CTE Policy Watch: A blog for CTE advocates

Sen. Baldwin Accepts ACTE Policymaker of the Year Award

During a special event at the Capitol Visitors Center during ACTE’s recent National Policy Seminar, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) accepted the 2013 ACTE Policymaker of the Year Award. This award is presented annually by ACTE to recognize policymakers who have made a significant contribution to CTE policy in the past year. 

Throughout 2013, Sen. Baldwin was a leader on CTE issues as a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. She introduced an amendment as part of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to incorporate student career readiness measures on state and school report cards for the first time. The amendment was one of only a few to be adopted with bipartisan support in the HELP committee.

Sen. Baldwin is also the sponsor of the Grants for Renewable Energy Education for the Nation (GREEN) Act, a bill that would encourage the development of CTE programs of study leading to careers in the green energy field.

In her acceptance speech, Sen. Baldwin spoke about the importance of continuing to push for students to be not just college ready after graduation but also career ready.

“We know that it’s important that our high school students are not only college ready but career ready. Fortunately, more and more, our secondary schools across the country are developing unique collaborations and partnerships with technical colleges and businesses to provide our students with hands-on learning and career preparation” 

– Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)

 To read Sen. Baldwin’s full remarks from the NPS event, please see her website.

 

Legislative Alert: Ask Your Representative to Sign House Perkins Funding Letter

This week, lawmakers who support CTE will have the opportunity to sign on to a letter to the House Appropriations Committees urging a strong federal investment in Perkins for Fiscal Year (FY) 2015. This effort is being led by Reps. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) and Jim Langevin (D-RI), the co-chairs of the bipartisan Congressional CTE Caucus, who are asking their House colleagues to join them in supporting federal funding for CTE in FY 2015 appropriations bill.

Federal Perkins funding is currently more than $140 million lower than in FY 2010. Over 20 states are receiving funding allocations at or below the levels they received in 1998. Perkins as the principal source of federal funding for CTE is working to build the capacity of secondary and postsecondary institutions to offer CTE programs that are academically rigorous and aligned to the needs of business and industry. However, funding has not kept pace with growing demand.

Congress has acted to reverse most of the harmful, across-the-board sequester cut to CTE in FY 2014, but more needs to be done to support high schools, tech centers, community colleges, employers and CTE students nationwide. Federal resources that support career education and workforce training should be directed to established and proven programs, like Perkins, that increase access to high-quality CTE for all students.

We need as many members of the House as possible to sign this letter to help ensure that the appropriations committee recognizes the importance of funding CTE. Please take a few minutes to help us in this effort. The deadline for your Member of Congress to sign on is March 31. Contact your representative and urge them to sign today!

Perkins Hearing Hits on CTE Funding

For the first time since November 2013, the House Education and the Workforce Committee held a hearing on the Perkins CTE Act reauthorization.  This was the first of two field hearings to be held this week, and was located at Southwest Career and Technical Academy in Las Vegas, NV.

Witnesses at the hearing included:

• Ms. Felicia Nemcek, Principal, Southwest Career and Technical Academy
• Dr. Michael Spangler, Dean, School of Advanced & Applied Technologies, College of Southern Nevada
• Ms. Kacy Qua, President and CEO, Qualifyor Corp.
• Mr. Alan Aleman, student
• Ms. Angela Morrison, Professor, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
• Mr. Frank Woodbeck, Director, Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation

Testimony given before the committee focused primarily on the important role CTE has played in the success of students in Clark County and the state of Nevada, including a 17 percent higher cohort graduation rate for CTE students. Concerned about funding cuts to Nevada CTE programs, there was particularly heavy emphasis on the role CTE funding plays in creating opportunities for students. In particular, Rep. Joe Heck (R-NV) touted the need to ensure adequate funding levels for the Perkins CTE Act.

Other Members of Congress present at the hearing were also interested in how CTE programs are making connections between secondary and postsecondary institutions and with business and industry. Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) inquired specifically about the amount of time school principals spend connecting with local businesses and the flexibility schools have in modifying CTE curriculum to meet changes in industry demands.

The second field hearing will take place on March 20 at the Arizona State University Polytechnic Campus in Mesa, AZ. More information this first hearing, including video and witness testimony, is available from the House committee’s website.

CTE Standards Open for Review by National Board

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (National Board) has announced the public comment period for the revised Career and Technical Education (CTE) Standards, 2^nd edition. 

Drafted by a committee of CTE educators and other experts in the profession, the standards will be available for review from March 16 to April 13. Once approved, they will serve as the foundation for National Board Certification in CTE. The link to the survey and more information are available on the National Board's website at http://www.nbpts.org/public-comment.

Based on the National Board's "Five Core Propositions," the standards:

1) Identify specific knowledge, skills and attitudes that support accomplished practice, while emphasizing the holistic nature of teaching;

2) Illustrate how a teacher's professional judgment is reflected in action; and

3) Describe how the standards come to life in different settings.

National Board Standards are periodically revised to reflect advances in the field, research and best practice. This is the first time Career and Technical Education Standards are being revised and ACTE was pleased to participate in a stakeholder meeting early in the revision process which contributed to the committee's deliberations.

If the standards are truly to represent the consensus of the field, a large response rate from CTE practitioners is needed. ACTE urges you to participate during the comment period!

Department Announces Start of 2014 i3 Grant Competition

The U.S. Department of Education announced last week the start of the 2014 Investing in Innovation (i3) grant competition. This next round of i3 grants will provide a total of $134 million to partnerships of schools districts and nonprofit organizations.  The announcement included a new set of grant priorities and a pre-application for the competition’s “development” category. The development category, which funds grantees with promising but relatively untested ideas, has been the most popular grant category throughout the previous four i3 competitions. This year's project priorities for this category include effective use of technology, improving academic outcomes for English learners, improving academic outcomes for students with disabilities, improving the effectiveness of teachers or principals, improving low-performing schools, and serving rural communities. The pre-application for development grants, which provide up to $3 million in funding, are due by April 14, 2014. The department will announce the start of applications for the “validation” and “scale-up” categories in the coming months.

The i3 fund was established under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to provide competitive grants to applicants for innovative practices that are demonstrated to have an impact on improving student achievement and growth. To date, the Department of Education has funded 92 unique i3 projects. Pre-applications and additional grant information are available of the department’s website.

Department Proposes Gainful Employment Regulations

On March 14, the Department of Education proposed regulations on gainful employment requirements for postsecondary educational institutions offering federal financial aid for career training programs. This proposal comes nearly a year after a federal court struck downthe department’s previous attempt to regulate gainful employment.

Under current law, most programs offered at for-profit institutions and certificate programs at non-profit and public institutions, including community and technical colleges and area CTE centers,  must prepare students for “gainful employment” after program completion to participate in federal student aid programs. However, the term “gainful employment” is not defined in current law and has not previously been regulated by the department.

While the department does acknowledge that many postsecondary career training programs provide a high-quality education leading to employment, the primary concern driving this proposed rule is the high student loan default rate of students in programs at for-profit institutions. The department hopes that the proposed regulations will force low-performing programs to improve or lose access to federal student aid.

Under the proposed regulations, gainful employment would be measured on three components intended to distinguish affordable training programs leading to well-paying jobs from programs leading to jobs with poor earnings prospects and high debt or loan default:

• Certification requirements – Programs would have to certify that they meet accreditation standards and state or federal licensure standards to operate as an educational program.
• Accountability metrics – Programs would have to meet minimum standards on student debt-to-earnings ratio and program cohort default rate.
• Public disclosures – Programs would have to make performance and outcomes data, including costs, earnings, debt, default rates and completion rates, available to the public.

These regulations were posted to the Federal Register on March 25, and are available for public comment for 63 days (5/27/2014). If you are a postsecondary stakeholder with a certificate program, I encourage you to read the information on the register’s website and leave your comments for the department. Feedback received from the public will be used to finalize the regulation.

Students Excel With CTE Dual Enrollment

The Education Commission of the States (ECS) recently published a brief focusing on how dual enrollment in CTE helps high school students graduate and enroll in postsecondary education.

As I reported last spring, data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that about 601,500 students were pursuing CTE dual enrollment in 2010-2011. ECS author Jennifer Dounay Zinth notes several studies demonstrating the benefits of CTE dual enrollment. For instance, a 2007 National Research Center for CTE study found that Florida CTE dual enrollment course completers were slightly more likely than all dually-enrolled students to go on to a four-year institution. Dual enrollment benefits can be especially strong for low-income students and male students.

In addition, the National Student Clearinghouse has published data showing that dually-enrolled students are more likely than students not pursuing dual enrollment to complete a degree within six years.

The brief recommends several state policies to support CTE dual enrollment:

1. Course fees should not be paid by the student or parents.
2. Course content and instructor credentials must match those of traditional postsecondary education.
3. Courses should incorporate curriculum and standards informed by industry, leading to a recognized credential.
4. States should ensure articulation and transfer.

The brief includes examples of states that are leading the charge in this area, including Florida's career dual enrollment program, Texas's requirement that CTE dual enrollment courses be taught on the college level and Louisiana's statewide articulation that allows the awarding and transfer of credit for embedded academic content in CTE courses. Learn more about dual enrollment in the states with our State CTE Profiles--choose Dual Enrollment and Articulation under topics.

Education and Workforce Training Highlights in President’s Budget

Last week, the Obama Administration released its budget proposal for FY 2015. We previously reported that the budget proposes to level fund the Perkins Basic State Grant at $1.118 billion in FY 2015. In additional to Perkins, we would like to highlight some other proposals in the budget request that could impact funding for education and workforce training.

The budget request for the Department of Education includes an additional $20 million through the Adult Education program for competitive grants to partnerships—among states, adult education providers, institutions of higher education, private organizations and industry—to support innovative and effective adult education models. These Skills Challenge Grants would scale up evidence-based programs that combine basic skills education with training to improve alignment of services. The department has once again requested $150 million for a new High School Redesign program that would fund  competitive grants to school districts and their partners to redesign high schools in innovative ways that better prepare students for college and career success, including high-quality career and college exploration and counseling, opportunities to earn postsecondary credit and career-related experiences or competencies, and align academic content more closely with postsecondary education and careers.

The budget proposes $15 million in the Department of Labor for a new Sector Strategies Partnership grant program for states, consortia of states, or regional partnerships to develop employment and training strategies targeted to particular in-demand industry sectors. Also found within the budget request of the Department of Labor is a proposal of $4 billion for the New Career Pathways program that will consolidate two existing programs –Trade Adjustment Assistance for Workers and WIA Dislocated Workers—to reflect he Administration’s vision of a single unified system to provide services to displaced workers.  

The president’s budget request stays within the FY 2015 spending caps set by the Bipartisan Budget Act passed by Congress last December, but the Administration has also proposed additional funds for an “Opportunity, Growth and Security Initiative,” which would be equally split between defense and nondefense discretionary programs. Essentially, the initiative would be an extra $56 billion on top of the existing funding caps for new investments in key Administration priorities. Among the education and workforce training priorities funded through this initiative is a Community College Job-Driven Training Fund, which would offer competitive grants to partnerships of community colleges, public and non-profit training entities, industry groups, and employers to launch new training programs and apprenticeships that will prepare participants for in-demand careers.

CTE is a Solution to Youth Unemployment

Youth unemployment in the 21st century is charted in a recent publication from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. According to authors Julia Dennett and Alicia Sasser Modestino, the U.S. economy has been employing fewer teens for a quite a while now-beginning before the Great Recession and continuing into the recovery.

Youth employment was at an all-time low in 2012, at only 54 percent. Factors in this decline include youth who are delaying labor market participation and enrolling full-time in education, as well as a shift away from employing young people in general. According to the report, both 16-19-year-olds and 20-24-year-olds have become more likely to attend school exclusively. In addition, young people have had a particularly hard time entering the labor force.

The publication suggests such measures as career pathways, apprenticeships and technical training to help better connect education and the workforce and pave the way for youth entry into the labor market.

Developing the Computing Workforce

A new report from the Association for Computing Machinery recommends developing stronger pathways for computer science education in order to grow the computing workforce.

By the end of the decade, one of every two STEM jobs-about 4.6 million jobs-will be in computing, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. However, there are many obstacles to building strong pathways in computer science education that lead to these high-wage jobs.

Secondary students often lack access to rigorous computer science courses taught by qualified teachers, owing to confusing or inappropriate teacher certification requirements for computer science. In addition, computer science courses may not be accepted as satisfying a mathematics or science graduation requirement; just 17 states and the District of Columbia clearly state that Advanced Placement Computer Science fulfills a core high school graduation requirement. One of the outcomes of this lack of emphasis on computing education is that only about 25,000 of the more than one million students who took AP exams in STEM subjects in 2012 took the AP Computer Science A exam.

Authors Lisa Kaczmarczyk and Renee Dopplick include several recommendations, including that states and localities clearly define rigorous computer science grounded in the Computer Science Teachers Association K-12 Computer Science Standards and that they establish clear, relevant and realistic requirements for computer science teacher certification. In addition, the authors recommend that rigorous computer science courses be accepted as fulfilling core high school graduation requirements.

Several states and school districts leading the way in building pathways in computer science education are profiled, including an initiative in Washington with Microsoft to expand computer science courses, focusing on industry certification; North Carolina CTE programs and career academies; and articulation agreements within the Kentucky postsecondary system.