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ED Proposes Significant Changes to Perkins V Implementation | Legislative Update

Friday, September 13th, 2024

This week, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) proposed significant changes to state Perkins V plans and related reporting requirements, which have significant implications for the law’s ongoing implementation. Elsewhere, Congress continues to grapple with the need to fund the federal government beyond an important upcoming deadline and more.

ED Proposes Changes to Perkins V State Plans and Reporting

This week, the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) published two new proposals that would significantly impact state and local implementation of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education (CTE) Act (Perkins V). These new changes to Perkins V state plan requirements and related annual data collections seek to standardize the way in which states and local Perkins V recipients collect and report information related to CTE student performance. Separately, these proposals would increase the broader information gathered by ED via state Perkins V state plans.

As noted in the related proposals, these changes will require every state and territory to submit new or substantially amended four-year Perkins V plans by 2026—an effort and wider process states and territories just completed this year. Comments on these proposals are due back to ED no later than November 12, 2024. Advance CTE is continuing to analyze these proposals and plans to formally provide feedback to the Department as part of this comment period.

Progress on Stopgap Funding Legislation Stalls

This week both chambers of Congress returned to Capitol Hill following its annual August recess period. As Advance CTE shared last week, Republican leaders had been intending to introduce legislation, known as a continuing resolution (CR), to temporarily extend current funding levels for all federal programs, including Perkins V’s basic state grant program, through the early part of 2025. This six-month funding extension is strongly opposed by the Biden administration and the Senate, who prefer a shorter-term CR lasting through mid-December—timing that would coincide with the lame-duck session of the current 118th Congress.

Despite this opposition, House Republican leadership attempted to move forward with this six-month CR, which also contained controversial provisions related to upcoming elections. However, support for this proposal remained uncertain within the House Republican conference, with several GOP lawmakers indicating opposition to this approach. This opposition caused Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to pause further consideration of this CR, at least for the time being. With the start of the 2025 federal fiscal year (FY25) set to begin on October 1, it remains unclear how lawmakers plan to move forward with federal funding for the government beyond this date. As these efforts continue to take shape, Advance CTE will continue to advocate for a strengthened investment in state CTE systems made via Perkins V.

Advance CTE Signs Onto Letter Endorsing Workforce Pell Grant Passage

This week, Advance CTE joined other national and state-based organizations in sending a letter to congressional leadership supporting expanding the federal Pell Grant program to include learners enrolled in high-quality, shorter-term CTE programs. Such legislation has been a longstanding federal policy priority for Advance CTE as a key strategy to provide more learners with quality postsecondary pathways that lead to careers in growing sectors of the economy. The letter also notes these efforts’ critical role in supporting ongoing federal investments in the nation’s infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and green energy sectors.

HELP Republicans Hold K-12 Education Roundtable

On Tuesday, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) hosted a roundtable to discuss ways to innovate within K-12 education systems to improve learner success. Sen. Cassidy, the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, was joined by Senators Katie Britt (R-AL), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), and Joni Ernst (R-IA). Invited panelists discussed innovations in virtual reality, artificial intelligence, work-based learning, and micro-schools throughout their opening remarks and in response to the Senators’ questions.

Ruben Morris, the founder of Alabama Aerospace and Aviation High School, spoke about the need for education to reflect local workforce needs built on public-private partnerships. When Sen. Cassidy asked about available funding through Alabama’s Perkins V investment, Ruben shared that he uses Perkins V funding to support further program growth. He also shared ways in which his community leverages this critical federal investment in CTE, including supporting the development of programming for learners that enables their entry into the aviation economy in the state.

Biden Administration Announces Grants to Recruit Diverse Workforce

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced over $28 million in newly awarded funds through the Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) program. This latest grant round aims to recruit, prepare, develop, and retain a diverse educator workforce nationwide. The TQP program funds teacher preparation programs in high-need communities for learners at colleges and universities and in teacher residency programs and aims to encourage more people to pursue careers in teaching through Grow Your Own programs. ED announced the list of award recipients alongside new data on Public Service Loan Forgiveness approvals in each state.

Rob Young, Communications & Advocacy Associate

Steve Voytek, Policy Advisor

By Rob Young in Uncategorized
Tags: Alabama, Continuing Resolution, Data Collection, Department of Education, Diverse educator workforce, funding, Grow Your Own, HELP Committee, Innovation, K-12, OCTAE, Perkins V, State Plans, Teacher Quality Partnership, Workforce Pell Grants

Advance CTE 2024 Spring Meeting Sponsor Blog – Diamond Sponsor iCEV | Five Challenges Facing CTE Data Management and How to Solve Them

Thursday, April 25th, 2024

The views, opinions, services, and products shared in this post are solely for educational purposes and do not imply agreement or endorsement by Advance CTE, nor discrimination against similar brands, products, or services not mentioned.

As a State CTE leader, you’re responsible for ensuring that essential information is properly collected, stored, and communicated to relevant agencies. However, many educators find data management difficult and time-consuming.

Below, you’ll discover five of the most common problems associated with CTE data management.

When left unaddressed, these issues can become overwhelming. But with the right system in place, you can overcome these challenges and put CTE at the Forefront.

1. Manual Data Entry

Tracking data manually comes with a high chance of error. When you enter data by hand, you may end up double-checking your work and even entering the same data multiple times!

This inefficient process costs time and often leads to inaccurate reports.

2. Difficulty Managing Spreadsheet Data

Properly dealing with spreadsheet data is easier said than done. Using spreadsheets requires correctly setting up different fields and conditional formats. Without proper formatting, even the best-designed spreadsheet can become a confusing mess.

Importing and exporting data can lead to more issues, making data analysis difficult.

Finally, different team members may have separate documents, challenging your efforts to keep a clean data set.

3. Lack of Data Transparency and Insight

Especially when records are kept in various places, it’s common for CTE teams not to have an authoritative database to make critical decisions. Without data transparency, administrators are forced to fill in gaps or even resort to guesswork.

When you don’t have a full picture of what is going on in your CTE program, the insight you can gain from analyzing data is limited. Programs that lack confidence in their data risk falling behind in obtaining funding and complying with regulations.

4. Inability to Track Performance Across Multiple Schools

States with a large volume of CTE offerings often struggle with tracking performance across multiple schools. When each school measures data differently, it’s up to CTE directors to reconcile these differences.

Often, the solution that works best is a data management system that ensures every school is using the same measurements to quantify success.

5. Your Data Is Not Focused on CTE

Finally, many administrators use data management solutions engineered toward the traditional classroom experience that don’t show the complete picture of a CTE program.

But a CTE-specific solution can track completers, CTSOs, certifications, and more. This gives you a full picture of the value of a program to learners and communities.

The Importance of Quality CTE Data Management

In ensuring learners have an ideal CTE experience, quality data management makes all the difference. When you have an effective system in place, state and local CTE leaders will be able to use program data to make key program decisions benefiting everyone, expanding program offerings and providing certification opportunities that will open doors for learners in the future.

Solve Your CTE Data Management Problems

Each of these data-related complications can challenge CTE directors and administrators and leave with only part of the story. But when you adopt a CTE-specific data management solution like Eduthings, you can track and report on program performance and put CTE at the Forefront.

Visit the iCEV booth during the Advance CTE Spring Conference to learn how Eduthings can be your CTE command center and improve your data management with a custom solution.

By Layla Alagic in Advance CTE Spring Meeting
Tags: 2024 Spring Meeting Sponsors, CTE Data, Data Collection

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

Wednesday, July 26th, 2023

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

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

Overview

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

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

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

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

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

Recommendations

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

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

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

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

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

Amy Hodge, Membership & Policy Associate

By Jodi Langellotti in Research
Tags: Access and Equity, Credentials of Value, CTE Data, Data Collection, data quality, industry credentials, learner voice, Research

Perkins Regional Meetings April and May 2023: Key Takeaways

Thursday, June 8th, 2023

Over April and May 2023, Advance CTE hosted three Perkins Regional Meetings across the country in Minneapolis, Baltimore and Phoenix, with over 200 leaders from across 40 states and territories which was made possible through support from the Gates Foundation. The agenda for the three meetings was designed for state leaders from secondary, postsecondary and workforce development to connect and collaborate on ways to enhance their current Career Technical Education (CTE) systems and programs.

States participated in keynote presentations, workshops, roundtables focused on supporting special populations and cross-state sharing sessions with the intent of building and strengthening the career preparation ecosystem for all learners across the nation. State leaders and our Advance CTE team were both energized by the engagement and inspired by the dedication of all those that attended the meetings and are working to create a high-quality and equitable system that supports all CTE learners.

While each state has its own unique challenges, accomplishments and opportunities, certain recurring themes emerged across multiple states. The national CTE landscape is one of great opportunity but will need support to provide access to high-quality experiences for all CTE learners.

Key Takeaways

Accomplishments

Strong partnerships and support between private industry, education and government leaders to support economic development
Implementation of needed improvements garnered from Comprehensive Local Needs Assessments (CLNA) at the state and local levels
Collaboration and cooperation among state workforce agencies and departments of education and higher education during the Perkins Regional Meetings
Work-based learning (WBL) program guidance on how to focus staffing and funding resources

Challenges

CTE instructor training, recruitment and retention
Staff turnover at both the local and state level
Data management, collection and utilization
Collaboration between secondary, postsecondary and workforce development
Capacity building to meet the demands of learners and region-specific needs

Using the information gained at these meetings, CTE leaders will be able to build upon the accomplishments and help provide resources, tools and support to address the challenges within the current system, with an eye towards how states will leverage the potential to revise or update their Perkins V state plans as their original four-year plans come to a close next spring. Advance CTE continues to be available as a resource to provide best practices, information on innovative policies on the horizon and technical assistance to states to achieve our shared vision of Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education (CTE Without Limits).

As states work to address the challenges they face, Advance CTE has numerous resources available below and through the Learning that Works Resource Center to assist with goal set and challenges identified during the meeting:

Perkins V Supports Teacher Recruitment and Retention
This resource discusses the mechanisms in Perkins V that support teacher recruitment and retention, an overview of how this appears in Perkins V state plans and examples of how states are tackling the challenge of recruiting and retaining qualified and diverse CTE instructors.
Championing High-Quality Data
This brief addresses the importance of a unifying vision for education and workforce that draws upon and regularly uses postsecondary CTE data to measure progress and guide state policy and practice.
Beyond the Numbers: Design Principles for CTE Data Reporting and A Toolkit for Communicating CTE Data
This report, developed with input from a shared solutions workgroup of national and state experts, provides nine principles for developing effective and accessible CTE data reporting tools. A companion toolkit contains guidance, best practices and tools that CTE leaders can use to create communications to help stakeholders better understand and act on CTE data.
Coordinating Across Perkins V and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act
This guide looks at six opportunities to promote coordination across Perkins V and WIOA as states develop and implement plans under Perkins V.
Strengthening Career Pathways Through the Power of State and Local Partnerships
This resource is the third in a series of policy briefs centered on strengthening career pathways. It offers promising practices for leveraging the strengths of state and local leaders to cultivate sustainable, scalable partnerships and advance high-quality career pathways.

Save the Date for our next in-person opportunity to connect and receive support from Advance CTE! Our 2023 Fall Meeting: Elevating CTE’s Impact, will be held October 16-18 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Paul Mattingly, Senior Policy Associate

By Layla Alagic in Uncategorized
Tags: career pathways, CLNA, CTE instruction, CTE Without Limits, Data Collection, data quality, Industry Collaboration, Learning that Works Resource Center, Perkins, Perkins V, Postsecondary Education, Secondary, turnover, WIOA, work-based learning, workforce development

Midpoint Highlights of the New Skills ready network

Monday, October 31st, 2022

In February 2020, JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced its New Skills ready network initiative, which bolsters the firm’s efforts to support an inclusive economic recovery. This effort is part of both their $350 million, five-year New Skills at Work initiative to prepare people for the future of work and their $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity.

While there was a lot of excitement – and some uncertainty – about how exactly the work would unfold, we had no idea that, in just a few short weeks after the launch, the world would change as we knew it. Plans of in-person leadership team meetings, extended needs assessments that included focus groups of learners, industry partners and other key stakeholders, and network-wide convenings were all put on hold or adjusted due to the pandemic.

While the ramp up may have slowed down and plans evolved, what never changed was the commitment of the six sites, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Advance CTE and our national partner, Education Strategy Group (ESG) to the ultimate vision of this initiative – to dramatically increase equitable access to and success in high-quality career pathways and experiences that lead to good jobs for all learners across these communities. This became even more important as the pandemic laid bare the deep and abiding inequities in our education system, workforce and society, particularly for learners and communities of color.

We are now two-and-a-half years into the five-year initiative and there is a lot to celebrate! New Skills ready network is a bold and audacious initiative that aims to achieve both systems change at the ecosystem level while also improving programmatic opportunities for learners and industry partners in real time. It is no easy feat to build a career preparation ecosystem that engages and brings along K-12 districts, two- and four-year institutions, intermediaries, state agencies and industry partners – while also implementing new pathways, advising structures and other critical programmatic improvements at the school and institutional level.

So what have we learned?

Programmatic improvements are critical but can always be swept away with a change in leadership, funding or priorities. To achieve true sustainable change and equitable opportunities requires a focus on the overall systems. We’re impressed at how sites are focusing on the system-level work of building true buy-in, deepening partnerships between the state and local level and across institutions, and strengthening data collection, sharing and use across partner organizations.
Equity must be at the core of the work – as both a moral and economic imperative. As such, sites are engaging learners and families to understand their motivations and concerns, assessing the cultural wealth and assets within school buildings, providing ongoing professional development to system leaders and instructors to build shared understanding of systemic barriers to equity and other key activities.
In order to build sustainable systems, sites can’t simply add new pathways and related experiences, but also must transform or sunset what isn’t working – be it outdated advising models, misaligned pathways or work-based learning that isn’t accessible or meaningful to learners.
New Skills must be built into the communities’ broader career pathways ecosystem. Given the increased interest and investments in career pathways over the last decade, we are finding that the work supported by New Skills is an accelerant to those efforts – or even the glue that holds them together.

For more on site-specific progress, check out the:

2021-22 New Skills ready network snapshots and annual report.
Videos and graphics, released by ESG, elevating the sites’ “big bets” for the year ahead.

Kate Kreamer, Deputy Executive Director

By Stacy Whitehouse in Uncategorized
Tags: career pathways, Colorado, Data Collection, Equity and Access, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Skills ready network, Ohio, tennessee, texas

What the 2020 Decennial Census Means for Education Funding

Thursday, October 25th, 2018

Every 10 years the U.S. Census Bureau collects data from the residents of the United States through the national census. The census is pivotal to understanding the composition of the country, but it also plays a large role in federal funding levels of major programs. In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that education programs are some of the biggest to use census data to determine funding. For example, the Pell Grant program utilizes census data and was allotted $29.8 billion dollars in 2015.

Additionally, the annual American Community Survey (ACS) relies on census data and plays a significant role in distributing funding to education programs. Census data, and correlated data from the ACS, decide how much funding should be allocated to different areas of education research, as well as how much money is needed for a variety of education programs. It is estimated that at least $47 billion in federal education funding is affected by census and ACS results.

According to the Leadership Conference Education Fund, Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality and Economic Security and Opportunity Initiative, data from the census and ACS impacts education research and programs in ways such as:

How much federal funding was directed toward Career Technical Education (CTE) programs through the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins IV);
States rely on ACS data to finalize funding for local adult education programs;
The census and ACS provide data on educational attainment related to labor market demand; and
ACS data gives insight into inequities in higher education enrollment.

Because the census is the only nation-wide survey that attempts to collect comprehensive data on each resident, preparation for the 2020 Census has been focused on how to reach every individual and increase response rates. For the first time, the 2020 Census will have the option to fill out and submit entirely online. In addition, the Integrated Partnership and Communications division pays special attention to populations that are typically under-represented in the census.

Meredith Hills, Policy Associate

By admin in Uncategorized
Tags: Data Collection, funding

Latest Advance CTE Brief Explores State Strategies for Measuring Work-based Learning

Thursday, August 25th, 2016

Measuring WBL Work-based learning provides a continuum of activities â€” from career exploration and job shadowing to internships and apprenticeships â€” that help students develop technical and professional skills in an authentic work environment. While many work-based learning programs are designed and operated at the local level, several states have begun building a data collection and evaluation strategy to ensure program quality, identify and scale successful programs, and share promising practices. To support state efforts in this work, Advance CTE today released a brief that explores strategies for measuring work-based learning.

The brief is the latest installment in the â€œConnecting the Classroom to Careersâ€ series, which examines the stateâ€™s role in expanding work-based learning opportunities for K-12 students. This issue highlights examples from three states that demonstrate either a systems-level or student-level approach to measuring work-based learning activities.

In West Virginia, the Department of Education partners with industry leaders to evaluate the quality of Simulated Workplaces, student-run programs that create an authentic work environment in the classroom. Programs that fail to meet industry standards receive technical assistance from the state.

In 2014 Tennessee adopted a new framework to improve the quality of work-based learning. Under this framework, local districts conduct their own program evaluations and strive for continuous program improvement. The state supports local efforts through a toolbox of surveys, rubrics and other resources. Â

And in Massachusetts, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education uses a work-based learning plan to evaluate skill gain for students participating in the School to Career Connecting Activities Initiative. Worksite supervisors assess students on technical and professional skills at least twice during the course of the program, allowing the state to measure skill gain against a baseline.

The brief, Measuring Work-based Learning for Continuous Improvement, is available on the Learning that Works Resource Center. Other titles in the series explore Setting a Statewide Vision, Removing Legal Barriers, and Leveraging Intermediaries to Expand Work-based Learning.

To learn more about work-based learning, be sure to sign up for Advance CTEâ€™s fall meeting, which will take place in Baltimore, MD between October 17 and 19. The convening will feature a session on state strategies for measuring and scaling work-based learning. Register by August 31 to receive the early bird discount.

Austin Estes, Policy Associate

By admin in Public Policy, Publications, Research
Tags: Connecting Activities, Data Collection, Massachusetts, Measuring Work-based Learning, Program Evaluation, Simulated Workplace, tennessee, West Virginia, work-based learning

Posts Tagged ‘Data Collection’