In summer 2018, the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) was signed into law. As a result, states were awarded the opportunity to reflect, engage with a wide array of stakeholders and partners, reaffirm key priorities and commitments, and identify new opportunities to support learners and their industry partners through the Perkins V planning process.

Today, Advance CTE released The State of Career Technical Education: An Analysis of States’ Perkins V Priorities. This report is the first of its kind in providing a cross-state analysis and recognition of the strategic decisions CTE leaders have made to advance high-quality CTE programs while increasing access and equity for each learner in their state, showcasing how many states have gone above and beyond the law’s requirements. 

Through this review, Advance CTE with contributions from The Association of Career and Technical Education (ACTE) identified common aspects of states’ Perkins V plans that are indicative of a comprehensive and cohesive state plan and set up learners for lifelong success:

• A shared statewide vision;
• Ongoing and meaningful alignment and collaboration across the K-12, postsecondary and workforce systems;
• A commitment to equity and learner supports;
• A commitment to quality programs;
• Systems for attracting, retaining and developing CTE instructors;
• The use of data-driven decisionmaking; and
• A strong system of supports to ensure fidelity of implementation.

These hallmarks of a strong Perkins V state plan offer insights into how states are addressing the significant changes under Perkins V while taking advantage of the opportunities and flexibilities awarded, along with specific state highlights and promising innovations.

View the State of Career Technical Education: An Analysis of States’ Perkins V Priorities here.

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Tweet: New Report, released by @CTEWorks: The State of CTE: An Analysis of States’ Perkins V Priorities. https://careertech.org/resource/state-cte-perkins-v #StateofCTE

This week the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) released a new research report on the national landscape of short-term postsecondary programs- An Analysis of Existing Short-Term Postsecondary Programs. Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) contributed to the final report with information collected from each organization’s membership about the impact, barriers and opportunity for these programs.

The resource defines short-term programs, outlines some of the funding mechanisms that exist, shares out the results of a survey sent to Advance CTE, ACTE and NASFAA memberships and chronicles interviews and focus group discussions with state and local Career Technical Education (CTE) leaders. Key findings from the research include: 

• “The majority of institutions agree or strongly agree that their short-term programs benefit the local economy, adult learners, and other students, and that expanding short-term programs is of interest to industry representatives, educators, and local leaders.
• The most common short-term credentials offered by participants in our study are in health care and transportation fields.
• The business sector is one of the most significant driving forces behind short-term program development. Employers offer input into program designs to provide students with in-demand skills.
• Institutions often face difficulty filling short-term programs with sufficient enrollments because prospective students cannot afford the costs, and colleges can be reluctant to build short-term certificate programs that are not financial aid eligible, even when they would benefit students and employers.
• Just over half of programs offered by institutional survey respondents are eligible under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA).
• Many short-term certificates are already embedded in longer certificate or degree programs, or are considered “stackable” credentials that build upon previous credentials and may feed into degree programs.
• States and institutions would be interested in offering more short-term programs if the programs were eligible for Federal Pell Grants and could serve more students.
• Even if short-term programs became eligible for federal financial aid, however, most institutions stated they could not shorten many existing programs because of state, industry, and academic standards.”

The survey results and interviews with Advance CTE membership show a clear desire from state CTE leaders to grow and improve short-term postsecondary programs. The positive benefits these programs have on career growth is a motivating factor for key stakeholders to continue to build these programs and figure out solutions to challenges such as funding and lack of data collection.

Meredith Hills, Senior Associate for Federal Policy

Intentional and early collaboration between state and local leaders and state coordinators for homeless education is vital to developing solutions that ensure success in Career Technical Education (CTE) programs for learners experiencing homelessness. As many states anticipate the growing rates of homelessness to continue in the coming years, the need for partnerships between state and local leaders and state coordinators for homeless education is far greater in order to increase learner success for these learners.

Advance CTE in partnership with the National Center for Homeless Education (NCHE) has published Making Good on the Promise: Improving Equity in and Access to Quality CTE Programs for Students Experiencing Homelessness for state and local leaders to leverage as they begin this body of work. 

The Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) expanded the definition of special populations to include individuals experiencing homelessness, as defined by Subtitle VII-B of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. State leaders have before them a clear path for ensuring state supports increase equity and access to high-quality CTE programs for learners experiencing homelessness. 

Research shows that learners who are enrolled and complete CTE courses are more likely to complete high school or earn an equivalent graduation degree and decrease the likeness of experiencing homelessness. [1] While there is great benefit to completing CTE programs for learners experiencing homelessness, acknowledging the access barriers and developing targeted strategies to support this population remain a challenge for states. 

This new resource identifies common barriers to high-quality CTE and suggests strategies for how CTE and homeless education leaders can work together to build new opportunities for learners experiencing homelessness in their state to access and succeed in CTE programs. 

State leaders can start, today, building key partnerships by implementing these action steps:

1. Reach out and connect with the appropriate CTE or homeless education counterpart.
   
2. Focus on concrete efforts with mutual benefit to each other’s work.
3. Start somewhere and build confidence in the partnership.
4. Continue to invest over time.

Leverage these state examples on how to drive focus and leverage data insights when supporting learners experiencing homelessness:

• Kentucky’s Perkins V State Steering Committee includes both state- and local-level homeless stakeholder representation. Kentucky also targets CTE program recruitment efforts to learners experiencing homelessness by distributing informational materials in places these learners may frequent.
• Arizona hired a special populations/grant program specialist to serve as a statewide resource for secondary/postsecondary CTE services for special populations.
• Montana’s Data Review Board includes a state homeless coordinator and plans to meet twice a year to review disaggregated data, share program updates, and plan needed technical assistance for local educational agencies. 

This resource is part of the Making Good on the Promise series, which confronts the negative aspects of CTE’s legacy and defines the key challenges learners face today. The series provides promising solutions to help state leaders close equity gaps in CTE to ensure that each learner is able to attain the promise of CTE — a high-skill, high-wage, in-demand career. 

Kate Kreamer, Deputy Executive Director

[1] Washington Office of Superintendent of Public of Public Instruction. (n.d.). [Unpublished data].

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Tweet: New Resource: Making Good on the Promise: Improving Equity in and Access to Quality CTE Programs for Students Experiencing Homelessness https://careertech.org/resource/improving-equity-acces-high-quality-cte-youth-homeless #CTEWorks

We have compiled a list of highlights in Career Technical Education (CTE) from this week to share with you.

TWEET OF THE WEEK

September is Workforce Development Month.

Meet Windi Williams and learn how a visit to Workforce Tulsa changed her life https://t.co/ATRhWWzBSY pic.twitter.com/tslH07ZTK3

— Oklahoma Works (@OKLAworks) September 22, 2020

STATE CTE DIRECTOR OF THE WEEK

Welcome, Jimmy Hull to his new position in Alabama! As of July 2020, Jimmy now serves as the Assistant State Superintendent of Education in the Career and Technical Education/ Workforce Development Division for the Alabama State Department of Education. Read more about Jimmy’s rich career in education and his future plans for career exploration, apprenticeship opportunities and working partnerships between the community colleges in Alabama. 

STATE CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK

The Florida Department of Education’s workforce education initiative, Get There, serves as a resource for prospective students to educate themselves on the benefits of CTE, align their interests to a career pathway, and connect with their local college to learn more and enroll in a program. View more about the initiative here.

CHALLENGE OF THE WEEK

This week, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education announced the Rethink Adult Ed Challenge to advance pre-apprenticeships. Eligible AEFLA-funded organizations are now invited to submit preliminary designs of a program that is innovative, aligned to industry demand and provides support to program participants as they move into apprenticeships and the workforce. For more information, register for the virtual information session held October 15, 2020. 

RESOURCE OF THE WEEK

This week is National Adult Education and Family Literacy Week. The Integrated Basic Education Skills Training Program, or I-BEST, is Washington’s solution to the challenge of preparing learners with basic skills as they transition to college-level coursework. In 2005, when I-BEST was first designed, state leaders at the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) proposed an idea to improve credential attainment among adult learners. The program provides technical and basic skills instruction through an integrated curriculum and has demonstrated powerful outcomes, including a dramatic increase in credential attainment.

View the full policy profile in our Learning that Works Resource Center.

Brittany Cannady, Digital Media Associate, Advance CTE 

The Great Recession of 2008 had the greatest impact on workers without a postsecondary credential. This group of workers experienced the most job losses as a result of the financial crisis and benefited the least from the economic recovery that followed, leaving millions of Americans behind. America is once again experiencing a major economic crisis brought on by COVID-19 (coronavirus). However, history does not have to repeat itself. Significant investments must be made in Career Technical Education (CTE) to help ensure all Americans can be a part of the post-coronavirus economic recovery. 

The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce has documented the impact of the Great Recession in a 2016 report America’s Divided Recovery. According to the report, the Great Recession claimed 7.2 million jobs, more than three-fourths of which belonged to workers with only a high school diploma or less. As the economy rebounded to near-record low unemployment in the decade that followed, those same workers without any postsecondary credentials were unable to reap the benefits, regaining only 80,000 — or less than one percent — of all jobs lost. The report cites structural changes in the U.S. economy over decades, including a significant decline in the production economy coinciding with an ever-evolving knowledge economy, as underlying root causes to the inequitable economic impact of the Great Recession. Additionally, the industries hardest hit by the Great Recession were jobs that workers without postsecondary credentials relied on most, such as construction, manufacturing, and office and administrative support. Another factor cited in the report is that the industries that traditionally employed large numbers of workers without a postsecondary credential are increasingly turning to workers with more than just a high school diploma. 

America’s Divided Recovery demonstrates the importance of postsecondary credential attainment in an economic recovery. A 2019 report by New America, Estimating the Impact of the Nation’s Largest Single Investment in Community Colleges, also underscores the point and illustrates the important role that CTE — provided by community colleges, technical colleges and career centers across the United States — play in reskilling and upskilling the workforce. The report presents the results of a meta-analysis of quasi-experimental evaluation studies designed to estimate the impact of Trade Adjustment Act Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grants on student completion, credential attainment, post-training employment and pre- to post-training wage changes. 

TAACCCT, which was enacted in 2009, was described by New America as an unprecedented federal investment in postsecondary education and workforce training, with nearly $2 billion in grants committed to 729 colleges and universities — including 630 community colleges. Recipients of the grants were tasked with updating or implementing new programs of study “using evidence-based innovations and strategies to increase the capacity of colleges to deliver more and better integrated postsecondary education and workforce training.” The meta-analysis found that, on average, TAACCCT grants had statistically significant and positive effects on participants who participated in the renewed or newly-created programs. Positive outcomes included increased credential attainment and employment outcomes and, to a lesser extent, pre- to post-program wages. Ultimately, TAACCCT benefitted over 500,000 students who enrolled in nearly 2,700 new or redesigned programs and earned more than 350,000 credentials. The most popular career pathways were manufacturing and healthcare, followed by energy, information technology, transportation and logistics, green technology and agriculture. 

The present economic crisis brought on by the coronavirus is similarly having a detrimental impact on workers without postsecondary credentials.  Since the crisis began in early March 2020, unemployment for U.S. workers with less than a high school diploma peaked at a staggering 21.2 percent before leveling off at 15.4 percent according to the July 2020 Bureau of Labor and Statistics data. Those with only a high school diploma fared somewhat better, peaking at 17.3 percent unemployment before leveling off at 10.8 percent. Meanwhile, workers with postsecondary credentials less than a bachelor’s degree and those with a bachelor’s degree or greater peaked at 15 percent unemployment and 8.4 percent respectively. 

Once again, the importance of postsecondary credentials is apparent as the workers who had some formal education beyond high school were impacted the least by the coronavirus-driven economic crisis and are rebounding the fastest. Any post-coronavirus economic recovery must include significant investments in postsecondary CTE and credential attainment so that no American is left behind.

Brian Robinson, Policy Associate