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Learning From New Skills for Youth to Move Career Pathways Forward

April 2nd, 2024

Advance CTE recently released Moving Career Pathways Forward: Learning From the New Skills for Youth Initiative, with support from JPMorgan Chase and in partnership with Education Strategy Group. The report shares the successes and challenges of six states as they sustained career pathways development after the conclusion of a major philanthropic investment and the coronavirus pandemic. The report also features recommendations from state leaders to move career pathways development forward. In this blog, Senior Research Associate Dr. Laura Maldonado provides highlights of lasting legacies and recommendations from the report. 

Overview

While receiving a major grant from a funder to support career pathways development is exciting, it is important to develop sustainable systems and processes while leveraging the funding to continue the work beyond the conclusion of the grant. New Skills for Youth (NSFY) was one of the earliest and most impactful philanthropy investments in career pathways and career readiness in recent history. Launched in 2016, and supported by JPMorgan Chase, NSFY was a $75 million, 5-year initiative to strengthen and expand high-quality career pathways for youth.1 Advance CTE, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and Education Strategy Group served as the national partners in NSFY to transform career readiness education in 10 states across the United States. Ultimately, the grant concluded and states had to determine the transition of resources and supports to provide continuity of services.

As states and communities continue to prioritize career pathways policies and programs, it is useful to review insight from NSFY states around scale and sustainability given what they accomplished and what their systems look like today. Advance CTE’s vision for the future of Career Technical Education (CTE) calls on states to ensure each learner engages in a cohesive, flexible, and responsive career preparation ecosystem.2 Thinking upfront about the management of a grant end date helps keep learners at the forefront of high-quality career pathways. 

Background

To help address sustainability concerns, Advance CTE identified state leaders from six NSFY states who were willing to share how they sustained growth and progress of career pathways nearly 4 years after the end of the initiative. Moving Career Pathways Forward: Learning From the New Skills for Youth Initiative helps current leaders build on lessons learned and recommendations from past leaders. 

Lasting Legacies From the NSFY States

One feature of the report is the highlight of lasting legacies, or systems and structures started during NSFY that are still in existence today. 

Kentucky has improved training and support for CTE teachers, collaborates more with industry partners, and has seen changed attitudes regarding regional approaches.

NSFY enabled the Louisiana Department of Education to pursue cutting-edge entrepreneurial initiatives, such as wraparound supports, virtual work-based learning, and other activities that would have taken a long time to be approved for state funding. 

Massachusetts has a comprehensive approach to pathways, a common language, and additional capacity support at the district level. 

Cohesiveness of college and career readiness efforts in state programming and a strengthened commitment to equity continues to be a statewide focus in Ohio. 

Engaging with employers, using data to address equity gaps, and elevating career education to learners, families and key partners were key efforts sustained in Rhode Island. 

And finally, efforts launched in NSFY that have been sustained in Wisconsin include Regional Career Pathways and assessment practices for regional pathway work. 

Recommendations From the NSFY States

Another feature of the report is recommendations and action steps to sustain career pathways across multiple partner groups. These recommendations come from the learned experiences of state leaders and provide additional examples from states. 

State Agencies and Intermediaries

  • Navigate the Team Through the Change Management Process. Turnover is to be expected over a number of years in organizations and educational systems. State leaders can maintain momentum by offering onboarding and offboarding to team members, creating a shared space for documents and materials, tailoring change messaging for each partner group, and building in time for transition planning.
  • Build and Sustain Partnerships. Developing and improving high-quality career pathways requires cross-sector collaborations among secondary education, postsecondary education, and workforce systems. State leaders should align high-level leadership to career pathways, add new employer and industry partnerships, and ensure that routines and structures continue on a consistent basis.
  • Identify New Funding Streams and Processes. State leaders should continue to leverage existing federal sources (e.g., Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act [Perkins V] reserve funds), advocate for line items in state budgets, secure private funding and public grants, and better align funding with program approval processes. Finding ways to braid funding streams from federal, state, and local sources can be a strategy to support equitable career pathways.3

 

Local Leaders

  • Maintain Engagement With Local Leaders. Although NSFY took a statewide systems-level approach, leaders at the local level were ultimately the linchpin of the day-to-day implementation and execution of the initiative. State leaders should continue to have conversations with districts, CTE leaders, and implementers to ensure that local leaders recognize the long-term process of career pathways systems, and they receive technical assistance to build their capacity.

Learners

  • Incorporate Learner Voice Into Career Pathways Processes. State leaders should listen to learners and find ways to incorporate learner voice into career pathways processes by capturing statewide learner data and using existing learner voice resources, such as the Learner Voice Toolkit.4

Advance CTE and Education Strategy Group are currently helping six states and local sites think through the sustainability and scaling of career pathways systems after the conclusion of JPMorgan Chase’s current major career pathways initiative—New Skills ready network.5 The New Skills ready network sites are working to improve learner completion of high-quality career pathways as part of a 5-year initiative, which will end in 2025. 

Advance CTE, Education Strategy Group, ExcelinEd, JFF, and New America are also working with 11 states over two cohorts in another initiative focused on scale and sustainability—Launch: Equitable & Accelerated Pathways for All.6 Within Launch, sites are building sustainability plans to address long-standing barriers and achieve scale in their career pathways efforts. 

Starting or sustaining statewide initiatives with multiple agencies and partners is a major undertaking. The Moving Career Pathways Forward: Learning From the New Skills for Youth Initiative report helps state leaders use lessons learned from NSFY to replicate promising practices in their state for high-quality career pathways.

Additional Resources

Please visit Advance CTE’s Learning that Works Resource Center for additional resources about career pathways. 

Dr. Laura Maldonado, Senior Research Associate

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Preparing for CTE’s Next Era: Celebrations from Advance CTE’s 2023 Annual Report

March 25th, 2024

Director of Membership Engagement and Professional Learning Dr. Stephanie Perkins shares Advance CTE’s progress in fully supporting members and elevating CTE in policy and practice in state and federal and policy. 

Career Technical Education (CTE) continues to be a leading state and federal policy solution to both bridge and address transformations in learning and work. CTE’s next era requires maximizing its quality and innovation to remain a go-to experience that can reach and support every learner and community. As the oldest national association of State CTE Directors and related professionals, Advance CTE has continued to grow and adapt to meet the needs of our members and advance the work of CTE Without Limit for the CTE community. 

Our newly released 2023 Annual Report highlights that progress and preparation for CTE’s Next Era for both our organization and our members. 

Keep reading to see five ways Advance CTE continues to support our members while challenging the field by leading on equity, influencing federal policy, building community and knowledge, and providing impactful tools and resources.

Supporting CTE Leaders and Learners

As our members work to ensure that all learners have access to high-quality, equitable CTE, we strive to meet each state where they are in this journey. In 2023, our focus for supporting CTE leaders and learners focused on continuing our high-quality member experiences, building diverse CTE leadership and workforce pipelines, and elevating learner voice. Our members continue to see value in their membership and look for a variety of ways to engage.

 

Engaging and Connecting Members

Bringing together our members in person and virtually provides the opportunity to share best practices and lessons learned to address common challenges and improve outcomes for CTE learners. In Spring of 2023 we gathered over 200 CTE leaders to discuss opportunities, challenges, and shared solutions around various topics of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins V) in preparation for state plan revisions. Our members were very satisfied with the structure of these meetings, finding it a very useful space to work with their state teams on Perkins processes and gather ideas from their peers. In event evaluation, 100 percent of responding attendees reported that meetings were an “extremely valuable” or “valuable” use of their time. 

Additionally, we provided direct support and engagement to 44 states through our technical assistance efforts and workgroups. These spaces allowed for innovations and resources that benefit the entire CTE community. 

Leading National Conversations

In 2023, we continued to drive innovation in CTE policy and practice and position CTE as an essential strategy to meet education, workforce, and economic needs. Seventy-seven percent of Advance CTE’s recommendations for modernizing of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act reauthorization were reflected in a proposed reauthorization last fall. We also continued to build more CTE champions on Capitol Hill, where support for the CTE Month resolution has doubled since 2021.  

Additional Resources

Advance CTE’s Annual Report is just one of the ways for our members to understand the impact this work has on the CTE community. We encourage you to continue to engage with us in various ways by staying up to date with future events found on the membership portal. Additionally, we have several tools for members to find resources through: 

On behalf of the entire Advance CTE team, we look forward to engaging with you in the future!

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

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Enhanced Collaboration Towards Implementation of High-Quality Career Pathways in Year Three of the New Skills ready network

July 11th, 2023

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

As a partner in the New Skills ready network initiative, Advance CTE elevates the successes and lessons learned across the six sites as they work towards the implementation of high-quality, equitable career pathways. Over the course of the three years of the initiative, sites have made significant progress in the development and implementation of career pathways from defining the core elements of high-quality career pathways to improving the access and equity of high-quality career pathways. The policy and programmatic changes adopted across the six sites in the initiative are promising approaches and strategies that can be leveraged in other states and areas to enhance the design, delivery and implementation of high-quality, equitable career pathways.

Throughout year three of the New Skills ready network initiative, several key priorities emerged as trends for the six sites:

  • Integrating high-quality work-based learning and early career exposure opportunities within all career pathways;
  • Facilitating learner career pathway progression and transition through secondary and postsecondary institutions;
  • Expanding learner access to coordinated, holistic, equitable college and career advising; and
  • Improving access to and the quality of high-wage, high-demand career pathways that prepare learners for careers with family-sustaining wages.

Across each key priority area, sites have leveraged cross-sector networks and partnerships to deploy promising practices that support their sites with the successful development and implementation of high-quality career pathways that meet the needs of learners and industry. Examples of achievement across the sites include the Columbus, Ohio, site leveraging an employer toolkit, created by the Ohio Department of Education, to help industry partners better understand the opportunities and challenges associated with work-based learning. 

The Indianapolis, Indiana, site expanded learner access to college and career advising by developing resources and supports for learners and finalizing frameworks that align career advising practices. For example, postsecondary partners published program maps for learners participating in agreements between Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and Ivy Tech Community College. 

The Nashville, Tennessee, team has supported increased access to career pathways in HVAC and IT by engaging postsecondary partners like the Tennessee College of Applied Technology – Nashville (TCAT-Nashville). The engagement with TCAT-Nashville has increased learner participation and interest in dual enrollment, and the site now has more than 300 learners enrolled in these opportunities.

Sites like Boston, Massachusetts, and Dallas, Texas, are expanding access to career exploration, advising and high-quality career pathways opportunities to middle grades learners. In year three, the Boston, Massachusetts, team expanded the rollout of their My Career and Academic Plan to middle grades learners to better prepare learners for career pathways, dual enrollment and early college experiences. The Dallas, Texas, team is currently designing a cybersecurity career pathway that will connect all partner institutions with learners and provide lab experiences at the University of North Texas – Dallas. Learners in Dallas, Texas, will be exposed to this high-wage, high-demand career pathway as early as middle school with opportunities to earn credentials. 

Project team partners in Denver, Colorado, are improving the learner experience when transitioning from secondary to postsecondary institutions. In year three, the site lead, The Attainment Network, supported secondary and postsecondary institutions with solutions to longstanding challenges in learner transitions including lack of data sharing, erroneous dual enrollment rosters and incorrect schedules for learners. The institutions are now leveraging IT automation to ensure each institution has access to timely information on learners’ schedules, enrollments and more. 

In addition to diving more into the aforementioned exciting developments, the site snapshots and year three annual report preview the work for year four in the New Skills ready network initiative. Each site has ambitious goals for year four including exploring new pathways sectors, engaging families and learners in the design and implementation of career pathways, sustaining and scaling career pathways as sites near year five of the initiative and more. 

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

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

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Why CTE Without Borders?

May 22nd, 2023

Advance CTE’s new resource, the CTE Without Borders Policy Playbook, calls on leaders to truly meet the needs of learners by removing the geographic barriers that limit access and opportunities, particularly for learners in rural communities. This work is essential to ensure that each learner can access CTE without borders — one of the five principles of Advance CTE’s Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education. Policies and programs should enable, not limit, mobility and access. States should come together to develop and expand new models of collaboration by investing in expanded-access systems that allow access both within and across states.

The first release in the CTE Without Borders series highlights the importance of expanded access and introduces two of the six focus areas critical to expanding access to high-quality CTE and work-based learning: Aligning Partners, Values and Vision and Driving Decisions With Data.

State CTE leaders can learn how expanded access to high-quality CTE and work-based learning opportunities benefits learners, industry, institutions and state labor market demands; consider how to assess current CTE systems to actualize CTE without borders; and prepare their state for expanded access within and across states. 

This first release features promising state and local practices from across the country including California, Kansas, Tennessee, Utah 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 first two releases in the series and for additional resources to support CTE Without Borders.

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

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Six Focus Areas to Actualize CTE Without Borders

May 4th, 2023

In March 2021, Advance CTE released Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education (CTE Without Limits). This vision put forth a bold vision for a cohesive, flexible and responsive career preparation system that aims to close equity gaps in educational outcomes and workforce readiness and leverage Career Technical Education (CTE) as a catalyst for ensuring each learner can reach success in their career of choice. CTE Without Limits lays out five inter-connected and equally critical principles – Principle 5 in CTE Without Limits describes that all learners can access CTE without borders. 

To truly meet the needs of learners, we must remove the geographic barriers that limit access and opportunities, particularly for learners in rural communities. CTE policies and programs should enable, not limit, mobility and access and states should come together to develop and expand new models of collaboration by investing in open-access systems that enable access within and across states.

Advance CTE’s upcoming release, the CTE Without Borders Policy Playbook, developed in partnership with the Southern Regional Education Board and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, and with input from more than 100 national, state and local leaders, highlights six focus areas to help states, secondary and postsecondary institutions actualize CTE without borders with expanded access to high-quality CTE and work-based learning within and across states. The six focus areas include:

  • Aligning partners, values and vision;
  • Driving decisions with data;
  • 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.

The policy playbook features promising state and local practices from across the country including Colorado, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Texas and more; strategies to actualize each focus area; and resources to support state and local leaders in providing expanded access within and across states.

Review the CTE Without Borders Policy Playbook series in the Learning that Works Resource Center when it’s released later in May to learn about the ways your state can meet the needs of all learners regardless of where they live.

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

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Credit for Prior Learning: Q&A with CCV’s Melissa DeBlois on the success of the Prior Learning Assessment Programs.

April 26th, 2023

Earlier this month, Advance CTE released a Credit for Prior Learning Messaging Toolkit in partnership with Education Strategy Group and the New Skills ready network. This toolkit provides guidance and templates to help state leaders develop key messages that engage and communicate the value and use of Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) to adult learners, postsecondary faculty and staff and employers. 

This post interviews Community College of Vermont’s Director of Prior Learning Assessment, Melissa DeBlois for insights on the need for this resource and how communicating CPL is realized at the institution and learner level.

In our conversation, Melissa shared how CCV’s simple, yet effective strategies have been deployed to empower and support adult learners in returning to the classroom to complete their degrees.

When and why was the Office of Prior Learning Assessment established? 

The Office of Prior Learning Assessment was established in 1975 in response to the need for a formalized process that would reconnect adult learners by awarding postsecondary credits for previous academic or work-based experiences. 

Who do you consider to be your core audience for communications regarding Prior Learning Assessment / Credit for Prior Learning (PLA/CPL)?

Our primary audiences are students and employers. We find that students aged 25 and up and those with military connections are particularly successful in PLA/CPL because they often already have some learning that could be documented through the PLA/CPL process.

While employers are eager for resources to help upskill their employees, I’ve also had senior leadership approach me after leading a session to ask about whether PLA could help them complete their degrees. We foster a culture where these tools and resources are open and available without shame or judgment for anyone to take advantage of.

Which communication strategies would you consider to be exceptionally high-impact?

Social media and digital marketing are huge for us. Our marketing department utilizes data to determine which platforms have the greatest impact to get information in front of our audiences. We developed some short, pathway-specific videos that feature stories of program alumni. Sharing personal perspectives has been incredibly effective for connecting with our adult population as they are able to see themselves in these campaigns and it encourages them to dream about where they could go with their learning.

Our admissions department sends automatic messages to everyone who applies. Our software has the capability to send texts and emails, but our method depends entirely on the contact information that the learner has provided to us. On the day they apply, they receive a message from me asking if they have an interest in saving time and money on their path to a degree, and it has been a pretty effective way to target folks. 

Webinars have also been effective communication tools for reaching our audiences. Now that people are more familiar with Zoom, they have the opportunity to access this information in a way that they weren’t able to before.

Are strategies differentiated based on the PLA program/initiative or target audience?

In December 2020, we developed new competency-based PLA options specific to early childhood education. We were able to generate a mailing list of all registered childcare centers in the state and sent out informational fliers and contact cards to post in their break rooms. While this approach was low-tech, it specifically catered to the individuals working at the center by placing our fliers on staff bulletin boards in break rooms or common spaces they’d be seen every day.

How have your strategies changed over time?

We collect data from those who enroll and those who attend our informational sessions. We ask them about their takeaways from the session to better understand what the most relevant pieces of information were for them. I find that there are a lot more folks who are interested in learning a little bit more before they’re actually ready to devote the time and energy to enroll in courses. We’ve seen that they are exploring well in advance, and it can often take them months or sometimes years to follow through while they make arrangements to fit college into their already full lives. 

Were there additional surprises or pushback to this program that your team wasn’t anticipating? If so, how did you mitigate these?

PLA is complicated, and I’ve seen students struggle when they try to navigate it on their own.  Our adult learners do not want to be on hold, but being short-staffed means that our capacity to serve learners is a challenge. This population doesn’t want to be bounced around from office to office. They want to talk to one person to help them figure out what they need to do and get started. We’ve addressed this by prioritizing in-person sessions where I can interact in real-time and answer their questions. We wrote PLA into CCV’s strategic plan, so expanding opportunities for our adult learners are included in all of our goal-setting as it’s part of the DNA of our institution. 

Another challenge in PLA/CPL is the acceptance and transferability of credits.  I’m hopeful that more institutions will be open to prior learning assessed credit because they need to in order to stay afloat. They need to recognize that adult learners come with experiential learning with a college credit value, and I think we’re moving in that direction.

Finally, as a community college, we don’t have a lot of funding available so we need to get creative about how to fund these initiatives, not on the backs of tuition dollars for our students. 

What recommendations do you have for other states seeking to increase engagement and improve communication around CPL?

I have three pieces of advice: 

  • Profile your successful students. It is important for students to be able to see themselves in this process.
  • Be patient with the process. Adult learners need time before they’re ready to approach PLA/CPL with an open mind and trust that they can find success through this process.
  • Find your champions. Whether it’s students, faculty or employers. Word of mouth is pretty powerful in this process. We can do all the videos and profiles and all that kind of stuff, yet I still hear from students who actually enroll that they say they were referred by a friend.

What is the future of credit for prior learning in Vermont?

We’ve seen a lot of promise in competency-based pathways. We’ve broken down courses into modularized content that will allow folks to test out and complete assignments on their own without having to sit through an entire class. The response has been positive, and we’ve developed 12 competency-based pathways that are very popular for meeting the needs of learners at all kinds of places in their career paths. 

Visit Advance CTE’s Learning that Works Research Center for additional resources about credit for prior learning, including the Embedding Credit for Prior Learning in Career Pathways Policy Benchmark Tool and the newly released Credit for Prior Learning Messaging Toolkit.

Amy Hodge, Policy Associate

Melissa DeBlois is the director of the Office of Prior Learning Assessment and a member of the Prior Learning Assessment Network. In her role, Melissa coordinates and provides outreach efforts, hires faculty for portfolio reviews, course challenges, and ETES program reviews, trains faculty to teach portfolio courses, provides information to a variety of audiences via presentations, documentation, videos and webinars, and facilitates portfolio reviews. She spent the first 18 years of her career at the Community College of Vermont. Before working in prior learning assessment, she was a coordinator of academic services for the CCV-Burlington, then CCV-Winooski, academic teams. She has reviewed and developed computer degree programs on the Technology Curriculum Committee for the last 15 years. Melissa holds a bachelor of arts from St. Lawrence University and a master of education with a focus in technology integration from St. Michael’s College.

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Measuring Progress for Every Leader and Learner in CTE in Five Visuals

April 11th, 2023

Advance CTE’s newly released 2022 Annual Report celebrates how our organization continues to grow and adapt to meet the needs of our members. In doing so, we made meaningful progress in achieving Career Technical Education (CTE) without any limits to program access, support and success for each learner. 

Keep reading to see five ways our organization continues to support our members while challenging the field by leading on equity, influencing federal policy, building community and knowledge, and providing impactful tools and resources. 

State CTE leaders feel valued and heard through our supports and resources. 

 

 

 

 

One hundred percent of State CTE Director felt valued and satisfied as a member of Advance CTE.

Advance CTE is a national leader in equipping CTE leaders to build more equitable programs and systems for each learner. 

In 2022 we strove to close equity and representation gaps through expanded delivery of our Opportunity Gap Analysis workshop to 24 states and supporting two cohort and 25 leaders of cohort participating in the Postsecondary State Career Technical Education Leaders Fellowship at Advance CTE — Sponsored by ECMC Foundation. 

 

Expanded tailored technical assistance and engagement spaces of all sizes successfully met the capacity and needs of our state CTE leaders. 

In 2022, 45 states and two territories participated in dedicated spaces to learn best practices and undertake steps to address pressing systemic challenges. 

 

Advance CTE’s strong reputation among federal policymakers delivered increases for Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V). 

In 2022, we achieved new records in the number of congressional members supporting CTE Month and total funding for Perkins V. 

 

 

 

 

Our professional learning events receive high marks for connecting members to state and national experts with solutions on timely issues. 

In 2022, Advance returned to in-person events while also delivering virtual events in new formats, including a three-part June Meeting Series and fireside chat featuring U.S. Department of Education Assistant Secretary Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education Dr. Amy Loyd. 

Stacy Whitehouse, Communications Manager

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The Case for State Investment in Youth Apprenticeship Programs

March 30th, 2023

Our newest brief, released in partnership with the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA), explores the current landscape around state funding models to support youth apprenticeship (YA) programs. Equipping state and local Career Technical Education (CTE) leaders with the knowledge and tools to advance YA programs aligns with Advance CTE’s vision for each learner’s skills to be counted, valued, and portable.

YA programs are an important component of a fully developed career preparation ecosystem. High-quality YA programs allow learners to explore career pathways and develop skills that are relevant to industry needs to improve the overall health of the local economy. State Funding Models to Support Youth Apprenticeships evaluates the landscape of state YA funding models and highlights practices in Georgia, Michigan, Utah and to equip states to adopt funding strategies that enable these programs to be fully embedded in states’ career preparation ecosystems. 

Benefits for State Investment 

States are uniquely positioned to invest in and implement high-quality YA programs, and in doing so can systematically expand access to and quality of growing YA programs. These investments allow learners to access a complete spectrum of work-based learning experiences to gain in-demand skills and credentials and enter the labor market prepared for the world of work.

Additionally, investment at the state level is a strong signal to industry to initiate or expand employer participation in these programs.1 Employers in IT, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, business, finance, education, and many other industries have found that YA delivers a positive return on their investment by helping them build a pipeline of young, diverse talent and fostering a culture of learning and innovation that attracts and retains employees.2

States have the power to align CTE programs of study with YA programs to create seamless pathways for learners and in some cases earn college credit simultaneously. For example: 

  • In Connecticut, the Connecticut Department of Labor administers the Manufacturing Innovation Fund Apprenticeship program, which was first launched in 2015 as part of the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development’s $30 million Manufacturing Innovation Fund.
  • North Carolina’s apprenticeship programs are implemented by ApprenticeshipNC, a program housed within the North Carolina Community College System. For FY 2022–24, $11.6 million dollars was allocated from the State Fiscal Recovery Fund to expand apprenticeship programs to learners ages 16–25 to increase the enrollment of learners within under-served populations at state community colleges.3
  • Last year, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (NJDOL) announced $1 million in available grant funding to encourage the development of Degree Apprenticeship structures that integrate paid on-the-job learning with credit-bearing classroom education.4

In State Funding Models to Support Youth Apprenticeships, we also share findings on how states are providing funding for work-based learning programs and make recommendations for how state investment in YA programs represents a critical part of the career preparation ecosystem. 

For more information about PAYA’s work and resources for building your own YA program, visit Advance CTE’s Learning that Works Resource Center.

Amy Hodge, Policy Associate

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Contribution to Society: Exploring Purpose-Driven Framing for Career Pathways

March 23rd, 2023

Beginning a career has always been a daunting proposition for young people. With the coronavirus pandemic causing rapid disruption in the world of education and work, an acceleration of changing workplace trends and 46 million employees quitting their jobs in 2022, the world of work seems more daunting than ever. When taking into account the economic, social and environmental changes, the interests and needs of learners are evolving in new and fascinating ways. While employers are searching for ways to retain dedicated talent, employees are searching for ways to contribute to the society they live in and find purpose-driven work.

Over the past year, Advance CTE sought to connect this gap between the purpose-driven employee and the retention-minded employer through a reframing of career pathway descriptors, exploring whether a Career Technical Education (CTE) program oriented around one’s contribution to their community would prepare learners to be passionate and excited about future work while providing employers with a strong and motivated talent pipeline. 

In Contribution to Society: Exploring Purpose-Driven Framing for Career Pathways, we build the case for this type of framing through research, demonstrating that learners want to talk about their future contributions, but don’t always have the language or the appropriate outlet to do so. Research into occupational identity and social capital similarly reveals that these types of contribution-centered conversations can provide learners with the opportunity to learn about a broad set of careers that could fulfill their professional goals while building the networks they need to be successful. 

To further explore this framing, we commissioned focus groups with learners of different learner levels and conducted in-depth interviews with hiring professionals across six different industries. Through this research, we explored a number of trends:

  • Framing career pathways and programs of study around a contribution to society has value, but language must be framed appropriately.
  • Titles and descriptions of programs of study or industry sectors alone are insufficient for effective advising and recruitment.
  • The most effective framing of a program of study — for both learners and employers — links a learner’s contribution to society to their career goals.
  • Employers see value in CTE programs, particularly in creating passionate and committed employees.

 

In this white paper, we also share potential implications about the value of a “contribution to society” centered frame for CTE programs, including implications for learners, for instructors and counseling professionals, for administrators and policymakers, and for employers. The white paper also explores directions of future research and work to help validate and implement conversations around a purpose-driven framing for CTE programs. 

CTE programs build the technical and academic knowledge and skills learners need to be successful in the career of their choosing; as learners continue to strive toward a purposeful future, this type of framing could be an effective tool in helping learners navigate their own career journey in a more informed and purpose-driven way. Advance CTE will be launching work later this year to further explore how to elevate and implement a “contribution to society” centered frame in CTE programs and policies. Stay tuned to learn more!

Dan Hinderliter, Senior Policy Associate

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Advance CTE and ACTE Release 10th Annual Year in Review Report

February 9th, 2023

This month, Advance CTE, in partnership with the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE,) has released the 2022 Year In Review, the tenth report of its kind. This report is a snapshot of Career Technical Education (CTE) legislation around the country, passed in 2022 through states’ respective legislatures. Designed to support state policymakers and other interested stakeholders, the Year In Review report offers the opportunity to see what solutions to common themes have been implemented and where. 

Containing 123 policies enacted in 36 states, the report elevates innovative and particularly effective legislation across common policy themes, with healthcare being particularly prevalent with policymakers. As per previous reports, the Year In Review also lists highlights from the top five policy areas from 2022 which are:

For a more in-depth look at all of the enacted policies for this year, we have provided this accompanying online tracker, which allows users to search and filter for the policies they are looking for. 

CTE leaders are encouraged to use the tracker and state highlight to consider how to apply these innovations in their states and communities to realize the CTE Without Limits vision framework. The following policies align with two principles where state leaders have expressed interest in increased action policy in both policy and practice: 

Principle 4: Each learner’s skills are counted, valued, and portable

West Virginia mandated that the State Board of Education shall establish, develop, and maintain a program where students can earn up to six elective course credits for extended learning opportunities that take place outside of the traditional classroom setting. These experiences must be approved by the State Board of Education, and all teachers are required to have a background check. Each extended learning program will be evaluated at the end of its first year; if it meets the requirements, it may be approved for an additional five years. Students may receive transfer credits for extended learning programs.

Principle 5: Each learner can access CTE without borders

Kentucky established a virtual computer science career academy, implemented by nonprofit group WeLeadCS, to prepare high school students for careers in computing, particularly in the field of data science. The program will be delivered by teachers in a virtual, synchronous manner and will provide opportunities related to dual college credit, industry certifications and work-based learning. WeLeadCS must recruit and train certified teachers; collaborate with the Kentucky Center for Statistics to define workforce needs and opportunities; partner with employers, K-12 and postsecondary educations to develop initiatives to raise awareness of the program; and advise students in the academy about postsecondary degree opportunities, among other responsibilities.

Read the report to explore 18 state policy highlights and a longitudinal view of CTE policies passed in the last ten years. To celebrate this milestone, Advance CTE will be taking a look back at some of these policies and analyzing their effect on their CTE landscapes specifically through our CTE Without Limits vision framework throughout the year.

The 2022 Year in Review can be found here. Previous Year In Review reports may be found here.

Brice Thomas, Policy Associate

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Posted in Advance CTE Resources, Public Policy, Publications | Comments Off on Advance CTE and ACTE Release 10th Annual Year in Review Report

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