CTE Policy Watch: A blog for CTE advocates

Incorporating Measures of Career Readiness

A recent Blueprint for College Readiness report produced by the Education Commission of the States (ECS) analyzes how each state is progressing with ECS’s 10 critical policies promoting college readiness and success. While mentions of career readiness elements are sprinkled throughout the document—such as WorkKeys assessments, CTE courses that meet graduation requirements and indicators that track industry certifications earned—the focus is primarily on college readiness.  

The publication addresses this challenge head on by recommending that states can focus more on career readiness by:

• Offering WorkKeys assessments for free to CTE concentrators or all students
• Allowing industry certification or licensure exams to substitute for required assessments
• Incorporating industry certification metrics into accountability and reporting
• Engaging business and industry to ensure that career readiness assessments meet workforce need

Perkins Funding Maintained in FY 15 Omnibus Bill

Late last night, the House and Senate appropriations committees released the final FY 2015 omnibus appropriations bill, which will fund most government programs for the rest of the fiscal year (until September 30, 2015). Despite cuts in many areas, including an overall $166 million reduction in discretionary funding for the Department of Education, Perkins was level funded! The 2015 Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act includes $1.118 billion for the Perkins Basic State Grant program and $7.4 million for National Programs.

ACTE and the National Association of State Directors of Career and Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc) had urged congressional appropriators to fund Perkins state grants at $1.123 billion, a $5.4 million increase over FY 2014, but the tight budget caps left little room for increases in individual programs. While a few education programs did see small increases, a number were cut or eliminated, including some of the Administration’s key competitive priorities, such as Race to the Top and the Investing in Innovation Fund. Considering the changing political dynamic and focus on reducing spending, CTE has fared well in this budget. 

There was also an additional victory in the bill. In other policy riders included in the bill, a key element of our Higher Education Act priorities was addressed. The bill includes a provision that would partially restore “ability-to-benefit” within the student aid program, allowing students without a high school diploma to access student aid funding if they are enrolled in career pathways programs.

The current continuing resolution that is keeping the government operating until this final appropriations bill can be passed expires on Thursday. The House is expected to vote on the bill tomorrow, but since it may take a few more days for it to be cleared by the Senate, another short-term CR, of just a few days, may be approved in the meantime.

Report Highlights CTE Employer Engagement Trends

Employer engagement is a feature of many CTE programs, according to a new NASDCTEc publication, and most CTE leaders expect business involvement in CTE to increase. However, effectively carrying out and scaling certain strategies can be challenging.

The report, based on a survey of 47 state CTE directors and a dozen interviews with state and national leaders conducted by the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc), examines employer engagement as required or encouraged by federal, state and local levers.

One important lever is Perkins approval and funding. The majority of states require employer-related activities in order for local agencies to receive funds, typically through advisory committees. In addition, eight states indicated that work-based learning opportunities are required for receiving Perkins funding, while seven states reported that they require employer-driven professional development for educators. Less common are monetary or in-kind donations; only Alabamaand the Republic of Palaureported that as a prerequisite for accessing Perkins funds. In addition, Perkins funds could be leveraged, but rarely are, to require meaningful tracking of local business partnership activities.

State policies and initiatives are another important lever. Statewide interagency collaboration is by far the most common method for spurring business engagement, followed by:

• pilot initiatives that foster partnerships
• state-level guidance about creating partnerships
• competitive grants to develop partnerships
• state-level MOUs with employers

Many states—43—also reported that it’s common for employers to participate in developing standards or identifying relevant industry-recognized credentials. In addition, business leaders take part in state-level CTE advisory committees in most states. CTSO engagement, industry support for professional development and employers serving as CTE advocates are also common avenues for participation. On the local level, businesses are likely to engage with career guidance and advising.

The publication concludes by examining the challenges that can keep districts, institutions and states from more effectively engaging with industry, including the multi-faceted nature of the CTE system, communication challenges between education and business, limited data on outcomes and labor market demand, and time and resources.

Pell Grants for Dual Enrollment Pilot Project Announced at White House Summit

This week, the Obama Administration hosted the second White House College Opportunity Day of Action. This summit of higher education leaders was focused on expanding access to postsecondary education to more students through initiatives that promote high school and college completion, invest in counseling and increase the number of college graduates in STEM fields. The colleges and universities, higher education associations, nonprofit organizations, and governmental entities that participated in the summit committed to implement actions within their organization and intuitions to further these goals.   

To support the efforts of the higher education community, the Administration also announced several executive actions on postsecondary education.  The Department of Education will use its “experimental site” authority to grant waivers from certain federal student financial aid regulations, allowing recipients to test the impact of making Pell grants available to high school students taking postsecondary courses. This action is designed to promote dual enrollment programs as a model to reduce the time and overall cost for students in obtaining a degree. The department has not yet announced when this project will be launched, we will continue to provide updates on this initiative on the CTE Policy Watch Blog.

New Members of Congress Bring Education Background to Capitol Hill

When the 114th Congress begins in January, a large “freshman” class of at least 70 newly elected members of the Senate and House of Representatives will bring with them a diversity of policy positions and personal experiences in education and workforce development.

Sen.-elect Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) will have already served seven terms in the House when she takes her seat in the Senate. Capito has a master's degree in education, and worked as a college career counselor and state education official in West Virginia before being elected to public office. In the House, Capito has been a strong supporter of Head Start and TRIO programs and is a member of the House STEM Caucus. Capito has stated that she believes in providing students with a broad range of options for postsecondary education, including community and technical colleges and other postsecondary CTE intuitions. Joining Capito in the jump from the House to the Senate is Sen.-elect Cory Gardner (R-CO). Gardner previously worked as an advocate for the National Corn Growers Association and has been a proponent of agricultural issues during his tenure in the House.  Additionally, he introduced bills during this Congress to increase the federal tax deduction for interest payments on student loans and increase the amount tax-exempt contributions that can be made to college savings accounts.

Among the incoming members of the House, Rep.-elect Gwen Graham (D-FL) has a professional background in education, having worked for the Leon County School System in her home state of Florida. She campaigned on a platform of promoting partnerships between postsecondary CTE institutions and local business and industry to support job training efforts. She has also called for investing in CTE at the secondary level to help students in high school progress along a career pathway. Check back to the CTE Policy Watch Blog for more updates on the new Congress. 

Business Roundtable and Change the Equation Release Survey, Host Event on Skills Gap and STEM Skills

On December 3, Change the Equation and Business Roundtable partnered to host an event on employer perspectives and strategies to overcome the skills gap and provide a STEM-skilled workforce. The event began with a brief introduction to the topic and an overview of Business Roundtable’s recent report on how the skills gap is affecting American businesses, as well as the results of Business Roundtable and Change the Equation’s STEM Survey on Workforce Skills. The survey indicated that CEOs nearly universally consider the skills gap to be a real problem for their businesses, and that 57 percent of them consider a lack of industry-recognized credentials as a problem for their organization.

The CEOs surveyed estimate they will need to replace almost a million employees over the next five years with workers with basic STEM literacy, and about 600,000 with advanced STEM knowledge. However, according to 38 percent of respondents, more than half of job applicants lack these skills. The specific skills most in need are advanced computer/IT knowledge, general business skills and advanced quantitative knowledge.

To close the skills gap, the CEOs cited the following as the most effective strategies:

• internships (70 percent)
• employer participation in curriculum development (54 percent)
• apprenticeship (37 percent)
• employer participation in classroom instruction (21 percent)

The second half of the event included a panel discussion with leaders from major U.S. employers on their perspectives on the skills gap and how their organizations are working to overcome it. Panelists included:

• Jamie Dimon, Chairman & CEO, JPMorgan Chase & Co.;
• Eric Spiegel, President & CEO, Siemens Corporation;
• Rex Tillerson, Chairman & CEO, Exxon Mobil Corporation; and
• Maggie Wilderotter, Chairman & CEO, Frontier Communications Corporation

The panel emphasized the need not only for students to enter the workforce with stronger STEM skills and advanced literacy, but also employability skills. “It’s not just math and science,” said Wilderotter, “It’s what it takes to work in the workforce.”

Extension of Education Tax Breaks Passed in House

This week, the House of Representatives approved a bill to extend a long list of expired federal tax breaks. Many of these tax provisions expired at the end of 2013, and this “tax extenders” bill—passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 378-46—would retroactively restore them through the end of this calendar year so that eligible individuals and businesses can claim these deductions and credits on their 2014 tax returns.  The Senate is expected to adopt the measure sometime next week.

The bill includes extensions for some key education related tax breaks. The educator expense deduction allows eligible educators to deduct of up to $250 of any out-of- pocket expenses for classroom supplies, equipment and supplementary materials, without having to itemize those expenses. This deduction is available to K-12 teachers, instructors, counselors and administrators. The Qualified Zone Academy Bond Program, which allows qualifying schools to borrow interest-free funds to renovate school facilities, purchase equipment and provide teacher training, would also be extended by the bill. Under this program, school districts pay the principal amount borrowed to fund these projects, and the federal government provides the bondholder with a tax credit in lieu of interest payments. Finally, a provision to extend a deduction for qualified tuition and related higher education expenses was also included in the bill. 

Research Round-up: Community College Outcomes, Global Competitiveness

The benefits of community college differ based on student background, according to Brand, Pfeffer and Goldrick-Rab, who studied Chicago Public Schools graduates from the class of 2001. They found that attending community college has a modest positive impact on bachelor’s degree completion for disadvantaged students who might otherwise would not have pursued postsecondary education—the bulk of community college students—while community college has a negative effect on the bachelor’s degree completion of the relatively small percentage of students from more advantaged backgrounds who would otherwise have started at four-year schools.

As part of community colleges’ efforts to improve student completion, the Center for Community College Student Engagement has been focusing for more than a decade on research and data about specific practices supporting student pathways as a means to community college success. In its newest publication, the Center focuses on high-impact practices that foster three outcomes: completion of at least one development course with a grade of C better, completion of a gatekeeper course with a C or better and persistence. The report includes profiles of high-impact practices and resulting positive outcomes at The Alamo Colleges, Miami Dade College, Charles Guttman Community College, the City University of New York, Lake Washington Institute of Technology, Klamath Community College and Long Beach City College.

Finally, the Alliance for Excellent Education has a helpful breakdown of the recent World Economic Forum’s (WEF)’s rankings of global competitiveness, with an emphasis on the education factors that WEF examined. The good news is the United States moved up from fifth place in competitiveness to third place. In addition, in the category of higher education and training (which includes secondary and postsecondary education), America ranked highly on measures of postsecondary enrollment. However, the nation was 51st out of 144 in math and science education quality.

ACTE Media Tour of Central Illinois: Day Three

As loyal CTE Policy Watch readers may already know, ACTE Legislative and Public Affairs Manager Sean Lynch recently conducted a media tour of programs in central Illinois to raise awareness of successful CTE programs in the area. To learn more about the tour and read our previous coverage, click here.

The media tour of Illinois continued on day three, starting off in Champaign, Illinois at the Parkland College Career Center. This brand new facility will bring together students from 14 local schools to engage in career exploration, earn state and industry-recognized credentials or certifications and build their technical and employability skills. The facility was constructed to meet the needs of a variety of CTE programs that are growing in the area, and has engaged with local business and industry leaders to ensure that the programs’ curriculum will prepare students for careers in their communities.

During the tour of Parkland’s facilities, we visited their automotive technician training program where students were busily huddled over an engine. These students, their instructor notes, are almost four times as likely to graduate from a postsecondary program compared to students that didn’t get the chance to participate in this CTE program. Graduates from the program have had consistent success in obtaining careers in their field, including one who has gone on to take an engineering position working on the Cadillac SLR. Not all students leave Illinois, however – for example, I spoke with Carlos, a student who is currently enrolled in the program and working at a local Nissan facility. He explained how the program has taught him to work with a small team, and told me about his goal of obtaining his SAE certification. This credential will open doors to additional career opportunities and higher wages for him, all while he’s still early in his educational career.

After visiting Parkland, we went on to Urbana High School. There, we visited a classroom where students listened on as their instructor walked them through a lesson on agricultural education. After the class, we went to their industrial technology facilities, which provide students with lessons in mechanical engineering and integrates their local economy and culture by focusing on agricultural technologies. Students can also study welding in the facility – a nationally in-demand career path that offers lucrative pay and bountiful opportunity.

The afternoon brought us to the Vermillion Vocational System at Danville Area Community College. The facility recently reopened, and has experienced significant growth in its student body as local high schools have started to bring in students. The students there are able to participate in mentorship programs with leaders from local businesses, and leaders from the school’s administration have placed a special emphasis on preparing students for careers that are in-demand in their community, particularly in the manufacturing sector as welders or machinists. The program encountered some issues in building interest in these careers due to outdated perceptions and misunderstandings about the manufacturing industry, but overcame those challenges by organizing a “Tour of Industry” through local facilities.

Today, more than 100 students are enrolled in Danville Area Community College’s Manufacturing Engineering Technology courses. They were the first community college in the state to add the National Institute for Manufacturing Skills’ curriculum to their classrooms, which includes a world-class partnership with the local ThyssenKrupp manufacturing facility. ThyssenKrupp brings students into its facilities to participate in a comprehensive workplace learning rotation through each of its departments and roles – including Logistics, Production and Safety. During our tour of the facility, a young woman named Kaylee explained how she had learned that careers on the company’s Logistics team interested her most, and her experience there helped her identify how she could achieve her goals. In addition, Donnie Robinson, the ThyssenKrupp Training Manager for the Danville facility, explained that the students culminate their experience by developing a final project, which includes an idea for “adding value” to the organization. The students’ ideas are then submitted to ThyssenKrupp management – and some will even be implemented by the company on the shop floor.

To learn more about how you can organize your own public awareness activities, visit ACTE’s Targeting the Media page in the Action Center – and keep an eye out for our final roundup of stories from the tour!

Deadline for Policy Award Nominations Approaching!

ACTE is now accepting nominations for the Policymaker of the Year and Baird-English Advocate of the Year Awards! We encourage you to consider nominating your elected leaders and colleagues from the CTE community for these prestigious opportunities, which recognize leaders that have dedicated themselves to furthering policy issues of importance to ACTE and its members.

The Policymaker of the Year award is presented annually by ACTE’s Public Policy Department to nationally recognized policymakers who have made a contribution of national significance to CTE. The recipient(s) will be selected based on the significance of their impact on CTE, whether that is based on recent work or over the span of their career. If you feel that your legislator is doing a great job working for CTE, this is a fantastic way to thank them for their work!

The Baird-English Advocate of the Year award is presented to an ACTE member that has demonstrated a personal dedication to advocacy for CTE issues before federal policymakers. Recipients will have taken repeated and consistent action on CTE policy issues, whether that is by setting up meetings with their elected officials or their staff or simply sending an e-mail. Be sure to think about which of your colleagues in ACTE membership will be a good fit and nominate them for this opportunity!

To submit a nomination for either the Policymaker of the Year or Baird-English Advocate of the Year Award, simply access the ACTE awards portal here and complete the necessary application materials.  

In addition, remember that the eligibility period for our new E-Advocate recognition program will last until December 31, which will showcase the efforts of the top five individuals who have taken action through the CTE Action Center. There’s still time to log in and make your voice heard for CTE, so don’t delay.