Data and Accountability « Advance CTE Blog

Advance CTE Highlights Mid-Year CTE Policy Trends

Thursday, August 29th, 2024

In February, Advance CTE released its fourteenth annual State Policies Impacting CTE Year in Review highlighting the state policy trends of 2023. To better meet the needs of State Directors and Advance CTE members, Advance CTE has added a mid-year update on state policy trends. In this policy blog, Policy Associate Velie Sando recounts the 2024 Mid-Year in Review: State Policies Impacting CTE webinar, highlighting Career Technical Education (CTE) policy trends observed so far in 2024.

On August 20th, 2024, Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) co-facilitated a State Policies Impacting CTE: 2024 Mid Year in Review webinar attended by 150 state and local CTE directors and leaders, providing a mid-year update on CTE policies enacted nationally thus far in 2024. Advance CTE’s analysis revealed significant progress in CTE policy development, with 31 states passing a total of 121 policies as of July 2024.

Washington State emerged as the frontrunner in policy implementation, enacting 14 CTE-related policies, primarily focused on reducing healthcare workforce labor shortages. The impact of these policies spans across various educational systems:

Secondary education saw the most significant influence with 62 policies;
Postsecondary education with 50 policies
43 policies impacting the workforce system; and
47 policies impacting multiple systems.

For specific content areas, nationwide funding has emerged as the leading focus, with 22 states enacting 54 policies so far, marking a shift from its third-place ranking in 2023. This surge underscores a growing recognition of the need for financial support in CTE programs.

Industry partnerships and work-based learning follow closely with 18 states enacting 30 policies in both areas, highlighting the importance of collaboration between education and industry sectors.

Access and equity has re-entered the top five policy categories with 15 states enacting 28 policies, emphasizing a renewed commitment to inclusivity in CTE programs.

Additionally, Data, reporting, and/or accountability (26 policies in 14 states) and Industry-recognized credentials (19 policies in 12 states) remain critical areas of focus, supporting evidence-based decision-making and credentialing that aligns with industry demands.

While the rankings will continue to shift throughout the rest of 2024, these trends reflect a concerted effort to enhance educational outcomes and workforce readiness across the nation through policies that elevate CTE. At the end of the calendar year, Advance CTE and ACTE will aggregate these and all other tracked policies into our annual Year in Review report, and a webinar will be held to discuss these findings.

The legislative landscape remains active, with 13 states and 3 territories still in regular session and two states in special session. Advance CTE and ACTE will continue tracking CTE legislation for these states through the end of the calendar year.

To see more policy trends and access our state policy tracker, check out our State Policy Resources page. For previous year’s Year-in Review reports, visit our Learning that Works Resource Center.

Velie Sando, state policy associate

By Layla Alagic in Public Policy
Tags: ACTE, business and industry partnerships, CTE Policies, Data and Accountability, postsecondary cte, Secondary CTE, State Directors, state policy, Washington State, work-based learning, Year in Review

Legislative Update: House Advances FY24 Appropriations With Steep Cuts to Domestic Programs

Monday, July 17th, 2023

This week, lawmakers in the House advanced newly proposed funding legislation for the upcoming 2024 federal fiscal year (FY24). Elsewhere, Senators have introduced new data and research legislation that would improve career readiness opportunities for learners.

House Appropriators Advance FY24 Labor-HHS-ED Legislation

Lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill recently for a busy three-week work period ahead of Congress’ annual August recess. Topping the agenda is the need to address annual appropriations legislation for FY24 . The recent passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), which outlines topline spending caps for FY24 and FY25 that aim to roughly freeze federal funding at current FY23 levels, was widely expected to provide lawmakers greater clarity regarding how to move forward with this process.

Shortly after the passage of the FRA, however, House Republican leadership announced plans to move forward with a series of spending bills that further reduce federal spending to FY22 funding levels, rather than FY23 levels of investment as required by the FRA. Shortly after this announcement, Senate leaders outlined plans for FY24 which align much more closely with the requirements of the FRA. In practical terms, these divergent approaches to FY24 appropriations are putting Congress on a likely path towards conflict over the direction of federal spending later this year.

In recent weeks, the House and Senate appropriations committees have advanced legislation for roughly half of the dozen individual spending bills that compose the federal budget. Late last week, Republican leaders on the House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education (Labor-HHS-ED) Appropriations Subcommittee unveiled the text of their proposed FY24 Labor-HHS-ED appropriations bill–annual legislation which provides funding for programs like the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins V).* This legislation proposes an overall cut of 28 percent to the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) budget when factoring existing appropriations that would be rescinded under the proposal and a 29 percent reduction in funding for the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) budget. Despite these significant proposed reductions in funding, the legislation proposes to level-fund Perkins V’s basic state formula grant program at existing FY23 levels.

Concerningly, however, the bill would dramatically reduce and in some cases entirely eliminate a slew of education and workforce development programs overseen by ED and DOL that intersect with or otherwise complement CTE. For instance, Title I funding from the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) would be reduced by 80 percent, while core Title I funding for the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) would be reduced by more than half of current funding levels. While Advance CTE appreciates Congress’ recognition of continuing to invest in Career Technical Education (CTE), these proposals would significantly disrupt the ability of schools, districts, and institutions to provide high quality learning opportunities for all students. In light of this, Advance CTE and partners issued a statement opposing this proposal and calling on the House to reverse course on this approach to FY24 funding.

On Friday, the House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Appropriations Subcommittee marked up and advanced this legislation along party lines. Timing for comparable appropriations efforts in the Senate regarding their Labor-HHS-ED bill are still forthcoming. Regardless, both chambers will need to reconcile differences between these visions for FY24 funding in the coming weeks and months, before the formal start of FY24 on October 1. As these efforts continue to move forward, Advance CTE is closely monitoring the process and engaging with partners on Capitol Hill to ensure the funding needs of the CTE community are realized as part of the ongoing budget and appropriations process for FY24.

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

Senators Introduce CTE Data Bill

Last Thursday, Senators Baldwin (D-WI), Young (R-IN), and Kaine (D-VA) introduced the Data for American Jobs Act (S. 2290). This legislation would make a series of updates to the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA) to increase the law’s focus on CTE and more closely align state data systems and related federal investments to increase data transparency and quality. “Achieving career success for every learner through CTE requires actionable, transparent and trustworthy data. Advance CTE is pleased to support the Data for American Jobs Act, which takes important steps to leverage national research efforts and resources to promote a better understanding of CTE and advances modernized and interconnected data infrastructure for states,” said Kate Kreamer, Advance CTE’s Executive Director, upon the introduction of the legislation. The legislation comes ahead of potential consideration of ESRA by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee expected later this Congress.

P3 Pilot Applications Announced

Recently, the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) issued a notice inviting applications for selection as a Performance Partnership Pilots for disconnected youth (P3). This pilot authority has been authorized by Congress since 2014 and is aimed at better supporting disconnected youth populations by allowing ED and other federal agencies to waive certain requirements of existing federal funding streams like ESSA, Perkins V, and other similar investments. In doing so, recipients of these funds can braid and blend federal resources more easily, allowing for greater coordination of services for these populations. More on the announcement, including how to apply, can be found here.

Energy Department Announces School Infrastructure Funding

In recent weeks, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $178 million in new grant funding it has made available to local school districts in 22 states via the Renew America’s Schools grant program. This grant program was created as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden. The program aims to help schools and districts make improvements to facilities that improve energy efficiency and foster healthier learning environments. More information about the grants can be found here.

Steve Voytek, Policy Advisor

By Stacy Whitehouse in Public Policy
Tags: appropriations, Carl D. Perkins Act, Data and Accountability, Department of Education, Department of Labor, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, HELP Committee, Indiana, Infrastructure, OCTAE, Virginia, WIOA, wisconsin

Welcome Dan Adams to Advance CTE!

Wednesday, July 12th, 2023

My name is Dan Adams, and I am very excited to lead Advance CTE’s Data & Research team where I’m responsible for Advance CTE’s data quality and initiatives to promote data-driven decision-making among state Career Technical Education (CTE) leaders and within Advance CTE.

My commitment to education in pursuit of equity and equity in pursuit of social justice was the reason I started my career as a middle school STEM teacher. Most recently, I served as the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission’s Statewide Director of Career Pathways where I collaborated with stakeholders to promote the equity impacts of investments in career pathways. In 2022, based in part on a first-of-its-kind data system I helped build, the Oregon legislature passed and Governor Brown signed Future Ready Oregon into law. The law invested $200 million in education and training, including $17 million for career pathways in Oregon, a nearly tenfold increase.

As Accountability and Data Specialist at the Oregon Department of Education, I authored numerous research briefs and provided invited testimony before the Oregon House and Senate on the equity impact of investments in CTE. Based in part on my findings and testimony, in 2019 the Oregon legislature passed the Oregon School Success Act, which invested an additional $300M in interventions including secondary CTE.

Commitment to education equity and social justice informs my private life as well. As co-chair of Oregon Safe Schools and Communities Coalition, I was honored to be the first signatory to the state’s LGBTQ2SIA+ Student Success Plan which was signed into law in July 2021. As Co-Chair of Seaton Elementary School’s PTO Family Engagement Committee, I was honored to contribute to my family’s home school receiving the Human Rights Campaign’s Welcoming School Seal of Excellence in 2023.

I graduated from the University of Notre Dame twice, first with a Bachelor of Science in Science-Business and later with a Master of Education degree and a middle-level science license. I’ve called California, Oregon, Indiana, Texas, Alabama, Ireland, Oregon again, and now the District of Columbia (DC) home.

When I’m not working on more equitable education systems, I’m usually with my wife and son. We can be found on our bikes in and around our home in DC’s historic Shaw neighborhood. If you already checked there, you may also find our bikes locked outside any of DC’s bistros, coffee shops, brew pubs, or museums.

Dan Adams, Data & Research Manager

By Layla Alagic in Our Staff
Tags: Data and Accountability, Equity, Oregon, STEM

2022 Advance Fall Meeting Recap – Forward Together: Amplifying Voices of CTE Leaders

Wednesday, October 26th, 2022

Advance CTE’s 2022 Fall Meeting included five breakout sessions that connected timely topics of advocacy of CTE, equipping attendees with strategies to elevate their voice and the voices of learners and partners to advance high-quality, equitable policies.

This post provides a recap of top strategies and resources shared in each breakout, which featured speakers from state teams, national non-profits, philanthropy and education research and communications.

Engaging Policymakers to Create CTE Champions

With over 30 gubernatorial elections and legislative elections in all but four states, 2022 will likely lead to major changes and transitions in the year ahead for education leadership. Speakers from Education Commission of the States, Advance CTE and the state of Washington provided guidance and tips to successfully prepare for and navigate these transitions. In particular, state CTE leaders should focus on identifying their core messages on the value of CTE, conducting research on what newly elected leaders care most about (and what CTE success stories can be shared from their home districts or communities), and leveraging ambassadors and partners to help carry forward priorities and get the ear of new leaders and their transition teams.

Moving Beyond a Seat at the Table: Advancing CTE through Partnerships and Collaboration

The intersectionality of CTE leads the creation of high-quality partnerships to be not just good strategy but a necessity. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Achieving the Dream, both national partners of Advance CTE, shared best strategies to create partnerships that will better deploy and connect federal state and philanthropic resources, and ultimately address gaps that impede the success of learners. Speakers emphasized that successful partnerships must have shared objectives and mutual needs. When asked about the conditions philanthropic organizations seek when investing in a new partnership, three main areas are identified: flexibility, having the right individuals at the table and bought in, and an understanding that the partnership is not a product bought but rather an opportunity to create connections.

Connecting Data and Learner Voice for Next-Level Storytelling

This session featuring Advance CTE and Edge Research inspired attendees to amplify learner outcome data and testimonials to create impactful data stories. Attendees were reminded to be in the driver’s seat on creating data ‘headlines’’ and to be proactive in addressing assumptions others might make about data. First step routines were also provided, such as mapping schedules for quantitative and qualitative data collection, quantitative data reporting and qualitative data access opportunities and comparing timelines with storytelling opportunities.

Edge Research provided storytelling tips — one included creating three to five headlines that encompass a data point audiences might not expect, highlight the most urgent findings, and provide a call to action. It is important to humanize qualitative data through phrases such as ‘1 out of X families’ or ‘X number of children need Y’.

Advancing Your State’s CTE Goals through State Legislative Policy

Georgia and Advance CTE discussed effective processes and tools to leverage state legislative policy to advance CTE initiatives. You can find the high-level trends of 2021 state CTE policies documented in Advance CTE and ACTE’s Year in Review. Georgia shared the importance of having a concrete policy agenda and consistently involving stakeholders including the state’s ACTE chapter and state CTSO leadership, in its formulation and execution. They also emphasized the importance of leveraging the learner voice in demonstrating CTE’s value to legislators: “Figure out what they want, and show it to them.”

Supporting Visionary Local CTE Leadership

“Relationship building is the foundation of a robust CTE leaders onboarding system,” stated Dr. Valeria Williams, Director of CTE at the Mississippi Community College Board when explaining the key to successful support of local CTE leaders. Dr. Williams and Cathie Raymond, the State CTE Director in Arizona, provided insight on developing strong onboarding programs for local CTE leaders. Attendees were encouraged to plan early for onboarding to start before the new school/academic year and remain accessible to CTE leaders year-round through intentional technical assistance and convenings. Although CTE leader turnover is high, best practices were shared with the reminder of how retention starts early through identification and empowerment of outstanding teachers to stay in the field and eventually transition into CTE leadership roles, with a critical focus on diversifying leadership pipelines.

Advance CTE provides a plethora of resources to support CTE leaders in amplifying their voice and impact, including tools to communicate data, communicate with families and engage with policymakers and employers.

Stacy Whitehouse, Senior Associate Communications and State Engagement

By Stacy Whitehouse in Advance CTE Fall Meeting
Tags: Arizona, Communicating CTE, Data and Accountability, Georgia, Mississippi, partnerships, professional development, state policy, Year in Review

Vision Spotlight: Implementing CTE Without Limits at the Local Level

Tuesday, September 27th, 2022

In March 2021, Advance CTE released Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education (CTE Without Limits) to empower “leadership at all levels to reflect on, refine and even rebuild many of the systems and structures that are limiting learner success.” Later that year, we subsequently released Pushing the Limits: A Roadmap for Advancing CTE Without Limits to help leaders assess, prioritize and implement strategies for one or more vision principles.

One school district – Utah’s Davis School District (DSD), just north of Salt Lake City – has taken both CTE Without Limits and Pushing the Limits to heart. DSD is recognized across the state for strong pathway programs. After their Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA) process revealed achievement and enrollment gaps for special populations in CTE, DSD administrators sought bold solutions and turned to CTE Without Limits as a framework to close these gaps. Leveraging these resources, DSD supported professional district training and strategic school plan development with the express purpose of increasing equitable enrollment in CTE programs districtwide.

Implementing CTE Without Limits

Once DSD administration began conversations with educators and staff, they recognized the need to create schoolwide “Without Limits Teams,” comprised of a school administrator, special education staff, school counselors, and the school’s CTE coordinator. Last spring, school staff from each of the 25 DSD schools were each brought together in full day district-wide workshops structured on the five CTE Without Limits principles and designed using Advance CTE’s CTE Without Limits implementation assets. After the training, the teams were asked to create a Without Limits plan to implement these principles in their building; 19 of the 25 have already submitted their plans as a result of the training.

The plans were created using a district-wide rubric to help sharpen and focus action areas. Learner voice was also incorporated into the conversation, with the district conducting twelve focus groups with 54 students, asking similar questions as the workshops for district staff. The district also conducted pre- and post-surveys to help develop priorities for these action plans and help administrators learn where schools need the most support.

Collaboration is Key

In a recent interview with Advance CTE staff, Davis School District CTE Supervisor Tim Peters and Without Limits Project Lead Melanie Allen reiterated the value that the collaborative nature of these Without Limits Teams has for CTE district-wide and with state and community partners. Because of the composition of the Without Limits Teams, the cross-departmental work has become a key strength of this initiative. The Layton High School team gave high praises to the Without Limits initiatives and said, “The impact of everyone being on the same page can’t be overestimated for the teachers and the students. We are already seeing growth in course requests for welding tech, accounting and computer programming.” Local CTE Coordinator Kristen Davidson noted, “We’re having conversations now that we’ve never had before, and it’s changing the way we serve students.”

Utah State CTE Director Thalea Longhurst is a strong supporter of DSD’s model. “Davis School District is leading our state in focusing on truly embedding CTE Without Limits in their daily work,” she shared. “Their work is led by strong leaders who understand the importance of collaborative conversations and truly using data-driven decision making to improve programs. They have shown that even small changes can be incredibly impactful while still considering and implementing larger systemic changes. Their work is exactly what we hope others will follow as we all strive to implement this vision for the future of CTE.”

Lessons Learned

After their first iteration of workshops, DSD shared a few lessons learned that they hope other Utah school districts or other districts nationwide consider before starting this work in earnest.

Plans don’t have to make world-changing shifts. Instead, these workshops and subsequent action planning helped the district see the small, most impactful changes that could happen first while working toward larger systemic changes.
Workshops also revealed the necessity of reviewing data as a part of the process. Because the district considered their data and opportunity gaps in conjunction with action planning, they could focus their efforts on learner populations that require the most support.
A shared framework and regular collaborative conversations served as a forcing event to share important, consistent information with school educators and staff, disseminate resources, and provide updates about CTE programs. This allowed for opportunities to address myths about CTE programs and initiatives.

Next Steps

As a result of the workshops, plan feedback, and learner focus groups, the district is working on a toolkit to support the school plan action steps. DSD administrators also hope to make this an iterative process, conducting ongoing training and coaching to help their Without Limits Teams revise and refocus their plans on a yearly basis.

For more information about CTE Without Limits as well as communication and implementation resources, please visit the CTE Without Limits page on our website.

Learn more about Career Technical Education at Davis School District in Farmington, UT.

Dan Hinderliter, Senior Policy Associate

By Stacy Whitehouse in CTE Without Limits, Uncategorized
Tags: CTE Without Limits, Data and Accountability, Equity and Access, Utah

Advance CTE’s Opportunity Gap Workshop: Connecting Data to Action

Tuesday, August 30th, 2022

In 2020, Advance CTE developed and piloted a virtual workshop to help Career Technical Education (CTE) leaders at the state and local level identify and address access and equity gaps using data. This initiative supports the realization of Principle 2 of the CTE Without Limits vision where each learner feels welcome in, is supported by and has the means to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem.

The workshop includes five major components that build upon the requirements — as well as opportunities — laid out in the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) to help state and local leaders operationalize the commitments set in their state plans:

Raising awareness,
Data analysis
Root cause analysis
Identification of practical strategies, and
Action planning.

The first workshop cohort of 10 states launched September 2021 after successful pilots were conducted in New Jersey, Florida and Minnesota the previous year. Initially a one-day, five-hour training, the workshop now provides two four-hour training sessions on the materials created for state CTE leaders to in turn train their staff, regional coordinators and local education agencies. Participant receive the following materials:

Facilitator Guide – Virtual or in-person instructions.
PowerPoint Deck Template – Customizable slide deck for participant use.
Participant Workbook – Activities and additional step-by-step instructions.
Opportunity Gap Analysis Dashboard Template – Fillable pre-formatted Excel spreadsheet with graphs, a heat map, and instructions on data entry and comparison groups.
Practical Strategies Resource – Warehouse of evidence based strategies to align to identified root causes.
Action Planning Template – Facilitation tool to encourage stakeholders connection and collaboration.

Upon completion of the workshop, participants are required to plan and deliver the workshops in their states; evaluate the effectiveness of the workshop using a provided survey for their in-state participants to share with Advance CTE; and complete a six-month and 12-month survey to report any changes in CTE policies and procedures.

Workshop Benefits and Outcomes

Collaborative Spaces and Technical Assistance: The effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the education system has led to a reduced capacity of state CTE teams, which prompted Advance CTE to increase the intensity of technical assistance provided to states. Advance CTE staff launched a series of monthly community of practice calls to connect states with common challenges and to workshop solutions. To provide states with more time to plan and deliver their own in-state trainings, the cohort’s timeline was extended from three to six months.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: The workshop provides participants with foundational knowledge of equity prior to delving into data analysis. For example, the first objective — raising awareness — consists of developing an equity baseline for participants by reviewing the definitions for diversity, equity and inclusion; examining equity vs equality; and addressing the concept of deficit based thinking in comparison to strength based analysis. The workshop format allows for participant processing time on equity concepts, gives time for states to fully meet all five objectives, and allows the incorporation of another Advance CTE resource, Brave Dialogues: A Guide to Discussing Racial Equity in Career Technical Education.

Data Analysis Training and Dashboard Development: Mock data (from the fictitious Heartland Public Schools and Heartland Community College) is used to mitigate the often difficult conversations associated with participants reviewing their data and keeps the focus on workshop training concepts and applications. The workshop facilitators intentionally meet states where they are in their data journey. Some states have data disaggregated by student sub-groups, but may not have data elements available for programs of study level analysis. The fillable Excel spreadsheet provided to participants is customizable and allows for Career Cluster level analysis. The identification of an opportunity gap narrows the scope of the analysis; however, a statewide, regional, institutional, school district, or campus analysis is possible using the dashboard template. An additional work-based learning (WBL) dashboard was developed upon request and is available for states to examine equitable access to and completion of industry-recognized certifications.

Analysis and Action Planning: For data to be an effective storytelling tool, participants have to recognize and be willing to interpret a point gap analysis through an equity-minded lens using data disaggregated by race, gender and ethnicity as well as the special population categories identified in Perkins V.

Providing workshop participants with a list of practical strategies, which are then selected based on a root cause analysis, increased the availability of resources states could offer local education agencies due to in-state dissemination of workshop materials. The accompanying action planning template and design allows state and local leaders to engage stakeholders with a structured process for developing solutions to gaps in access to high-quality CTE programming for marginalized learners.

Next Steps

The launch of cohort two in June of 2022 offered an opportunity to overlap communities of practice and allowed cohort two participating states to collaborate with states from the inaugural cohort. Currently Advance CTE is accepting applications for cohort three of the initiative and anticipates actively overlapping cohorts two and three into collaborative communities of practice. The cohort three application closes September 2, 2022.

Dr. Kevin Johnson, Sr., Senior Advisor

By Stacy Whitehouse in Advance CTE Resources
Tags: Access and Equity, dashboards, Data and Accountability, Florida, Minnesota, New Jersey, Opportunity Gap, Perkins V, Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act

CTE Research Review: Q&A with Shaun Dougherty on the Impacts of CTE Access on Learner Outcomes in Connecticut

Wednesday, June 15th, 2022

This research review series features interviews with three CTE researchers— Julie Edmunds, Shaun Dougherty, and Rachel Rosen — to highlight new and relevant Career Technical Education (CTE) research topics being pursued and discuss how state CTE leaders might leverage these to make evidence-based decisions. This series is conducted in partnership with the Career and Technical Education Research Network, which is providing new CTE impact studies and strengthening the capacity of the field to conduct and use rigorous CTE research.

For the final post in this series, Advance CTE caught up with researcher Shaun Dougherty to learn more about the outcomes of his study, The Effects of Career and Technical Education: Evidence from the Connecticut Technical High School System. This study took place at The Connecticut Technical High School System (CTHSS), an independent district of choice composed of 16 high schools where all students who attend the school participate in some form of CTE. The technical high schools in this study offer between 10 and 17 programs of study compared to the two to four typically offered at traditional comprehensive high schools. These findings suggest that student participation in CTE programs can improve graduation and college enrollment rates, and labor force participation, especially for male students. These findings should be meaningful to state leaders who are interested in improving CTE data quality to improve programming and learner supports.

How do your research findings advance the CTE field’s understanding of ways to better serve learners?

My findings in Connecticut and an earlier study in Massachusetts suggest that increasing access to high-quality CTE-focused schools can improve high school graduation rates, test scores, and early workforce experiences (earnings especially). These findings suggest that ensuring access to high-quality CTE is important, especially in areas where there is high demand for it among students. In Connecticut, we show that the benefits accrue to males only, but in Massachusetts, the impacts are broader-based and larger for students who come from less financially advantaged backgrounds.

What is also important about both of these contexts is that students are attending CTE-dedicated high schools, which is the least common form of CTE instructional delivery in the United States. Students explore multiple programs in 9th grade and then make an informed decision about what program of study to pursue for the rest of their high school experience. Within the program they choose, they then have a relatively stable set of peers and instructors, and there is alignment between content in the state graduation requirements, such as math and English Language Arts (ELA), and their technical area of study. Each of these dimensions of the experience tends not to exist in CTE delivered in comprehensive high schools or regional technical centers.

What findings would you highlight for state CTE leaders in particular?

In particular, I’d highlight the following:

Whole-school models of CTE may be more expensive but have been shown to have quite larger impacts on student success and so could be worth the long-term investment.
If whole-school models aren’t feasible, adapting some of the structures of how those schools operate in other settings could be worth pursuing.
Creating ways for students to explore multiple programs of study early in high school is likely to improve the experience of all students as they get more information about their interests and strengths.
Investing in skilled trade programs likely helps mitigate otherwise undesirable educational and social outcomes, especially for boys who struggled to be engaged in middle school. Avoiding tracking is critical, but also finding ways to engage students in ways that likely benefit them and their families and communities is critical.

You find male students enrolled in Connecticut’s Technical High School System (CTHSS) are more likely to graduate high school and experience a notable wage increase compared to males attending traditional high schools, yet this effect is not seen among female students. What do you make of this finding?

There are two things worth noting here:

Male labor force participation in the U.S. is generally lower than females, as are their likelihoods of completing high school or entering college. Thus, there is more opportunity to have a positive impact on males than females.
Males are more likely to enter traditionally male-dominated fields, such as manufacturing and construction, which are the two industries where we see the largest payoff for participating in these technical high schools. Thus, gendered patterns of program participation are related to similarly gendered patterns of employment, which are directly related to the earnings premiums we see for males.

Can you tell me about how you were able to leverage the state’s longitudinal data system, the value that this process brought to your work, and about any limitations you encountered??

We matched the CTHSS admissions records to the Connecticut State Department of Education’s (CSDE) longitudinal data system sequentially using the following criteria: SASID, exact match on first and last name plus birth year, first initial and exact match on last name plus birth year and month, and exact match on last name plus exact birth date. The reason for the sequential match process is reporting errors in the CTHSS application file on birth dates, spelling errors and uses of nicknames in the application file that parents and/or students fill out by hand. A failure to match after applying all of these criteria leads to the observation being omitted from the sample. Our resulting match rate was 95 percent yielding a final sample of 57,658 student applications.

From the CSDE longitudinal data system, we obtained information on each student’s race, gender, free or reduced-price lunch status, English learner and special education status (i.e. presence of an IEP).

The CSDE data also provided information on short- and medium-term educational outcomes including standardized test scores prior to and during high school, attendance, and high school graduation, as well as information on college attendance drawn from the National Student Clearinghouse.

Further, through the P20Win process, students in our sample were matched to Connecticut State Department of Labor (CSDOL) data. This CSDOL match is facilitated by Department of Motor Vehicle records that contain gender, birth date, and first and last name and is matched to the CSDOL data using social security numbers. CSDOL personnel then matched the resulting data to the CSDE data using an exact match on birth date and gender and a fuzzy match algorithm on the student’s name.

Failure to match applicants in the CSDOL data may have been driven by several factors including never having a driver’s license in the state of Connecticut, name changes due to marriage or other factors, moving out of state prior to or upon the completion of high school or failure to participate in the labor market after high school perhaps due to college attendance. Our labor market data ends in the 1st quarter of 2018. Therefore, we restrict this sample to the years 2006 to 2012 so that we have a potential for at least six quarters of data on each applicant.

Without the matching to the workforce outcomes, we would be left to wonder or speculate about what happened to most students, since there is no real evidence of impact on college-going (nor should we expect it early on for students who attended schools that emphasize manufacturing and skilled trades). Thus, the linkages were critical to being able to provide policymakers with relevant, detailed answers

The primary limitation is that we cannot see workers who moved out of state, who were employed by the federal government, who work for unreported wages, or who are independent contractors. However, our takeaway is that our findings are likely an underestimate of the benefits of CTE.

What new questions has this work raised for you that could be applied to future research?

The two biggest questions this work has raised for me so far are:

First, what financial benefits will persist through middle age and beyond?
Other work has shown that early-career benefits of CTE may decline or turn negative over a 30-year career if the jobs and skills become obsolete or workers are not able to maintain their labor force participation. The evidence that raises this concern is from much earlier periods, so following this over the long term is critical.
Second, are there conditions under which females see similar, or at least positive benefits? The gendered patterns of results are both informative and distressing. For instance, Sade Bonilla (2020) found larger high school graduation benefits from CTE in California where recent expansions of CTE had focused on health services pathways, which were both in demand and disproportionately female. Relatedly, it would be important to get other measures of benefits, such as job satisfaction, flexibility, or other indirect financial benefits. For example, females are more likely to go into education. For early childhood educators, there may be an indirect financial benefit in the form of free or reduced-cost childcare for one’s own children. Further, flexibility in work schedules around children’s school schedules may also carry weight in estimating benefits.

Visit the Learning that Works Resource Center for additional publications examining career-centered education models and Advance CTE’s 50-state report on equity in CTE early postsecondary opportunities (EPSOs) released earlier this year.

The work of the CTE Research Network Lead is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education with funds provided under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act through Grant R305N180005 to the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The work of the Network member projects is supported by the Institute. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.

Amy Hodge, Policy Associate

By Stacy Whitehouse in Research
Tags: Connecticut, Data and Accountability, Early Postsecondary Opportunities, Equity and Access, Massachusetts, State Longitudinal Data System, student outcomes

Resource Recap: 5 Steps to Get Started with the CTE Without Limits Roadmap Tool

Thursday, March 31st, 2022

March 2022 marks one year since the release of Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education (CTE Without Limits). CTE Without Limits positions CTE as the catalyst for achieving a cohesive ecosystem that is responsive to each learner’s needs for college and career success.

To celebrate this milestone, Advance CTE elevated the work of vision partners through a Twitter chat, announced three states participating in a state cohort for vision implementation, and held a vision-focused Ask an Expert session. The event delved into Advance CTE’s hallmark vision implementation resource released last fall, Pushing the Limits: A Roadmap for Advancing CTE Without Limits.

This resource recap post breaks down the roadmap resource and provides first steps for state CTE leaders to prepare for and use this comprehensive tool.

Resource Background

Achieving CTE Without Limits is only possible through shared commitment and action among all CTE stakeholders The Pushing the Limits roadmap serves as the primary evaluation and planning tool for state and local CTE leaders to conduct a collaborative process that: a) provides an initial assessment of state policy and practice; b) identifies top areas for action; and c) develops implementation strategies for one or more vision principles.

The document is provided in both a combined format as well as separate by each of the five vision principles. The three to four action steps recommended for each vision principle can be evaluated by state leaders through five activities:

Data Review: Collect and analyze data to identify gaps in data availability as well as equity and opportunity gaps for learners that will impact roadmap planning.
State Assessment: Provides self-assessment questions to help state leaders reflect on the current alignment of policies and practice, capacity for change, and potential impact of moving the needle for each action. The completer assigns a score to each section.
SWOT Analysis: Applies information from self-assessment questions to identify top-level Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to advance each action step.
Models and Resources: Provides sample implementation steps, policies and resources to inspire action;
Heat Map: Scores reach assessment section in a heat map that identifies intersecting areas of high need and high capacity for change, to aid leaders in narrowing the focus of their work.
Action Planning: Offers an action planning tool to develop SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Bound) goals and action steps in real-time, six months and a year to drive systemic change.

Getting Started

Effective use of the roadmap requires intentional planning and collaboration. Here are five ways to get started:

Select your core state or local team that includes representatives with deep experience in K-12, postsecondary and workforce policy and practice through the lens of CTE.
Complete Advance CTE’s State Capacity Tool to determine which vision principle(s) to focus on.
Gather data and guiding documents to inform the self-assessment, including program participation and outcomes, statewide and regional agreements across system, statewide and department initiatives and goals, etc.
Complete the self-assessment as individual core team members and share answers prior to soliciting additional input.
Identify priority principles and action areas to address first based on conditions in your state.

Maximizing the Resource

CTE leaders can take several steps to maximize this resource to realize systems change at all levels, including:

Input: Receive input on the self-assessment questions beyond your core team, including learners, educators, administrators and support staff at the local, regional and state level. This can be accomplished by sharing the roadmap questions or creating a separate survey of selected questions from the roadmap in multiple choice format.
Capacity: Align action planning to meet the capacity of state team members, partners and institutions.
Aim Higher: At the same time, revisit your ‘dream list’ of initiatives, supports and goals and leverage the roadmap to push your work to the next level.
Utilize Existing Collaborative Channels: Don’t reinvent the wheel; utilize board and commission meetings, workgroups, conferences and other state and local collaborative events for information gathering and roadmap completion.

Advance CTE staff are available to support CTE leaders in this important work. Visit Advance CTE’s staff web page for contact information. Visit Advance CTE’s vision web page for additional vision education, assessment and implementation resources.

Stacy Whitehouse, Senior Associate Communications and State Engagement

By Stacy Whitehouse in CTE Without Limits, Uncategorized
Tags: CTE Resources, CTE Without Limits, Data and Accountability, systems alignment

Improving CTE Data Quality: Information is Used Effectively to Promote Quality and Equity in Career Pathways

Monday, May 17th, 2021

A high-quality career readiness data ecosystem should not only collect, analyze and report data but also use the information to promote quality and equity. State leaders should integrate career readiness data into policymaking and decision-making processes to further a statewide career preparation system that is high quality and equitable.

Ohio’s Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) Equity Labs guide key stakeholders through a process of identifying gaps in access to or success in Career Technical Education (CTE) programs, discussing root causes of those gaps, and creating actionable plans to address them. In 2019, for the first round of Equity Labs, each of Ohio’s 91 Career-Technical Planning Districts (CTPD) — local education agency configurations that consist of a number of school districts and deliver CTE programs — submitted their data to the Ohio Department of Education, which then developed a report with data in three main categories: meaningful access, engagement and enrollment, and student outcomes. The data in the report is disaggregated by race/ethnicity, gender, migrant status and special population status. Each CTPD was invited to bring five to 10 internal stakeholders to participate in the Equity Lab to analyze the data, identify the largest and most pressing gap, and conduct a root cause analysis on the identified gap. Lastly, participants developed a SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound) goal to address the gap and a plan to evaluate movement toward improvement.

The Ohio Department of Education showed districts how the exercise of analyzing data, identifying root causes, and creating actionable plans to address the identified gaps can be applied to a district’s Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA). The CLNA is required by Perkins V and mandates that local districts evaluate their progress toward equitable outcomes for all students. By connecting the Equity Labs to the CLNA, districts can better understand which groups of students are gaining access to CTE programs of study that lead to high-wage, high-skill or in-demand careers; where the gaps exist; and what systems-level changes should be made so every learner can benefit from meaningful, high-quality CTE.

Bringing together local leaders to analyze and reflect on career readiness data and acknowledge the areas that need improvement is critical to ensure that the statewide career preparation system is high quality and equitable for all learners. Read the Advance CTE case study, Ohio’s Perkins V Equity Labs, to learn more about how Ohio leverages data to improve the quality and equity of its CTE programs. For additional resources on improving the quality and use of career readiness data, check out the Career Readiness Data Quality microsite.

This is the sixth and final edition in a series of Advance CTE data quality blogs to accompany Advance CTE’s latest releases, Career Readiness Data Quality and Use Policy Benchmark Tool and Data Quality Case Studies. For more resources on data and accountability or access and equity in CTE, please visit the Learning that Works Resource Center.

Brian Robinson, Policy Associate

By admin in Uncategorized
Tags: career readiness, Data and Accountability, Ohio

Improving CTE Data Quality: Data Is Collected Consistently and Accurately

Wednesday, February 17th, 2021

In order for data to be trusted, policies and protocols must be in place to ensure consistent collection of reliable, valid and complete career readiness data. States can establish universal definitions and automated processes to collect and interpret data and work with practitioners and the public to foster an understanding of data elements to build trust in their data.

One example is Texas’ automated learner identification system and statewide programs of study. Prior to the establishment of this new system in 2015, each local school district could develop its own programs of study and course sequences. This led to inconsistent data collection, as districts could have different course requirements for the same program of study. Additionally, the state relied on districts to self-report the number of Career Technical Education (CTE) concentrators based on their locally-developed programs of study. Because districts decided which courses counted towards concentration or completion of a program of study, this meant that learners could complete a course in one district that counted towards one program of study, but that same course would not count in another district.

Texas addressed this massive data challenge by creating new statewide programs of study and a uniform framework for collecting data. To develop these programs of study, several state agencies including the Texas Education Agency, Texas Workforce Commission, Texas Workforce Investment Council, and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board worked together to leverage labor market information and set benchmarks for in-demand, high-wage, and high-skill occupations. Related occupations that satisfy the criteria were then grouped together and a set of course sequences with accompanying course codes were developed to form a program of study. Because of these changes, every school district now has the same grouping of available aligned courses for each program of study.

Read the Advance CTE Case Study Collecting Data Consistently and Accurately: Texas’ Automated Learner Identification System and Statewide Programs of Study to learn more about how Texas is improving CTE data quality. For additional resources on improving the quality and use of career readiness data, check out the Career Readiness Data Quality microsite

This is the first edition in a series of Advance CTE data quality blogs to accompany Advance CTE’s latest releases, Career Readiness Data Quality and Use Policy Benchmark Tool and Data Quality Case Studies. For more resources on data and accountability in CTE, please visit the Learning that Works Resource Center.

Brian Robinson

Policy Associate

By admin in Uncategorized
Tags: Data and Accountability, data quality

Posts Tagged ‘Data and Accountability’