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Shaping Tomorrow’s CTE: State Policies Paving the Way

Thursday, October 31st, 2024

As we look to the future of Career Technical Education (CTE), Advance CTE continues to support high-quality CTE programs created through legislation that addresses key challenges and opens new opportunities for learners and educators alike. In this blog, Policy Associate Velie Sando highlights recent state policies that can play a crucial role in shaping a more dynamic, accessible, and industry-aligned landscape.

Breaking Down Barriers

Apprenticeships offer intensive, high-quality programs, but are often limited in availability and accessibility. South Carolina’s S.B. 557 tackles this issue by offering substantial tax credits to employers who hire apprentices. This incentive, which can amount to up to $4,000 per apprentice for four taxable years, encourages businesses to invest in on-the-job training and education. By making apprenticeships more financially viable for employers, South Carolina is expanding opportunities for learners to gain valuable work experience and industry-recognized credentials.

Empowering Educators

Addressing the shortage of qualified CTE educators and instructors in many states is crucial to expanding program quality and accessibility. Delaware’s S.B. 188 addresses this by enhancing educator mobility across state lines. By allowing CTE educators with valid licenses to obtain equivalent authorization in other member states, this legislation removes geographical barriers and expands the pool of qualified instructors. This not only benefits those looking for new opportunities but also ensures that learners have access to experienced educators with diverse backgrounds.

Hawai’i’s S.B. 2257 takes a different approach to the same problem by broadening the qualifications for CTE instructors. By considering candidates with associate’s degrees or even high school diplomas combined with relevant experience, Hawai’i is opening doors for industry professionals to bring their expertise directly into the classroom. This policy elevates skills-based hiring practices in CTE by recognizing that practical skills and real-world knowledge are invaluable.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Colorado’s H.B. 1364 demonstrates a commitment to understanding and improving CTE outcomes through comprehensive data analysis. The law establishes the Colorado state longitudinal data system governing board to support the development and implementation of the data system, which is created to improve data connectivity and analysis concerning education and workforce readiness statewide. The law also authorizes a cost analysis of postsecondary and workforce programs and credentials to local education providers. By commissioning a financial study on the costs and benefits of college credit opportunities, industry credentials, and work-based learning experiences, Colorado is laying the groundwork for evidence-based policy decisions.

Tomorrow’s CTE Puts Learners in the Driver’s Seat

By expanding apprenticeship opportunities, ensuring access to qualified teachers, and gathering data on program effectiveness, states are creating an environment where learners can make informed decisions about their educational and career paths. Simultaneously, the emphasis on industry credentials and work-based learning experiences ensures that CTE programs are closely aligned with the needs of today’s employers, preparing learners for success in the future workforce.

To access our state policy tracker and explore other innovative CTE-connected policies, visit Advance CTE’s State Policy Resources page.

Velie Sando, policy associate

By Layla Alagic in Public Policy
Tags: Access and Equity, Apprenticeships, Colorado, CTE instruction, Data Analysis, Delaware, Hawaii, South Carolina, state policy

College in High School Series: a Look at CHSA’s State Policy Roadmap

Wednesday, June 14th, 2023

Advance CTE serves as a steering member of the College in the High School Alliance,a coalition of national, state, and local organizations collaborating to enable high school students to enroll in authentic, affordable college pathways toward postsecondary degrees and credentials offered with appropriate support. This blog, the second in a series, highlights the CHSA’s Unlocking Potential guide that elevates findings and work states are doing to design and deliver high-quality college in the high school programs.

Resource Overview

College in High School Alliance (CHSA)’s Unlocking Potential: A State Policy Roadmap for Equity & Quality in College in High School Programs provides a comprehensive set of policy recommendations for states looking to expand equitable access to college and high school programs. This guide provides policy recommendations as well as actionable items for state and local administrators and concludes with other examples of state tools and resources.

Background:

College in High School Alliance defines college in high school programs as dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, and early college high school. These programs are formed via partnerships between school districts and accredited institutions of higher education to provide high school-age students postsecondary experiences that lead to college credentials or degrees.

The number of students participating in College in High School Programs has increased to provide opportunities to more than 5.5 million secondary learners, with Career Technical Education (CTE) courses making up one-third of enrollments (1). While these programs have proven popular and in high demand, enrollment demographics do not reflect the full diversity of the learner population. Significant opportunity exists for reducing barriers to accessing College in High School Programs for all learners, especially those in low-income communities, learners of color, learners from rural communities and first-generation college-goers.

Unlocking Potential provides recommendations and highlights work for state policies that advance the goals of equity and quality for college in high school programs in six categories:

The numbers in the image represent page numbers from the resource guide, per each category.

Equity Goal and Public Reporting:
- Set an equitable and statewide public goal for increasing the participation and success of traditionally underserved learners in the early postsecondary groups
- Disaggregate public reporting and accountability for progress toward the goal
- Practices in Louisiana, Montana, Minnesota, and Washington are highlighted
Program Integrity and Credit Transfer:
- Support and promote high-quality early postsecondary opportunities
- Create cross-sector partnerships between secondary and postsecondary teams
- Create articulation agreements to remove barriers on student transfer opportunities
- Practices in California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota and Texas are highlighted
Finance:
- Design funding mechanisms that remove financial barriers for low-income and moderate-income students who want to participate in early postsecondary opportunities
- Practices in Arkansas, Georgia, Nebraska, Utah, Vermont and Washington are highlighted
Course Access and Availability:
- Remove course access and availability barriers for all learners
- Maximize learners’ college credit attainment experiences through international pathway opportunities and by providing academic and career exploration opportunities
- Practices in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine and Virginia are highlighted
Instructor Capacity
- Develop strategies to recruit, provide support, and diversify the pool of instructors with the appropriate qualifications to teach college in high school programs
- Create high-quality partnerships between K-12 and postsecondary partners as college in high school programs
- Scale college in the high school programs and create sustainability
- Practices in Hawaii, Kansas, Minnesota and Ohio are highlighted
Navigator Support:
- Prioritize student navigational support.
- Enhance the current advising mechanisms.
- Practices in California, Colorado, Montana, Ohio and Tennessee are highlighted

The policy recommendations are presented along a continuum: foundational, advanced, and exceptional policies. Foundational policies are those that every state must have to best support its learners.

For example, under the Equity Goal and Public Reporting, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) data reporting requirements would be considered a foundational policy. On the other end of the spectrum, states can enhance these same data reporting requirements by creating tool kits and providing technical assistance to empower local use of data to remove barriers for learners and create more equitable programs.

To learn more about how CTE early postsecondary opportunities (EPSO) such as dual enrollment serve learners, check out Advance CTE’s report on The State of CTE: Early Postsecondary Opportunities. This 50-state report, provided in partnership with College in the High School Alliance reveals key findings on how EPSOs serve CTE learners and provides recommendations for state leaders to leverage state infrastructure and collaboration to advance equity in these experiences.

Suela Cela, Senior Policy Associate

By Jodi Langellotti in CTE Without Limits
Tags: Access and Equity, Arkansas, California, College Access, college in high school, Colorado, dual credit, dual enrollment, early college high school, Early Postsecondary Opportunities, ESSA, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, state policy, tennessee, texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington State

State CTE Policy Update: Examining CTE Instructor Compensation Strategies

Thursday, September 22nd, 2022

The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) released its report “State of the States 2022: Teacher Compensation Strategies” earlier this month. This report takes a deep dive into the compensation strategies each state and the District of Columbia use to continue to recruit and retain talented instructors.

Instructors are the backbone of high-quality Career Technical Education (CTE) and are essential to ensuring that each learner is fully supported by the career preparation ecosystem of their state. “Teacher Compensation Strategies” divides compensation strategies into three different categories: 1) Differentiated pay; 2) Performance pay, and 3) Pay for prior work. While the first two offer their own merit, and all can perhaps be used in some combination, pay for prior work may offer an elegant solution for staffing CTE teachers.

A common barrier to CTE teacher recruitment and retention is matching instructor salaries, which are historically lower than industry salaries talented CTE instructors often transfer from. In an effort to reduce the gap, states can offer instructors an increase in pay based on experience from non-school related careers relative to the subject matter they are teaching. This strategy embraces the promise to capture and value all learning that occurs, wherever and whenever it occurs. Below are some highlights from the report on the current application of this strategy::

When it comes to paying for prior experience, only five states—California, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, and North Carolina—grant extra pay for relevant prior experience in another industry and allow administrators the discretion to determine its relevance.
Six states—Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Texas, West Virginia—allocate pay for prior experience in non-academic industry in selected cases only. The majority of those states limit this extra pay to teachers of CTE only. Hawaii limits this extra pay to those who have prior military experience.
Thirty-nine states make no mention of adjustments in starting salary for prior relevant experience for individuals entering teaching from other professions.

Of the states currently using pay for prior experience strategies, North Carolina and Louisiana took two different approaches. North Carolina, per the report, awards one year of credit per two years of relevant, non-education work experience pre-bachelor degree, and a one-for-one exchange post attaining a bachelor’s. Louisiana school districts are required to develop compensation plans that take into account effectiveness, experience, and demand with no one factor being given a weight of more than 50 percent. The report highlights that language surrounding this particular strategy is often vague which makes it hard to track if it is being enacted.

With teacher attrition at unprecedented levels and teacher recruitment levels dropping, state CTE leaders have the opportunity to provide innovative solutions to teacher compensation. You can read the full report here: State of the States 2022: Teacher Compensation Strategies. Advance CTE’s Learning that Works Resource Center provides additional tools on embedding credit for prior learning and other state approaches to fully documenting skills.

Brice Thomas, Policy Associate

By Stacy Whitehouse in Public Policy
Tags: Alabama, Credit for Prior Learning, CTE Teacher pipeline, CTE Without Limits, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, texas, West Virginia

State Policies Impacting Data, Reporting and/or Accountability

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2022

State education agencies, legislators and educators faced significant challenges from the coronavirus pandemic, including adapting to remote and hybrid delivery of hands-on learning, and responding to local and national skilled labor shortages. The number of state-level CTE policies enacted that affect Career Technical Education (CTE) fell to the lowest number in 2020 since Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) began publishing these annual Year in Review reports.

However, with a new commitment to upskilling and reskilling American learners and a CTE without limits, 41 states enacted 138 policies impacting CTE and career readiness in 2021. Advance CTE and ACTE have witnessed the return of pre-pandemic numbers in state policy actions in 2021 with policies affecting the secondary, postsecondary, adult and/or workforce systems, and including legislation, executive orders, and budget provisions that significantly changed funding.

Each year, Advance CTE and ACTE publish a yearly state policy tracker and categorize each state policy action by topic. In 2021, the top five topics that state policy most frequently addressed were:

Funding;
Access and equity;
Data, reporting and/or accountability;
Industry partnerships and work-based learning; and
Industry-recognized credentials.

Data, Reporting and/or Accountability

Policies that address data and research activities that support CTE, including the use of labor market information and the inclusion of career readiness indicators within accountability systems have been categorized by this topic. Twenty-three states enacted 37 policies that address data, reporting and/or accountability. Below are a few state policy actions from this category:

Hawai‘i enacted a law requiring the State Board of Career and Technical Education to oversee and review data processes related to industry-recognized credential attainment and publish an annual report to all stakeholders. The law also dictates that the Department of Education must share industry-recognized credential data through the statewide longitudinal data system and expands requirements to store and analyze CTE data in this data system.
Maryland defined terms such as industry certificate, license, industry certifier and vocational certificate, among others, to ensure consistency in data collection and reporting for the Maryland Longitudinal Data System. The law also requires that licensing authorities and industry certifiers comply with the data requirements, data security plan and implementation schedule for the Maryland Longitudinal Data System.
Missouri enacted the Students’ Right to Know Act, which requires that the state Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development provide an annual report on in-demand jobs in the state; the average cost of public institutions of higher education and vocational schools; completion rates of apprenticeship, high school credential and CTE programs; and the average starting salary for graduates of public institutions of higher education and vocational schools, among other data.

State Policies Impacting CTE: 2021 Year in Review marks the ninth annual review of CTE and career readiness policies from across the United States conducted by Advance CTE and ACTE. This report does not describe every policy enacted within each state but instead focuses on national policy trends.

View the full report and 2021 state policy tracker here.

Dan Hinderliter, Senior Policy Associate

By admin in Publications
Tags: ACTE, Coronavirus, Hawaii, Maryland, Missouri, state policy

Welcome Stephen Schatz as the New State CTE Director in Hawai’i

Thursday, November 4th, 2021

Advance CTE commits to investing in formal leadership development for our members. The New State Director Institute (NSDI) uses a cohort model to welcome and support first-year State Career Technical Education (CTE) Directors. Each cohort is connected with mentors and other national leaders; provided leadership tools and resources; and offered instructional workshops designed to assist them as they develop and implement their state-wide visions for CTE. This and upcoming blogs in the Getting to Know blog series will introduce you to the Fall 2021 NSDI cohort!

Welcome Stephen Schatz as the new State CTE Director in Hawai’i. The University of Hawai’i, which serves as the state’s Perkins eligible agency, houses the team Stephen leads – the Hawai’i P-20 Partnerships for Education. He comes to this role with educational experience that spans from the early grades through postsecondary; He has served as a 3rd grade teacher, a school principal and administrator, and the Deputy Superintendent for the state. Stephen was a stakeholder in the writing of Hawai’i’s Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) state plan. As Stephen assumes the roles of leading the CTE state team, he will also guide the Hawai ‘i Data eXchange Partnership (Hawai‘i DXP), an inter‐agency team responsible for the statewide longitudinal data system to inform policy and decisionmaking for the improvement of educational outcomes in Hawai‘i.

Uniquely, Hawai’i only has one school district and one higher education system and recently the state’s CTE office merged with the Hawai’i P-20 Partnerships for Education office. Stephen is looking forward to leveraging the islands’ educational landscape, recent governance shift, and his new leadership position as State Director to empower learners from preschool and beyond through fully aligned pathways that connect secondary and postsecondary education with the needs of employers. . Understanding the geographic needs of each community and identifying career interests and passions for learners across the islands, especially in rural and remote areas, while increasing their access to equitable programs of study is of high importance for Stephen and his work to implement a statewide vision for the future of CTE.

Hawai’i is known as a top tourist destination, and the effects of the current global pandemic has challenged and reshaped the makeup of the state’s industry and workforce needs. However, Stephen sees the change in local labor market needs as an opportunity to diversify the state’s economy and allow CTE programs to intentionally contribute to the talent pipeline. Key to this work is increasing interest from business and industry to collaborate with the P-20 system and finding new avenues for business engagement that are fueled by authentic self-interest over pure philanthropy.

When away from the office, you can catch Stephen surfing the island waves or at home in the kitchen cooking his favorite stews.

Please join us in welcoming Stephen to Advance CTE!

Learn more about the work in Hawai’i by viewing their CTE state profile and the state resource page in the Learning that Works Resource Center.

Brittany Cannady, Senior Associate Digital Media

By admin in Advance CTE Announcements, Advance CTE State Director
Tags: Hawaii, Perkins V, State CTE Director

Getting to Know: Stakeholder Engagement at Advance CTE

Thursday, October 21st, 2021

The “Getting to Know” blog series features the work of State CTE Directors, state and federal policies, innovative programs and new initiatives from the Advance CTE staff. Learn more about each of these topics and the unique contributions to advancing Career Technical Education (CTE) that Advance CTE’s members work on every day.

Meet Dan Hinderliter! Dan is a State Policy Associate at Advance CTE and supports a number of different national projects. As a site liaison for the New Skills ready network, Dan works with two sites (Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis, Indiana), providing resource and research support while also serving as a direct link to the national project team. He also works on site snapshots, the annual report and quarterly newsletters, as well as major publications that highlight promising national, state and local practices aligned with the principles of the New Skills ready network.

Dan also supports the modernization of the National Career Clusters® Framework and spearheads the Year in Review, the annual aggregation of state policy impacting CTE. As part of the Year in Review process, Dan regularly tracks state-level legislation and other policy actions.

Q: Considering your work on the New Skills ready network initiative, how are the six sites leveraging stakeholder engagement to advance career pathways?

A: Each of the six New Skills ready network sites is working to leverage stakeholder engagement in some capacity to advance career pathways. First, because each of the sites is composed of a variety of stakeholders, engagement with business and industry, postsecondary partners and K-12 institutions has to happen to ensure each voice is involved in and buys into the work of the site. Outside of the project teams, however, most sites are doing some level of stakeholder engagement involving learner and family communications practices. Some sites are surveying parents and learners to understand what resonates with them about available career pathways, while others have done focus groups to understand where there are gaps for learners in specific programs. Columbus, Ohio’s project team hired a minority-led communications firm, with roots in Columbus, to help share consistent messaging and work to understand how each stakeholder can be better supported.

View the 2020-2021 site snapshot for Columbus, Ohio here.

Q: Earlier this year, Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) released State Policies Impacting CTE: 2020 Year in Review where industry partnership was a frequently addressed topic area. Are there any states that can serve as a model for policy actions around stakeholder engagement?

A: Every year, states enact new legislation that impacts how each state engages with stakeholders, either through input gathering or through information sharing. Many states, including Colorado, Hawai’i, Idaho and Missouri (among others), passed legislation this year requiring a state agency to collect and disseminate information that allows learners to make more informed decisions about their futures, including information about in-demand jobs or industry recognized credential attainment. Other states are using legislative action to improve equity and access in part through stakeholder engagement; Oregon and Washington, for example, now require institutions to collect feedback or input from diverse or historically marginalized stakeholder groups to inform new practices and strategies that will increase access to high-quality CTE programs for those groups. At the beginning of 2022, we will release our state policy tracker for 2021 which includes the above legislative actions and others.

Q: One of the foundational commitments within CTE Without Limits is based on stakeholder engagement. How can states, through such partnerships, ensure each learner reaches success in a career of their choice?

A: Advance CTE’s shared vision, CTE Without Limits, calls for CTE to be incredibly learner-centric and for programs to ensure that the learner voice is incorporated into each decision about career pathways or programs. As states continue to expand access and equity in their CTE programs and work toward dismantling systemic barriers in CTE, the learner voice must be an integral part of these conversations, as only the learner who participated in the program can fully understand the consequences of decisions made at each level. At the same time, states and local institutions can continue to expand offerings by building partnerships with community based organizations to offer learner supports or with business and industry to offer new or improved work-based learning opportunities. By including opportunities for stakeholder groups like learners, their families and local businesses to provide input into decisions surrounding CTE, states can ensure that their career pathways and CTE programs are truly aligned with the needs of their communities.

Q: Lastly, Advance CTE announced the modernization of The National Career Clusters® Framework. How has Advance CTE prioritized stakeholder engagement and the voices of the field in this work?

A: Though we don’t yet know what our end product will look like at the conclusion of these modernization efforts, we did know the process had to be highly collaborative to ensure everyone buys into whatever the outcome happens to be. As such, we have included a lot of opportunity to incorporate feedback from the field; we convened an expert kitchen cabinet to provide insights about the purpose and uses of the Framework, opened a crowdsourcing portal to collect feedback from the larger field about critical changes they’d like to see, and held workshops to assist in the prototyping of a new Framework. In this next phase of work, we’re hoping to hold focus groups to discuss the future of the Framework. As we near a model for a new, modernized Framework, we are hoping to have many more conversations with stakeholders about how they can implement the Framework in their own state and community to ensure that the modernized Framework is implemented with fidelity.

For resources and tools to increase stakeholder engagement in CTE, visit the Learning that Works Resource Center.

Brittany Cannady, Senior Associate Digital Media

By admin in Uncategorized
Tags: Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, learner voice, Missouri, New Skills ready network, Oregon, Stakeholder engagement, Washington State

State of CTE: Career Advisement in Perkins V State Plans

Tuesday, February 16th, 2021

In October 2020, Advance CTE released “The State of Career Technical Education: An Analysis of States’ Perkins V Priorities,” which examines how states have leveraged the development of the Strengthening Career Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) state plans to expand quality and increase equity within their Career Technical Education (CTE) systems.

Perkins V includes an increased focus on career development and advisement, which is critical for ensuring that each learner can learn about, access and be successful in high-quality CTE programs. Career development and advisement is also a crucial component of states’ equity strategies because they help learners navigate increasingly complex education and workforce development systems on their way to a rewarding career, as well as support the broader social-emotional needs of CTE learners.

Perkins V plans indicate that states are undertaking a number of efforts, at both the secondary and postsecondary levels, to provide robust advisement and related supports for learners. Based on Advance CTE’s analysis of state Perkins V plans:

Nearly half of all state plans (22 total) prioritize advisement efforts at the secondary level through their comprehensive local needs assessment (CLNA) or local application processes, and 39 percent of states (20 total) indicate the same for the postsecondary level.
Approximately 40 percent of states (21 total) indicate in their Perkins V state plans that they are using at least a portion of State Leadership dollars for advisement efforts at the secondary level. However, only 24 percent of states (12 total) do so at the postsecondary level.

Another trend is the widespread state use of individual career academic plans (ICAPs) at the secondary level. While the degree that Perkins V funds directly support these efforts remains unclear, the fact that many states include references to their ICAPs in their state plans indicates that states are increasingly working toward more clearly connecting ICAPs to their CTE systems.

State Strategies to Advance Career Advisement

Key Innovations

In Maryland, the state education agency is collaborating with the Maryland Business Roundtable for Education to recruit and prepare industry professionals to serve as career counselors at both the secondary and postsecondary levels. This initiative aims to increase the overall capacity of the state to provide robust career counseling services to all Maryland learners.
Hawaii identified counseling and advising as a critical need in their CLNA and are designing a continuum of counseling and advising, which includes the development of a statewide framework including operational definitions, standards and expectations, and guidance materials in fiscal year 2021.

The Work Ahead

Many state plans do not distinguish between initiatives that are specifically driven by Perkins V and other efforts that states may already be undertaking to expand career development and advisement efforts. The work ahead lies in ensuring strong connections between CTE and advisement at the state, district, school and institutional level to collectively support each learner.

States must also attend to providing robust career development and advisement for learners at all levels. For example, while 90 percent of states are allowing Perkins V funds to be used for middle grades, most are leaving the decision of whether and how to support middle grades to local districts. There is a clear state role in supporting the expansion of middle grade advisement efforts so that learners can be fully aware of the opportunities available to them when exploring career paths and be better prepared for success by the time they enroll in a high school CTE program.

Additionally, given their role in helping learners transition to the workplace, postsecondary advisement activities are an especially important area that many state Perkins V plans do not address in any way. Ensuring that there are more robust support systems for learners at every level of CTE will help close opportunity gaps and position more learners for success.

Resources

Christina Koch, Policy Associate
Jill Cook, Executive Director, American School Counselor Association (ASCA)

By admin in Public Policy, Research
Tags: Career Advisement, Hawaii, Maryland, Perkins V, school counselors

State of CTE: Data Quality in Perkins V State Plans

Monday, February 8th, 2021

In an education and workforce landscape that is more complex than ever, quality Career Technical Education (CTE) programming provides learners with experience and skills that can lead to high-value jobs and lifelong success. The passage of the Strengthening Career Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) pushed states to improve quality and increase equity within their CTE systems, including setting higher expectations for how states are using data about CTE programs to understand the outcomes of learners they serve. In October 2020, Advance CTE released “The State of Career Technical Education: An Analysis of States’ Perkins V Priorities,” which examines how states have leveraged the opportunities created by the updated law to meet their CTE goals, including whether states have prioritized investments in data to ensure that they can answer priority questions and measure progress toward those goals. While many states are making improvements to CTE data, more can be done to ensure that these efforts result in meaningful information for all stakeholders.

Perkins V Creates A Foundation for Better Data Practices.

Perkins V puts greater emphasis on the importance of data as a core element of good policy-making, including:

promoting evidence-based decision making;
making data available and accessible so that all stakeholders can use it to identify and close access and opportunity gaps among learners;
providing transparent dashboards and other tools that enable communities to explore performance data for all groups of learners served by CTE programs;
ensuring programs are well aligned with labor market needs; and
investing in the programs and learner supports that lead to the best outcomes for each learner.

States should embrace and thoughtfully implement all of these activities and continue to go beyond what is outlined in the law to enhance the quality and availability of CTE data, and to build trust and fuel the feedback loops that help demonstrate program efficacy. With better information, leaders, practitioners and learners will have the capacity and confidence to make data-informed decisions that result in better outcomes.

States Are Taking Steps to Improve the Availability and Usability of CTE Data.

Based on Advance CTE’s analysis of state Perkins V plans, a number of states are prioritizing data in their implementation of Perkins, including:

More than one-third of states (19 total) are developing new public reporting tools for their CTE programs. Many of these investments appear to be aimed at equity-related data tools or related visualizations. More broadly, about a half of states (53 percent) are providing dashboards or other data reports to support equity gap analyses at the local level.
Another third of states (17 total) are directing at least some of their State Leadership funds to support data quality improvement and expanding CTE data collection capacity.
Eight percent of states are using the reserve fund for data quality and reporting.

Key Innovations

Hawai‘i is using a monitoring framework, informed by a data reporting application, that will identify which CTE programs have disparities, misalignments, or inequities in program offerings, participation and achievement of educational and workforce outcomes to develop improvement strategies that address the root causes.
Washington is investing Perkins funds to improve labor market tools. One is a public dashboard that will support predicting new and existing employment opportunities and future trends. Another dashboard will display data disaggregated by learner subgroup, special population status, and CTE program, which will only be available to colleges. The dashboards will be updated annually as enrollment and completion data from the previous year become available.

The Work Ahead

Many states are embracing the opportunities afforded to them under the new law, yet more work lies ahead. Improving CTE data affects not only the field of CTE, but the full education to workforce (P-20W) ecosystem within a state with which CTE is interconnected. As states plan for next steps when it comes to investing CTE resources, they should:

Ensure that CTE data is understandable and usable by a wide array of stakeholders to support high stakes decision-making (e.g., to support resource allocation decisions to equitably serve each learner);
Invest in the data infrastructure underlying states’ CTE systems so that it robust and ready to be connected to data in other state systems that can provide value back to CTE leaders (e.g., while there are some notable exceptions to this finding, state investments in postsecondary data infrastructure are largely absent as part of the Perkins V planning process);
Expand the audience for and attention on CTE data by including it alongside other data on prominent, public-facing tools like state and local report cards required by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA);
As Perkins V implementation gets more fully underway, ensure that CTE leaders are at the table with other state leaders so that future federal and state investments in systems and capacity include CTE data and result in improvements to CTE data quality and availability at all levels.

Resources

Christina Koch, Policy Associate
Jane Clark, Associate Director, Policy and Advocacy, Data Quality Campaign

By admin in Public Policy, Research
Tags: Data, data quality, Hawaii, Perkins, Perkins V, washington

Tribal Colleges and Universities Take Innovative Approaches to Support Native Populations

Monday, March 9th, 2020

In February, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) hosted an event at the Senate Office Building to discuss innovative strategies, programs and ideas to address the key challenges impacting Native higher education. To unpack these challenges and strategies, the event featured panelists from colleges that primarily serve American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian populations.

Much of the event focused on how Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) are able to meet the needs of Native populations. Specifically, the panelists discussed how TCUs address barriers to access for learners. While TCUs are one of the most affordable postsecondary education options with an average annual tuition of $3,592, the cost of attending a TCU can still be a barrier to learners. To address this and transportation issues, Sitting Bull College in North Dakota provides tuition waivers and transportation to and from the college.

Core to advancing equity in Career Technical Education (CTE) and the broader education field is not only ensuring that students have access to CTE and education programs, but also taking action so that learners feel welcome in and can fully participate in education programs. Panelists emphasized how TCUs are able to create an inclusive environment for Native learners through providing intentional supports and preserving Native populations’ cultures. For instance, Ilisagvik College in Alaska developed a pathway program that places students in cohorts to help learners feel supported and part of the community.

Many of the panelists discussed the role language plays in creating an environment that students feel welcome in and can succeed in. In Hawai’i, learners can take courses taught in Olelo Hawaii, the Native Hawai’ian language, from infancy through doctoral programs. TCUs take approaches to ensure that Native languages continue to be commonly spoken in the community and the classroom. In Montana, Salish Kootenai College created an apprenticeship program that allows participants to become qualified in both Salish language fluency and effective teaching strategies to meet the demand for Salish language teachers.

The event ended with a discussion about changes that can be made to the Higher Education Act (HEA) to help support TCUs. Specifically, AIHEC proposes two new programs and modifications to two existing programs during HEA reauthorization:

TCU Native American Language Vitalization and Training Program (HEA-Title III): This new program would authorize curriculum development and design; provide professional development for TCU faculty and secondary teachers; authorize Native American language research; and provide $20 million in competitive grant funding per year.
Strengthening Graduate Opportunities at TCUs (HEA-Title III): This new program would authorize the development and enhancement of graduate-level professional certifications and degrees at TCUs; mentoring, scholarships and fellowships for students pursuing graduate certification and degrees at TCUs; curriculum development, faculty development and student research; and $5 million in competitive grant funding annually.
TCU Facilities Study and Infrastructure Enhancement Program (Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities Assistance Act [TCU Act]) : This update of the TCU Act would direct the Department of the Interior to report on TCU facilities; help support new libraries, classrooms, student and faculty housing; fund renovation and expansion of existing facilities; support equipment, broadband improvement, library collections; and provide $35 million in competitive grant funding per year.
Federal E-Rate Program(Communications Act of 1934): This would designated TCUs as eligible to participate in the E-rate program, which provides discounts to help students and libraries secure affordable telecommunications and internet access.

Brianna McCain, Policy Associate

By admin in Uncategorized
Tags: Access and Equity, Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, North Dakota, Tribal Colleges and Universities

Numerous States Pass Policies Related to Computer Science in 2018

Wednesday, December 5th, 2018

Digital literacy and computer science skills are increasingly necessary for success in today’s workforce, even in fields that are not directly related to information technology. As such, state leaders are recognizing the role that a robust computer science education strategy plays in preparing learners for their future careers and numerous states passed policies related to computer science during their 2018 legislative sessions.

Most recently, in Missouri, on October 30 the governor approved HB3, which creates the STEM Awareness Program to increase STEM career awareness in students grades six through eight. The law also directs the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to convene a work group to recommend academic performance standards related to computer science.

Similarly, in June, the Hawai’i legislature passed HB2607, which requires the Department of Education to develop and implement statewide computer science curricula plans for public school students in kindergarten to grade twelve and ensure that by the 2021-2022 school year, each public high school offers at least one computer science course for each school year.

In March, the Indiana legislature passed SB172, which establishes the Next Level Computer Science fund and grant program, which will provide grants to eligible entities to implement professional development programs for teachers to provide training in teaching computer science.The bill also requires public schools and charter schools to offer a computer science course as an elective course by 2021.

In total, more than eleven states have passed policies related to computer science, many of which direct the state Department of Education to establish computer science standards or direct schools to offer a computer science course. To learn more about CTE policy trends from 2018, look out for Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education’s (ACTE) State Policies Impacting CTE: 2018 Year in Review coming out in late January 2019. You can still view the 2017 version of the report here.