelor’s degrees.
The average construction worker who completes an apprenticeship program in Wisconsin earns 33 percent more than the average worker with an associate degree. These wages are only 3 percent less than the average worker with a bachelor’s degree and avoid incurring $27,100 in student debt, the average loan burden for graduating seniors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

For employers, lowering barriers to jobs by removing burdensome degree requirements has the potential of diversifying talent pools.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) published the findings of a survey sampling executives, supervisors, HR professionals, and workers to measure the frequency and perceptions of alternative credentials. A majority of executives, supervisors, and HR professionals believe that including alternative credentials in hiring decisions can actually improve overall workplace diversity. The findings show that 81 percent of executives, 71 percent of supervisors, and 59 percent of human resource professionals recognize that using alternative credentials can uncover untapped talent and make it easier for diverse candidates to obtain employment.

Credentials are popular with nontraditional groups:

Older Workers: Most workers ages 50 and older funded through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) who seek further education earn a non-degree credential. WIOA observed a clear preference on the part of older workers for training options that are usually under one year in duration with training program completion rates ranging from 74 to 85 percent .
Individuals without a postsecondary degree: 58 percent of working-age adults with some college but no degree have earned nondegree credentials, while 19 percent of those with no higher education have earned nondegree credentials.
Veterans: For those adults without college degrees, military veterans (57 percent) are far more likely than nonveterans (35 percent) to have a certificate or certification.

Confidence in alternative credentials is growing among learners and employers, alike. CTE has long been viewed as a responsive, skills-based avenue for learners to earn alternative credentials. To move the needle on skills-based practices, CTE leaders must ensure that alternative credentials are high-quality, backed by labor market information and provide on and off ramps to allow learners to stack their credentials.

Additional discussions about skills-based hiring can be found in this webinar, Valuing Individuals’ Career-Ready Competencies Through Skills-Based Hiring, hosted earlier this year by Advance CTE, and in the Learning that Works Resource Center.

Amy Hodge, Policy Associate

Tags: Alternative Certification, employers, veterans, WIOA
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Defining “Stop-Out” and Learner Demographics

Source: (National Student Clearinghouse 2022)

Wraparound Services and Other Supports to Address Student Stop-Out

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