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Posts Tagged ‘Ohio’

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Welcome Steve McFarland to Advance CTE!

Wednesday, April 6th, 2022

My name is Steve McFarland and I am the new Director of Communications and Membership for Advance CTE. In this role, I lead the organization’s internal and external membership engagement, professional learning and strategic communications. I direct technical assistance, resource development and related supports to Advance CTE members and partners to advance the organization’s strategic priorities and mission, build in-state capacity for Career Technical Education (CTE) leadership, and raise the visibility of and support for high-quality and equitable CTE throughout the country.

Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, I have worked in nonprofit and higher education communications for more than 20 years. I began my career working for National Public Radio and Paramount Global Entertainment before entering the organizational communications field. I then led fundraising communications for the Divinity School at Harvard University, spearheaded the rebranding of America’s Second Harvest to Feeding America in the late 2000s, and for a decade directed communications and operations for Aurora University, a thriving private college in the Chicago suburbs. I received undergraduate degrees in Mass Communication and Comparative Religion from Miami University (Ohio), and a master’s degree in the Sociology of Religion from the University of Chicago. 

I was drawn to Advance CTE because I have seen firsthand how the traditional “ideal” model of education–four years of high school followed by four years of college–is changing rapidly. And it’s a much needed change! CTE opens doors to limitless possibilities, and provides content and careers that resonate to a wide range of skills and interests. 

This is an exciting mission to be a part of, and I am looking forward to doing great things for our members and the countless students they serve.

Steve McFarland, Director of Communications and Membership 

By admin in Uncategorized
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New Report: 5 Strategies to Strengthen Equity in Early Postsecondary Opportunity Participation and Completion

Thursday, March 3rd, 2022

Every year, more than 5.5 million secondary learners take advantage of Early Postsecondary Opportunities (EPSOs), including dual and concurrent enrollment and exam-based courses, like International Baccalaureate (IB) and Advanced Placement (AP). EPSOs aim to provide high school learners with an intentionally designed authentic postsecondary experience leading to officially articulated and transferable college credit toward a recognized postsecondary degree or credential. Career Technical Education (CTE) courses make up approximately one-third of all EPSO enrollments and are a critical component of a high-quality CTE program of study, bridging secondary and postsecondary learning. 

Advance CTE’s vision, Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education, calls on states to ensure that each learner’s skills are counted, valued and portable. At the state level, systems are needed to translate competencies and credentials into portable credit and to ensure that all learners have the opportunity to participate in high-quality and equitable EPSO programs. To this end, Advance CTE, in partnership with the College in High School Alliance, surveyed State CTE Directors to better understand state policies that support EPSOs in CTE. The survey revealed key findings, which subsequently led to recommendations for steps to better advance and support CTE EPSOs, ensuring equity and access to EPSOs for all CTE learners. To read more about the results of the survey and our resulting findings and recommendations, or to learn more about the following actions, read the executive summary and associated full report, The State of CTE: Early Postsecondary Opportunities.

To better ensure equitable access for all learners, particularly in CTE EPSO programs, states can take the following actions:

1.Identify and highlight equity goals in statewide EPSO programs and target specific learner populations for recruitment. States with statewide EPSO programs, particularly those with targeted equity goals, have been able to reduce equity gaps by adjusting funding and tuition models, standardizing entrance requirements, providing statewide navigational supports and centralizing articulation agreements. A critical review of state-level data, including conducting opportunity gap analyses, can allow states to target historically marginalized populations for participation while simultaneously ensuring that these learners have access to high-quality EPSOs. Utah has a long-standing statewide concurrent enrollment program that focuses on continuous improvement, particularly for learners of low income, who attend postsecondary institutions at more than twice the rate of learners of low income who do not participate in the program.

2.Increase publicly available and actionable information for learners and their families. Access to high-quality EPSOs for every learner is just one part of equity; equally important is ensuring that every learner is successful by increasing transparency around opportunities and outcomes in EPSOs, including providing state-level outcome data, navigation assistance and career advising throughout the EPSO experience. Increasing communication with parents and learners about available EPSOs, their requirements and available supports will help first-generation learners and under-served groups not familiar with the postsecondary process access these programs and know how the associated credit transfers. States like Indiana, Maryland, and Kentucky all have public dashboards that share both enrollment and outcome data, disaggregated by learner population and program type. Other states, like Massachusetts, aggregate their EPSO programs through an online catalog, with filters for subpopulations, to demonstrate the range of opportunities available statewide.

3.Identify and remove barriers to access, including restrictive costs or entrance requirements, and target specific learner populations for recruitment. Data demonstrates significantly higher gains for learners of color in dual enrollment programs compared to their peers not enrolled in EPSO opportunities. While states noted that scholarship and tuition supports reduce barriers to entry, burdensome entrance requirements and a lack of information about EPSOs limit a learner’s ability to participate. For example, Tennessee’s statewide EPSO program offers grants that allow learners to take up to 10 dual enrollment courses for free. As states look to increase postsecondary attainment goals, they can leverage enrollment and outcome data to identify opportunity gaps and examine root causes, such as restrictive admissions requirements that may affect learners disproportionately. 

4.Increase supports for learners enrolled in EPSOs to ensure completion. While capacity challenges do exist, research indicates the value of early warning systems, counseling programs, and financial supports that remove or overcome barriers to completion. Statewide incentives can encourage districts to expand these types of systems that allow secondary learners to be successful in EPSOs. Alaska’s Acceleration Academy helps high school learners complete math or science courses over the summer to prepare them for participation in the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program, an EPSO partnership with the University of Alaska-Anchorage. 

5.Expand statewide and inter-state articulation agreements to account for all types of CTE EPSOs. Statewide agreements can help guarantee recognition of CTE EPSO credit and facilitate automatic transfer between a secondary institution and a corresponding postsecondary institution of the learner’s choice. Ensuring that the transfer of credit is as frictionless as possible is vital to supporting learners as they transition into postsecondary education and continue in a degree program. As states work to ensure that each learner’s EPSO experiences consistently are counted toward articulated credit, they should also ensure that this credit contributes to core credits in a CTE program of study and not just elective credit. States can develop additional guidelines and legislation that ensures the connection between an EPSO and a program of study. Ohio has Career-Technical Assurance Guides (CTAGs) that provide automatically articulated and transferable credit upon completion of CTE coursework.

Visit Advance CTE’s Learning that Works Resource Center for additional resource related to specific EPSOs and equity and access supports.

Dan Hinderliter, Senior Policy Associate 

By Stacy Whitehouse in Advance CTE Resources, Public Policy
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New Skills ready network Site Highlight Blog: Columbus, Ohio Learner and Family Engagement

Thursday, December 9th, 2021

In 2020, JPMorgan Chase & Co. launched the New Skills ready network across six U.S. sites to improve student completion of high-quality career pathways with a focus on collaboration and equity. As a national partner in the New Skills ready network, Advance CTE strives to elevate the role of state capacity and resources in advancing project priorities and gain a unique perspective on promising practices to strengthen state-local partnerships across the country.

This blog series highlights innovative tools and initiatives produced across the six sites that advance the initiative’s four key priorities and serve as a guide for state leaders in their work to create cohesive, flexible and responsive career pathways.

Policy Associate Dan Hinderliter interviewed Donna Marbury, Director of Client Services for Warhol and WALL ST, a full-service marketing firm that serves as a consultant for the Columbus New Skills ready network site and has partnered on multiple initiatives with Columbus City Schools. This post will highlight the site’s work in elevating learner voice to market career pathways to families. 

Background 

Career pathways in Columbus City Schools provide the opportunity for high school learners to access high quality career technical education, and are open to all juniors and seniors. Dozens of courses are offered through eleven pathway programs split between two locations, Columbus Downtown High School and Fort Hayes Career Center. Through the New Skills ready network, the Columbus project team is prioritizing improving rigor and quality specifically in the areas of health sciences and information technology. Postsecondary partners Columbus State Community College and The Ohio State University are also reviewing quality pathways in this area to ensure seamless transition and alignment for learners in and between educational institutions.

Purpose and Components 

One of Columbus’ project focuses is creating messaging and materials to more effectively communicate the opportunities and benefits of career pathways to learners and families. The strategy focused on direct outreach to students and families through polling, focus groups and co-design sessions. Marbury emphasized that this strategy is rooted in creating communications “not for, but with the end user” to ensure materials meet both learners’ and families’ needs in how they digest and receive information.

This engagement began with focus groups of families and learners in the eighth and tenth grades, both those who are interested in and not interested in participating in career pathways in Columbus City Schools. Focus groups were also held with administrators, counselors and internship coordinators who were identified as key “translators” between student needs and goals and family perceptions and expectations for their students

Marbury acknowledged that it was difficult to reach families due to work schedules, communication needs, and the challenges of connecting virtually, and as a result, a post-focus group survey was targeted specifically to parents to determine communication preferences to better align future engagement. 

Active Listening through Learner Feedback Loops 

Columbus’ strategy integrates learner input beyond one-time focus groups, and Marbury emphasized that it is clear through their work so far that learners want to be involved in the entire process. Design workshops were held to allow a sub-set of learners involved in the focus groups to provide feedback on initial drafts of graphics and messaging. Future quarterly check-ins will engage this group in testing subsequent versions of the messaging and materials. 

Learner feedback on the updated materials has helped to reach diverse groups of students and achieve authenticity through messaging that is easily understood and able to be easily acted upon; photography that aligns with East African and Latinx representation in Columbus communities, and in formats such as memes and videos that match popular means for learners to access information.

“Learners want to be involved in these projects. If they are interested in a career pathway, they want to feel empowered to talk about it, and we need to make it easy for them to do so.” – Donna Marbury, Director of Client Services, Warhol and WALL St. 

The updated communication tools are one piece of a larger plan to design and communicate career pathways more clearly to families and learners so that each learner’s academic plans are aligned to their career goals starting as early as middle school. 

Lessons Learned 

Marbury elevated that the choice to participate in a career pathway in Columbus can be an emotional decision because it often requires the learner to leave their home school environment to attend one of Columbus’ career technical high schools. The communications to students and families must address this and highlight the benefits to students now and in the future. She also shared that the opportunity for hands-on learning experiences and the involvement of pathway alumni, particularly those from historically underrepresented populations, strongly resonated with learners. Finally, she emphasized the importance of involving learners and families at not just the beginning but across the entire project cycle of materials development to ensure the end product reflects the needs of the targeted audience. 

For more information about initiatives being pursued by Columbus and the five other sites that are part of the New Skills ready network, view Advance CTE’s Year One snapshots. Additionally, Advance CTE’s recently released learner voice toolkit provides actionable resources, guidance and tools to ensure CTE learner voices are elevated and heard for the improvement of CTE policies and practices

Stacy Whitehouse, Senior Associate Communications and State Engagement 

By admin in Resources
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New Skills ready network Year 1 Reports Highlight Early Innovations and State Support to Advance Quality and Equity in Career Pathways

Tuesday, June 15th, 2021

Today, Advance CTE and Education Strategy Group (ESG) released an annual report and site snapshots for the first year of the New Skills ready network initiative.  The five-year initiative, part of JPMorgan Chase and Co.’s $350 million global New Skills at Work program and $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity, aims to improve student completion of high-quality, equitable career pathways to gain skills needed for the future of work, particularly among learners of color and other historically marginalized learners. 

The New Skills ready network focuses on six domestic sites as illustrated in the graphic below. As a partner in this initiative, Advance CTE strives to elevate the role of state capacity and resources in advancing project priorities and gain a unique perspective on promising practices to strengthen state-local partnerships across the country. 

One key step highlighted across the snapshots is each site’s approach to connecting systems and creating a common vision and definitions. Boston, Massachusetts, centered on a shared definition of cultural wealth as a framework to discuss equitable practices in career pathway design. Denver, Colorado created the Pathways Data Framework, a shared process for defining, collecting and analyzing data across partners to fully measure progress in achieving equitable career pathways. 

Dallas, Texas, is leveraging their Dallas Thrives initiative to draw on capacity from across their region to work towards a common vision. As an early step, Nashville, Tennessee’s leadership team agreed upon common definitions of systemic racism, implicit bias, educational equity and more and has provided racial equity training to over 300 stakeholders to ground their work in a foundational understanding in what racial equity really means in their community and institutions. 

The report and snapshots also explore how sites are utilizing state leadership, capacity, and existing initiatives to guide the focus of their first year and to map future work. For example, several schools in Indianapolis, Indiana will serve as pilots for the state’s Next Level Program of Study initiative, which aims to improve quality and consistency of CTE program instruction as part of Indiana’s Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) implementation strategy. 

Columbus, Ohio will leverage statewide articulation and transfer agreements as well pre-existing statewide programs to advance equity and access to postsecondary opportunities in career pathways, including the College Credit Plus program, Career-Technical Assurance Guides, the Choose Ohio First scholarship program. The Ohio Department of Higher Education has also established an internal project team to provide state support to the larger cross-sector project team. Nashville, Tennessee’s local efforts are tapping into the state’s Tennessee Pathways’ Designation Process 

Visit Advance CTE’s New Skills ready network series page to read the full annual report and a snapshot of each site’s innovative partnerships and early accomplishments across the four project priorities. Our New Skills ready network collection page provides additional resources for strengthening career pathways.  For more information about the New Skills ready network initiative, read the Getting to Know interview with Senior Policy Associate Jeran Culina. 

By Stacy Whitehouse in Uncategorized
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Getting to Know: Advance CTE’s work to build better career pathways

Thursday, May 20th, 2021

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

Meet Jeran Culina! Jeran serves in the role of Senior Policy Associate for Advance CTE, supporting state policy and technical assistance work. Jeran’s work has a focus on supporting states and communities to create, share, use and manage information about national efforts to expand high-quality and equitable career pathways. She also supports the development of policy tools and resources leveraged by state and local leaders, national partners and other key stakeholders to help ensure each learner has access to supports, resources and skills needed to be successful in the careers of their choice. 

Q: What is the New Skills ready network initiative and how does it inform your work at Advance CTE? 

A: New Skills ready network is a five-year initiative, part of JPMorgan Chase’s $350 million global New Skills at Work program, which aims to improve student completion of high-quality career pathways. The six New Skills ready network sites are: Boston, Massachusetts; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Nashville, Tennessee. 

A key feature of the New Skills ready network is the makeup of the leadership teams. Each site’s team brings together a cross-sector group of partners representing local school systems, two-year and four-year postsecondary institutions, intermediary organizations, industry, and state and workforce development agencies. These unique state-and-local, cross-sector leadership teams were developed to align systems; incubate innovative solutions; and ultimately, scale equitable career pathways for all learners. This piece of the New Skills ready network has been significant in informing the rest of my state policy work. It showcases the strengths and challenges that local and state partnerships bring to the table, but it also offers best practices from six local sites to better inform state policy work around engaging stakeholders, bridging secondary and postsecondary, aligning pathways, closing equity gaps, and many other areas that haven’t even been explored yet.   

Q: How would the New Skills ready network define high-quality career pathways?

A: High-quality career pathways are ones that successfully prepare learners for a variety of educational opportunities while supporting effective and meaningful collaboration between secondary schools, postsecondary institutions, and employers to provide students with experience in, and understanding of, all aspects of an industry, and ensure equal access to all learners. Within the New Skills ready network, all sites are developing or expanding their definition of what high-quality career pathways means to them. For example, the Indianapolis, IN team has aligned their definition of high-quality career pathways to match the state’s new next level programs of study (NLPS) model. The shift to NLPS provides learners with:

  1. An increase in the consistency of CTE course offerings to ensure all CTE students have the same opportunity to learn essential skills regardless of the location they are taking a course;
  2. Intentionality by directly aligning secondary courses to postsecondary competencies, providing students who have discovered their passion the opportunity to earn more postsecondary credentials and make progress towards postsecondary degrees while in high school; and
  3. Quality programs because new course standards will increase the rigor in many CTE courses and provide greater benefits to students.

Q: How can state CTE leaders leverage the work coming out of the New Skills ready network to ensure labor market information (LMI) is used to define high-skill, high-wage and in-demand career pathways?

A: States should follow the recommendations laid out in the recently released Advance CTE research brief on aligning labor market data which suggests:

  1. Continuing to make data-informed decisions about which career pathways to build and support and which ones to transform or phase out. In the face of major economic upheaval, while responding to real-time changes may be tempting, focusing on the longer-term trends and consulting multiple data sources and stakeholders are critical.
  2. Address equity within any LMI tools, supports and decisions. As states and institutions invest in their labor market systems and platforms, presenting the data with an equity lens is critical to better inform investments and arm learners with actionable information
  3. Take the opportunity to streamline existing labor market data to make it more usable and accessible for policymakers, local partners, instructors and learners themselves.
  4. Build capacity within the system to improve labor market data literacy. With the complexities of labor market data and increased frequency of the data being reviewed at the state, region and community levels, leaders at all levels — including counselors and advisers — need a better understanding of what they are looking at and how they should interpret the data to best support learners. 

Q: What can we expect next from the New Skills ready network?

A: The New Skills ready network has previously released three research briefs focused on work-based learning, aligning career pathways to labor market data and state strategies for scaling early postsecondary opportunities (EPSOs) in career pathways. In the next month, expect one additional research brief on strengthening state and local partnerships. In addition to the policy briefs, the New Skills ready network team will be releasing an annual report on the lessons learned during the first year of the grant as well as snapshots of each site and the work they have accomplished. As the work progresses, we will have innovations, best practices and lessons learned from each site to share that can be adopted and scaled across the nation.   

Brittany Cannady, Senior Associate Digital Media 

By admin in Resources, Uncategorized
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Improving CTE Data Quality: Information is Used Effectively to Promote Quality and Equity in Career Pathways

Monday, May 17th, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

Brian Robinson, Policy Associate

By admin in Uncategorized
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This Week in CTE

Saturday, May 15th, 2021

Developed with input from nearly 200 national, state and local education and workforce development leaders and supported by 40 national organizations, Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education lays out five inter-connected and equally critical principles.

Only through shared commitment and shared ownership among leaders and practitioners at all levels can we realize the possibility and aspiration of a new career preparation ecosystem that provides each learner with limitless opportunity. The This Week in CTE blog series will highlight state and local examples where CTE Without Limits has been made actionable. If you would like to share how your CTE program creates limitless opportunities for each learner in this blog series, please email Brittany Cannady, bcannady@careertech.org. 

 

This Week in CTE: May 10 – 14, 2021

 

Each learner engages in a cohesive, flexible, and responsive career preparation ecosystem

This week we extend congratulations to the 57th class of U.S. Presidential Scholars! Of the 161 high school seniors selected, 20 outstanding learners from CTE programs have been awarded this honor for their accomplishments. The 2021 class of U.S. Presidential Scholars in CTE represent the following states: Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

A full press release can be found here. 

Each learner feels welcome in, is supported by, and has the means to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem

This week career tech centers in Ohio received a visit from Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, who serves as the Director of the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation. During the site visits, learners shared reasons for participating in career pathways and early postsecondary opportunities (EPSOs). 

Reflecting on his visits Lt. Gov. Husted stated, “We have to have more students who are taking their career seriously at an earlier age, gaining some real world experience, preparing for work, earning college credits without having to run a bunch of debt, and make the education affordable and effective.”

Read more from learners and about the career tech site visits in this article published by Dayton Daily News.

Each learner skillfully navigates their own career journey

“Some students are already working in the field part time…students who are skilled in masonry will always be able to find work because of demand.”- Holly Pore, District Career Technical Education Director, Rowan-Salisbury Schools.

North Carolina CTE students competed this past week at Skills Rowan, a skills-based competition where Rowan-Salisbury schools showcase their industry skills. Despite the challenges due to the pandemic in hosting a competition that mimics years past, students were still able to feel value from competing and receiving the opportunity to be the true navigator of their career journey. 

Read more in this article published by the Salisbury Post.

Each learner’s skills are counted, valued, and portable

Advance CTE’s newly released communications research indicates that learners who participate in CTE are more prepared for and more likely to plan to complete college. When states build more cohesive systems where early EPSOs such as dual enrollment are fully counted, valued and portable, learners have more equitable paths to college and career success.

Intentional Acts of Dual Enrollment: State Strategies for Scaling Early Postsecondary Opportunities in Career Pathways provides the following four key strategies to achieve this goal and highlights effective programs in Ohio, Tennessee and Utah: 

View this brief and other New Skills ready network resources here.

Each learner can access CTE without borders

Learners with a career interest in agriculture can register to attend a free virtual internship experience with industry professionals. Do you need career experiences for students despite the pandemic? Attendees will learn:

Educators should attend with learners to explore agricultural jobs and practice asking questions live!
Date: Thursday, May 20
Time: 12:30 pm ET/9:30 am PT.

Register here.

Brittany Cannady, Senior Associate Digital Media

By admin in Advance CTE Resources, CTE Without Limits, Resources
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Strategies for Scaling Early Postsecondary Opportunities in Career Pathways

Thursday, May 13th, 2021

Two hallmarks of a high-quality career pathway are seamless transitions across secondary and postsecondary education and offering learners the opportunity and means to participate in early postsecondary opportunities (EPSOs) – which include dual enrollment, dual credit, concurrent enrollment and other related opportunities. It is critical that these opportunities seamlessly result in articulated postsecondary credit for learners in a degree program that will help them progress on their chosen career pathway with no hidden barriers.

The opportunity for learners to get a head start on college courses while still in high school makes postsecondary credential and degree attainment easier and more affordable. Research consistently shows when learners are able to participate in 

EPSOs, they are more likely to graduate high school, complete college programs and be successful in their careers. For students of color, low-income learners and first-generation college students, the positive effects of degree attainment are even stronger.

While EPSOs are increasingly available for learners within career pathways, without strong policies and systems in place, too often learners engage in “random acts of dual enrollment” rather than earn credits that transfer seamlessly into their selected postsecondary institution and count toward degree program requirements. Advance CTE’s latest publication, Intentional Acts of Dual Enrollment elevates long-standing programs from Tennessee, Ohio and Utah and how these policies were implemented and scaled at the local level to provide consistent, statewide opportunities for learners. Although each state has unique strengths and challenges, some common attributes among these long-standing programs emerge:

Credits consistently articulate into postsecondary pathways across the state

To prevent “random acts of dual enrollment,” both general education and technical EPSO credits should be consistently transferred into pathways at any state public postsecondary institution to shorten time to degree for learners and ensure credits are not lost in the transition from secondary to postsecondary. Tennessee has ensured there are EPSO offerings within each secondary CTE program of study and all institutions within the University of Tennessee system and under the Tennessee Board of Regents accept EPSO credits. 

Institutionalized partnerships align systems and enable buy in and trust

Having these opportunities available on a statewide level and transferable between all public institutions takes long-standing partnerships with continued dedication to systems alignment. This requires effective and institutionalized partnerships between state agencies, with support and input from local institutions and districts. 

Robust, but streamlined, state policy to build EPSOs into career pathways

Having strong state policy in place that ensures EPSOs are consistently embedded within career pathways can provide accountability mechanisms and incentivize positive outcomes, but it is also necessary to build coherence across state and federal plans. Tennessee, Ohio and Utah all built EPSOs into their Perkins V plans. Tennessee and Utah both built EPSOs into both their ESSA and Perkins V accountability systems through the Ready Graduate indicator and Readiness Coursework indicator, respectively.

Incentives from the state level to fund EPSOs help remove financial barriers for learners

Continued financial investments from the state are critical for all stakeholders, especially to prevent major costs from falling to learners and to secure postsecondary buy-in so that providing EPSOs is not viewed as losing potential tuition for the institution.


The continued need to prioritize equity

It is imperative that barriers to access these opportunities, such as GPA requirements, administrative paperwork, cost of credit or tests and transportation, be removed to ensure equity. Ohio removed the need for learners to handle paperwork through their Career-Technical Assurance Guides (CTAG) system, which ensures learners’ earned technical credit information is automatically communicated to public postsecondary institutions in the state. In Utah, tuition is capped at $5 per credit hour for concurrent enrollment courses to make the opportunities affordable.

Additional resources on dual enrollment, articulation and transfer can be found on the Advance CTE resource center.

By admin in Advance CTE Resources, Publications
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This Week in CTE

Friday, May 7th, 2021

Developed with input from nearly 200 national, state and local education and workforce development leaders and supported by 40 national organizations, Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education lays out five inter-connected and equally critical principles.

Only through shared commitment and shared ownership among leaders and practitioners at all levels can we realize the possibility and aspiration of a new career preparation ecosystem that provides each learner with limitless opportunity. The This Week in CTE blog series will highlight state and local examples where CTE Without Limits has been made actionable. If you would like to highlight how your CTE program creates limitless opportunities for each learner in this blog series, please email Brittany Cannady, bcannady@careertech.org. 

 

This Week in CTE: May 3-7, 2021

Each learner engages in a cohesive, flexible, and responsive career preparation ecosystem 

CTE programming in Phenix City, Alabama is anchored by credentials of value and includes opportunities for work-based learning leading to careers defined by high-skill, high-wage and in-demand. Congratulations Kiara and all other learners who are now certified! 

 

Each learner feels welcome in, is supported by, and has the means to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem

Pickaway-Ross Career & Technology Center’s (Ohio) SkillsUSA members will advance to the national competition this year with the help of local industry leaders! CTSO members were able to use skills gained from on-the-job training to compete, virtually, on the state level in leadership and skills-building activities. Through industry collaboration, learners were able to utilize industry machinery in their respective events.

“PRCTC, overall, was well represented by some amazing competitors and delegates,” said Jennifer Widdig, one of Pickaway Ross’ SKillsUSA advisors. “I loved seeing the excitement in the students and how proud they were to show off their skills and trades.”

Read more in this blog entry published on the Pickaway-Ross district blog. 

 

Each learner skillfully navigates their own career journey

As seen in CTE Without Limits, stakeholders across the CTE community must intentionally develop processes to allow labor market information (LMI) to reach learners in ways that are transparent, reliable and filled with real-time information on career opportunities, earnings, and how their educational decisions will impact their access to support services.

This week Advance CTE, in partnership with Education Strategy Group through JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s New Skills ready network, released Practical Guidance for Aligning Career Pathways to Labor Market Data in the Time of COVID-19. This policy brief is the first in a series designed to help build better pathways and offers promising practices for enhancing the career preparation ecosystem locally and state-wide by leveraging LMI to align programs to high-skill, high-wage and in-demand occupations. 

More LMI resources can be found in the Learning that Works Resource Center. 

 

Each learner’s skills are counted, valued, and portable

This week we celebrated National Skilled Trades Day! 

Each learner can access CTE without borders

Advance CTE released a new policy brief that provides recommendations for CTE leaders on how to address short-and long-term priorities with the new funding authorized through the American Rescue Plan (ARP). Now, there is an opportunity for states to put in place transformative and bold solutions to support each learner in the career preparation ecosystem without limitations. State CTE leaders have a strong foundation to build upon, having recently done the hard work of crafting their Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) state plans. These new federal investments present a one-time opportunity to accelerate change, incubate innovation, disrupt systems that perpetuate inequities, and redesign with intention. States must strategically approach how to operationalize these funds to create a career preparation ecosystem that ensures each learner can access limitless opportunity.

Read the full resource and other COVID-19 state resources here.

Brittany Cannady, Senior Associate Digital Media

By admin in Uncategorized
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Exploring Area Technical Centers: Elevating ATCs in a National Economic Recovery

Wednesday, March 10th, 2021

The transformative workforce changes resulting from the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic have made it more urgent than ever for states to have a comprehensive strategy for reskilling and upskilling that unites stakeholders across education, workforce development and economic development. Advance CTE has been vocal that investment in secondary and postsecondary Career Technical Education (CTE) is critical to a national recovery strategy. 

ATC Positioning in the Workforce Development System 

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many things in our way of life, including the education or training path most Americans will pursue to return to work. A typical economic recovery would have millions of Americans flocking to traditional higher education programs but instead, in this post-pandemic economic recovery, the majority of Americans say they will seek non-degree and skill-based education and training programs to reskill or upskill their way back to a good job.

Area technical centers (ATCs) should be part of this solution – helping more Americans secure non-degree credentials of value. Our national analysis found that in the states where ATCs serve an adult population, these institutions provide short-term credentials and programs below the level of an associate’s degree, and  are uniquely positioned to be nimble and responsive to changing workforce needs. Further, these institutions are accessible, by design serving a region, and low-cost, with few or no barriers to admission for adult learners and affordable tuition rates as low as $2.00 per seat hour. ATCs can and should be better leveraged to serve those who have been disproportionately impacted by job losses associated with the pandemic, particularly Black and Latinx workers, workers with a high school education or less, and female workers.  

Leveraging Federal Funding 

Funding matters, and in states that have leveraged federal funds, we see ATCs being key players in meeting the state’s short- and long-term workforce priorities.  

For example, all of Ohio’s Ohio technical colleges (OTCs) and selected programs in Delaware’s ATCs are eligible training providers under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Many ATCs are eligible for federal financial aid under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, including institutions in Florida, Ohio and Utah most commonly accredited by the Council on Occupational Education.

Some states have utilized 2020 federal stimulus funding to reinforce their ATCs as valuable institutions in an economic recovery. Delaware leveraged $10 million of its federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act economic relief funding to support its Forward Delaware initiative, a set of rapid training and credentialing programs focused on in-demand occupations and skills in the state. Florida’s governor designated Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEER) funds provided through the CARES Act to award grants to its ATCs, known as technical colleges, to establish or enhance rapid credentialing programs that lead to a short-term certificate or industry-recognized certification as part of its statewide Get There campaign. 

Utilizing ATCs in Statewide Workforce Training Programs 

ATCs have strong connections to their local communities and employers by design and often offer customized training programs to meet those needs. 

To recover from the devastation of the coronavirus will require persistence, creativity and leveraging all public assets to ensure a full and equitable economic recovery. States should be learning from one another – what worked and what didn’t  – and leveraging their public assets, including ATCs to every learner with the opportunity to access a career pathway that leads to sustained, living-wage employment in an in-demand field. 

To find the ATCs in your state and to access the full report and additional resources, please visit www.areatechnicalcenters.org . To read other posts in this series, please check out our Medium post that breaks down the major findings, and our blog post on leveraging ATCs to advance state postsecondary attainment goals. 

By Stacy Whitehouse in COVID-19 and CTE
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