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Aligning to Opportunity: State Approaches to Setting High Skill, High Wage and In Demand

Thursday, January 23rd, 2020

The Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) places a strong emphasis on the alignment of Career Technical Education (CTE) programs of study with state, regional and local economies. The legislation requires Perkins-funded programs to prepare students for “high-skill, high-wage, or in-demand occupations.” These terms — high skill, high wage and in demand — are foundational to Perkins V, appearing in both the purpose of the law and the definition of CTE.

As with many Perkins V requirements, the responsibility of defining these terms rests solely with states, providing them with a major opportunity to set a meaningful bar for determining which career opportunities anchor their CTE programs. The stronger focus on labor market alignment compels state CTE leaders to ensure that all program offerings are relevant to today’s economy and that learners will participate in CTE programs with data-driven and validated labor market value.

Advance CTE newest paper, Aligning to Opportunity: State Approaches to Setting High Skill, High Wage and In Demand, describes some approaches that states are taking to partner across agencies to access and review labor market information; develop definitions for high skill, high wage and in demand; provide local flexibility, while maintaining guardrails; and disseminate the information widely to key audiences.

For example:

District of Columbia’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education led a collaborative process, engaging the Workforce Investment Council, Department of Employment Services, industry partners and other key stakeholders to identify data sources and set their definitions for high skill, high wage and in demand.
Nebraska’s H3 site provides the state definitions of high wage, high skill, and high (in) demand, as well as a search tool for identifying those occupations at the state or regional level.
Texas allows for local flexibility through a regional program of study application process that enables locals to present regional LMI to justify a program of study, which, once approved, can then be offered by any district within the region.
OhioMeansJobs is an initiative developed through the state’s Office of Workforce Transformation. In addition to the state’s identified in-demand jobs, the site also offers a great deal more for students and job-seekers, such as a career interest inventory, job and company search engines and other career exploration tools.

For more, including specific definitions used by the states mentioned above and others, read Aligning to Opportunity: State Approaches to Setting High Skill, High Wage and In Demand.

The report was made possible by the generous support of the Joyce Foundation.

Kate Kreamer, Deputy Executive Director

By Kate Blosveren Kreamer in Publications, Resources
Tags: District of Columbia, Labor Market Information, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Perkins, texas

Unpacking Putting Learner Success First: Commitment Across Systems

Friday, August 11th, 2017

A little over one year ago, Advance CTE launched Putting Learner Success First: A Shared Vision for the Future of CTE. This document, which was developed using input from a broad array of stakeholders, calls for a systematic transformation of the education system grounded in five principles. This blog series will dive into each principle, detailing the goals and progress made in each area.

For more resources related to Putting Learner Success First, including state and local self-assessments, check out our Vision Resources page.

All systems work together to put learner success first.

In order to deliver high-quality CTE for all learners, state systems must work together at every level. Secondary and postsecondary must work together and with agencies that handle workforce and economic development issues. All of those agencies must also engage with employer partners and local districts and institutions to inform the design, validation and implementation of CTE programs.

This engagement should include a common vision and goals, along with shared terminology and data, so that each system can function together efficiently.

Those who have signed onto the principle have committed to accomplishing this objective through the following actions:

Establish a common statewide vision and commitment to providing all learners with
meaningful career pathways;
Coordinate federal and state policies, programs and funding to maximize
investments and reduce inefficiencies;
Develop and support sustainable partnerships and intermediaries to accelerate
learner success; and
Build indicators of career readiness—for all learners—into federal and state
accountability systems.

Since the launch of Putting Learner Success First, Advance CTE has been conducting research and policy scans to raise up examples and promising practices related to this principle. Now, when state leaders place their focus on cross-sector coordination, they have access to multiple resources related to secondary and postsecondary partnerships, governance, accountability systems and statewide longitudinal data systems.

Principle in Action

California: Career Pathways Trust
- In 2013-2014, CCPT originally set aside $250 million for one-time competitive grants to school districts, county superintendents, charter schools and community colleges with the intent to support career pathways in grades K-14; promote cross-sector collaboration in support of effective CTE; develop programs of study aligned to high-need, high-growth sectors; provide articulated pathways to postsecondary education; and leverage existing funding and programs. As a competitive grant, the CCPT provided an opportunity for the California Department of Education (CDE) to define the components of high quality career pathways, focus on alignment of secondary and post-secondary career education, and encourage quality practices such as dual credit courses and student and teacher internships.
Kentucky: Tech Ready Apprentices for Careers in Kentucky (TRACK)
- Tech Ready Apprentices for Careers in Kentucky (TRACK) is a youth pre-apprenticeship program that stands out as an innovative example of effective collaboration between the Kentucky Labor Cabinet, the Kentucky Department of Education’s Office of Career and Technical Education, employers and labor to strengthen students’ career pathways and the talent pipeline. The program utilizes Kentucky’s existing CTE infrastructure to create a pipeline for students that begins in high school and culminates in an industry-recognized credential, paid work experience and, in many cases, advanced standing within a full Registered Apprenticeship. Employers lead the process of partnering with an area technical center to design the selection process and the four-course program of study sequence.
Minnesota: Technical Skill Assessment Project
- Minnesota’s Technical Skill Assessment project (TSA), which was launched in 2009 and has since expanded to encompass 79 Career Pathways, demonstrates how states can develop a strong assessment framework by engaging the employer community and aligning secondary and postsecondary systems. While the Minnesota State Colleges and University System is the Perkins eligible agency in Minnesota, the state rolled out a joint implementation strategy in 2008 that established 26 regional consortia made up of at least one 2-year college and one secondary school district. Each consortium jointly dictates how Perkins funds are expended. Under TSA, these consortia would be the vehicles for reviewing Career Pathways and identifying assessment needs.

Relevant Resources

Career Readiness Stakeholder Engagement Tool
- Sustainable and successful transformation of state career readiness systems, including but not limited to Career Technical Education (CTE), requires engagement with a variety of stakeholders who are deliberately working to share ownership. Lead agencies must engage those from industry, who may be new to policymaking, not only to generate buy-in but also to reach state goals for transformation. This tool from Advance CTE is based off of two tools created by the Council of Chief State School Officers in June and November 2016. This tool, developed through the New Skills for Youth initiative and generously funded by JPMorgan Chase & Co., guides users through nine steps in planning effective interactions with specific stakeholders.
State Policy Leadership for the Future: History of State Coordination and Governance and Alternatives for the Future
- The report, from the Education Commission of the States, compares states to determine governance policies related to six core issues: state-level planning, state finance policy, maintenance of databases, regulation of higher education institutions and programs, administration of state-level services, and governance of higher education systems and institutions. The paper also outlines alternative strategies for implementing these core functions in a way that is most conducive to improving the educational attainment of the state’s population given changing conditions and expectations.
Career Readiness & the Every Student Succeeds Act: Mapping Career Readiness in State ESSA Plans – Round 1
- This brief from Advance CTE and the Education Strategy Group examines where and how CTE and career readiness are built into the first 17 ESSA plans. The brief finds that, while more than half plan to adopt measures of career readiness in their accountability systems, many states missed an opportunity to fully leverage ESSA to advance a statewide vision of career readiness. In addition to accountability, the brief examines how states plan to support career readiness through the vision and goals; Title II, Part A (Supporting Effective Instruction); Title IV, Part A (Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants); and Title IV, Part B (21st Century Community Learning Centers).

Ashleigh McFadden, State Policy Manager

By admin in Uncategorized
Tags: California, California Career Pathways Trust, Kentucky, Kentucky TRACK, Minnesota, Putting Learner Success First, secondary postsecondary alignment, State Longitudinal Data System, system alignment, technical skills assessments

CTE Research Review: Work-Based Learning, Teacher Shortages and Longitudinal Data

Wednesday, May 11th, 2016

In this weekâ€™s Research Review, we take a deep dive into New York Cityâ€™s CTE movement, examine state teacher shortages, and explore strategies and challenges to building longitudinal data systems.

Work-based Learning and Industry Credentials in New York City

The Manhattan Institute released a new report looking at the state of Career Technical Education (CTE) in New York City, titled â€œThe New CTE: New York City as a Laboratory for America.â€ While the authors largely praise the success of New York Cityâ€™s instructional CTE programs — which have demonstrated less variable attendance and higher graduation rates — they offer two policy recommendations to further improve the quality and effectiveness of the system:

Mandate and fund schools to secure work-based learning opportunities for students. To do this, schools must engage industry partners that continue to treat CTE like a philanthropic endeavor rather than a strategic investment.
Improve state processes for certifying CTE teachers and approving industry-recognized credentials to be more flexible and responsive to industry advances and emerging occupations.

How are states responding to teacher shortages?

The Education Commission of the Statesâ€™ (ECS) new series on staffing policies, â€œMitigating Teacher Shortages,â€ provides an optimistic outlook on the national staffing crisis. The number of schools reporting a vacancy is down 15 percentage points overall since 2000. However, ECS finds there is a struggle to fill positions in hard-to-staff subject areas and in high-poverty, low-achieving, rural, and urban schools. This five-part series examines research on teacher shortages and recommendations from state task forces, finding five common policy interventions to address staffing shortages: alternative certification, financial incentives, induction and mentorship, evaluation and feedback, and teacher leadership. Each brief explores extant research in each focus area and provides state examples and policy recommendations.

Stitching together Longitudinal Data Systems

Two new reports — one from the Workforce Data Quality Campaign (WDQC) and the other from New America — explore how states can align data systems to better track student outcomes after high school.

WDQCâ€™s report, â€œMaking the Most of Workforce Data,â€ highlights best practices from Kentucky, Minnesota and New York, each of which has established linked systems that facilitate data sharing and evaluation to varying degrees. In Kentucky, for example, interagency data-sharing agreements allowed the state to evaluate outcomes for students taking college-level coursework through AdvanceKentucky, providing evidenceÂ to increase funding for the program.
In â€œIs Stitching State Data Systems the Solution to the College Blackout?,â€ Iris Palmer at New America proposes a different solution to the nationâ€™s data sharing woes — a state-based federal data system. She argues that this system, which would be operated by a third party and would only share anonymized data, could build on existing data infrastructure and allow states to examine cross-state student outcomes for more detailed analysis. A pilot project between Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon and Washington helped close gaps, uncovering outcomes data for more than nine percent of individuals missing from the labor records in Washington alone.

Austin Estes, Policy Associate

By admin in Research
Tags: Hawaii, Idaho, industry-recognized credentials, Kentucky, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, washington, work-based learning, workforce data

State Policy Update: Workforce Development, Job-driven Training and More

Thursday, July 30th, 2015

This week, the National Skills Coalition released its roundup of this yearâ€™s major state legislative actions aiming to close the middle-skills gap across the country. Be sure to check out the full paper and related webinar, which includes deep dives on new workforce development efforts in Virginia and Minnesota, to learn more.

Here are some of the workforce-related highlights from this yearâ€™s legislative sessions:

Implementing the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA): Sector partnerships, career pathways and job-driven training are among the key strategies that WIOA requires states to use. Some states â€“ including California, Florida and Virginia â€“ enacted legislation to help implement the new federal workforce law.
Career Pathways: Along with Coloradoâ€™s new career pathways legislation, which we talked about earlier this year, Minnesota also expanded its adult career pathways efforts and FastTRAC up-skilling program with a combined $11.2 million appropriation for the 2016-17 biennium budget.
Tuition Assistance: We already know that in July, Oregon became the second state to offer free community college. Nebraska has also approved a tuition gap assistance program to help residents enrolled in certain associate degree and certificate programs as well as non-credit, job-driven training programs. Recipients can use the funds to cover the costs of tuition, direct training, fees, required books and equipment.
Work-based Learning and Job-driven Training: Washington, Colorado and California all expanded work-based learning opportunities, in particular apprenticeships. In California, lawmakers allocated $29.1 million to grow new and existing apprenticeship programs in high-growth industries. Arkansas and Maine also established new employer-driven training programs.

Andrea Zimmermann, State Policy Associate

By admin in Public Policy
Tags: California, career pathways, Colorado, Florida, job-driven training, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Virginia, washington, WIOA, work-based learning

Study: State Strategies for Financing CTE

Thursday, November 13th, 2014

The U.S. Department of Education has released a new study that explores how states fund their Career Technical Education (CTE) systems beyond the formulas prescribed in the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (Perkins).

The study, prepared by the National Center for Innovation in Career and Technical Education, focuses primarily on how state funding, which is often used to off-set the higher cost of technical instruction, is distributed to local secondary and postsecondary programs. The report used survey data collected by the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc) that asked State CTE Directors how categorical funds were distributed during academic year 2011-12, as well as the use and perception of performance-based funding for CTE.

In short, the survey found that state approaches to CTE funding varies in emphasis and complexity, and no single approach will meet the needs of every state. The study also called for more research to better understand what impact, if any, the each of the state funding approaches has on program and student outcomes.

Financing Secondary and Postsecondary CTE

State financing approaches broke down into three main categories: foundational funding only, funding for area CTE centers and categorical funding.

Foundational Funding Only â€“ All states distribute basic state aid to finance secondary education programming using a variety of formulas. In this approach, local administrators decide how to distribute funds across instructional priorities, including CTE. Nine respondents indicated they rely exclusively on foundational funding. At community or technical colleges, 30 states reported distributing funds to postsecondary institutions through block grants and not distinguishing funding for CTE.

Funding for Area CTE Centers â€“ Through this method, funds are dedicated to support programming at area CTE centers that deliver CTE services to part-time students. Centralizing CTE programs can be a cost-effective strategy. Seven states reported having separate state funding for these centers at the secondary level and sometimes use a categorical funding approach to distribute funds.

Categorical Funding â€“ This approach dedicates funding to support career-related instructional services and typically targets state funding for the exclusive use of CTE programming. In fact, 37 states earmarked state funds for secondary CTE using one of the following formulas: student-based (21 states), cost-based (7 states) and/or unit-based (9 states). At the postsecondary level, seven states indicated providing categorical funding, while most opted to allocate funding through basic state aid.

Performance-based Funding

Just seven states use performance-based formulas to allocate secondary CTE funds by tying funding to performance measures such as placement of CTE students into postsecondary education or employment, attainment of industry-recognized credentials or CTE completion rates.

For federal Perkins dollars, two states (Texas and South Carolina) do this for secondary CTE. Five states (Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Missouri and West Virginia) indicated using this formula to allocate state CTE funds on the secondary level.

At the postsecondary level, four states (Arkansas, Georgia, Minnesota and North Dakota) reported using this approach with state funding, while none reported doing this with Perkins funds.

For the vast majority of states that do not use performance-based funding, the most common reason was a lack of understanding from state leaders. Almost half of states expressed an interest in adopting this approach to allocate a portion of their Perkins funds; however, training would be necessary if required by legislation.

Andrea Zimmermann, State Policy Associate

By admin in Research
Tags: Arizona, Arkansas, cte funding, Florida, Georgia, kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, performance-based funding, Perkins, South Carolina, texas, West Virginia

Posts Tagged ‘Minnesota’

Aligning to Opportunity: State Approaches to Setting High Skill, High Wage and In Demand

Unpacking Putting Learner Success First: Commitment Across Systems

CTE Research Review: Work-Based Learning, Teacher Shortages and Longitudinal Data

State Policy Update: Workforce Development, Job-driven Training and More

Study: State Strategies for Financing CTE

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