Career and Technical Education, Accountability, and Program Quality Indicators Under Perkins V

States and the U.S. Department of Education are wrestling with this question as they re-envision CTE resources and accountability under the 2018 Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, commonly known as Perkins V. The Perkins Act provides funding to states for CTE programs, primarily in public high schools and colleges. As with any federal funding stream, Perkins obligates recipient states to meet reporting and accountability requirements to help ensure that funds are used well. Perkins V sought (1) to give states more flexibility in how they administered CTE, and (2) to have states strategically connect the outcomes of CTE programs to the “education and skill needs of employers.” One component of Perkins V that speaks to both of these aims has recipient states select a measure of high school CTE program quality from a list of three options, each of which potentially says something about how attuned students are with workforce and college skills before they graduate from high school

College and Work after High School for Tennessee Career and Technical Education Students

Does CTE create opportunities for students that school systems cannot fulfill otherwise? Existing research on this question is thin. Federal law as well as state and local education agencies are investing in new and expanded CTE models without a clear understanding of whether and how career-focused education translates into success in the labor market. This report is an early contribution to the work of the Career and Technical Education Policy Exchange (CTEx) at Georgia State University. CTEx is a partnership between state education agencies and academic researchers in Tennessee, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. The overarching goal of this research lab is to build up the foundation of research on career and technical education in public schools to inform policy and practice related to CTE. As a starting point, the CTEx Tennessee team took a close look at the college and career outcomes of CTE concentrators from the graduating classes of 2010-16. Some of the statistics to follow can be found in earlier state reports, and some are new to the discussion

Post-Secondary Financial Aid Foundational Report: 2013-14 to 2018-19

We use data from school year (SY) 2013-14 to SY 2018-19 to study the amounts and types of financial aid that students in the University System of Georgia (USG) receive. Focusing on four populations of students–first-time freshmen pursuing a bachelor’s degree (BA), first-time freshmen pursuing a bachelor’s degree who ever receive a Pell grant (Pell), first-time freshmen pursuing an associate degree (Associate), and students over the age of 25 pursuing a bachelor’s degree (Non-traditional)–we find large differences in the average amount and types of aid the students in these four population groups receive in both their first fall semester and in total over a four-year period. We find large differences across institutions and among students with different demographic and economic characteristics in both the average amount of financial aid received as well as the prevalence of students who ever receive the HOPE Scholarship and Zell Miller Scholarship, two prominent merit-based Georgia scholarships. We also examine trends in aid receipt over time

A Multi-State Study of Equity in Career and Technical Education

Like other domains in public schooling, concerns exist about the degree to which all students—regardless of race and ethnicity, economic circumstances, disability identification, or gender—have access to high-quality programs. We take these questions to the context of Career and Technical Education (CTE) in American high schools. CTE is a highly-localized phenomenon in education, reflecting differences in skills demanded across labor markets and the equally wide latitude afforded to states and localities in designing, implementing, and reporting on CTE programs. Coupling this with the fact that education funding is highly-varied across the country makes a study of equity and access in CTE program offerings a natural line of inquiry. In the following report, Celeste K. Carruthers, Shaun Dougherty, Daniel Kreisman, and Roddy Theobald use administrative data from three states (Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Washington) and one large metro area (the Atlanta region) over several years to answer three questions: 1. Does CTE participation differ by student gender, race, ethnicity, family income, or disability identification? 2. Are differences in CTE participation due to differences in availability across schools, or are they a product of different take-ups across groups within the same school? 3. Do student characteristics differ across CTE career clusters? This is the first study we know of to bring all these factors together. We highlight three findings. First, while student characteristics like race and ethnicity, gender, economic disadvantage, or disability identification predict CTE course-taking, there are wide differences across states in these relationships. Hence, broad generalizations about the relationship between CTE and race and ethnicity may not be warranted without careful consideration of state and local factors. Second, differences in CTE credit accumulation across race and ethnicity, economic status, and disability identification are generally larger across schools than within them, which implies that the differences we observe in CTE credit accumulation might be due to differences in school-level access to these courses or typical CTE enrollment rates across schools with higher or lower proportions of non-White students. Finally, we find that male and female students concentrate in a very different mix of CTE career clusters, mirroring gender differences across occupations in the labor market. This finding suggests that the gender differences we observe in the labor market may begin early in students’ academic careers

A Multi-State Analysis of Trends in Career and Technical Education: Massachusetts, Michigan, and Tennessee

Participation in high-school based career and technical education (CTE) has risen dramatically nationwide in recent years, yet state comparisons do not exist because definitions are not unified across states. In the first multi-state, multi-year study of high-school CTE, researchers use student-level data to observe trends over time; factors that predict concentrating in a CTE program; and educational outcomes for students who do or do not concentrate in CTE, with a special focus on differences across race and disability status. Results from this effort demonstrate the wide differences in CTE when multiple state contexts are included. Researchers also highlight a few trends, policy recommendations, and areas for future research based on the work done in Massachusetts, Michigan, and Tennessee

A Multi-State Analysis of Trends in Career and Technical Education

This is the second annual report from researchers at the Career & Technical Education Policy Exchange (CTEx) to study how state contexts affect participation in high school CTE programs. Thomas Goldring, Celeste Carruthers, Shaun Dougherty, Daniel Kreisman, and Roddy Theobald provide the latest-available CTE participation data for Massachusetts (MA), Michigan (MI), and Tennessee (TN), and we add trends in Washington (WA), which is a new CTEx partner state. We utilize these data to learn how state contexts inform our understanding of what drives participation in CTE programs and how it might impact subsequent educational outcomes for high school students. All states are required to report relevant CTE statistics under the federal Perkins Act. Yet, guidelines are sufficiently broad such that key definitions (e.g., program concentrators and completers) are not uniform across states. Because of this variation, any multi-state CTE analysis has limitations. We recommend considering unified definitions across states in future federal policy. According to definitions used in this report, almost 50% of TN students, 40% of MI students, over 25% of WA students, and roughly 20% of MA students concentrate in or complete a CTE program of study in high school. We find that while White students are more likely to concentrate in a CTE program of study, these differences are largely driven by differences across schools. When we compare students within schools, much, and in some cases, all of the race and ethnicity differences in concentration rates are eliminated. In two states (MI and TN), we find students with identified disabilities are less likely to concentrate in a CTE program, while in MA and WA they can be more likely—depending on the type of disability. We also show students reaching (at least) concentrator status are more likely to graduate high school and to enroll in two-year colleges, while they are less likely to enroll in four-year schools. This high school graduation advantage is particularly pronounced for students with identified disabilities. Overall, we find wide variation both across and within states in concentrator rates and outcomes for concentrators and non-concentrators. This finding suggests that state-specific contexts play an important role in studying CTE, which is uncovered by access to statewide longitudinal databases

A Multi-State Analysis of Trends in Career and Technical Education

This is the second annual report from researchers at the Career & Technical Education Policy Exchange (CTEx) to study how state contexts affect participation in high school CTE programs. Thomas Goldring, Celeste Carruthers, Shaun Dougherty, Daniel Kreisman, and Roddy Theobald provide the latest-available CTE participation data for Massachusetts (MA), Michigan (MI), and Tennessee (TN), and we add trends in Washington (WA), which is a new CTEx partner state. We utilize these data to learn how state contexts inform our understanding of what drives participation in CTE programs and how it might impact subsequent educational outcomes for high school students. All states are required to report relevant CTE statistics under the federal Perkins Act. Yet, guidelines are sufficiently broad such that key definitions (e.g., program concentrators and completers) are not uniform across states. Because of this variation, any multi-state CTE analysis has limitations. We recommend considering unified definitions across states in future federal policy. According to definitions used in this report, almost 50% of TN students, 40% of MI students, over 25% of WA students, and roughly 20% of MA students concentrate in or complete a CTE program of study in high school. We find that while White students are more likely to concentrate in a CTE program of study, these differences are largely driven by differences across schools. When we compare students within schools, much, and in some cases, all of the race and ethnicity differences in concentration rates are eliminated. In two states (MI and TN), we find students with identified disabilities are less likely to concentrate in a CTE program, while in MA and WA they can be more likely—depending on the type of disability. We also show students reaching (at least) concentrator status are more likely to graduate high school and to enroll in two-year colleges, while they are less likely to enroll in four-year schools. This high school graduation advantage is particularly pronounced for students with identified disabilities. Overall, we find wide variation both across and within states in concentrator rates and outcomes for concentrators and non-concentrators. This finding suggests that state-specific contexts play an important role in studying CTE, which is uncovered by access to statewide longitudinal databases