CTE Policy Watch: A blog for CTE advocates

Press and Policymakers Consider Middle School Career Exploration

Education Week published an article on Wednesday, July 15, on the growing efforts in middle schools nationwide to provide students with meaningful career exploration opportunities at an earlier age. The story, “Career Prep Moves into Middle Schools,” examines career focused initiatives that go beyond “career day” to incorporate work-based learning experiences such as apprenticeships, as well as mentoring and guidance programs to help young students become more engaged with their education and begin thinking about their possible career path.

Student engagement poses a major challenge to education in the middle grades – in fact, the article references research that as many as 60 to 70 percent of students become chronically disengaged in the 7th and 8th grades. CTE programs provide contextualized learning opportunities that help combat this trend, which results in improved student outcomes and reduced dropout rates.

The article comes hot on the heels of congressional efforts to increase the availability of middle school career exploration opportunities – key provisions of Senator Tim Kaine’s (D-VA) Middle School Technical Education Program (STEP) Act, reintroduced in June of 2015, were proposed as an amendment to the Senate Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization bill.  The amendment gained bipartisan support with leadership from Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), however, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee leadership opted to consider the measure in conjunction with reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act.

ACTE supports efforts to improve student learning and outcomes through proven strategies, including CTE in earlier grades. Read ACTE’s statement of support for the Middle STEP Act here, and stay tuned to the Policy Watch Blog to follow future developments on this important topic.

New Content Standards for Ag Ed

There are updated content standards for the Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Career Cluster®, recently released by the National Council for Agricultural Education. State and local educators can use these standards to guide the development of curriculum and assessments for AFNR-related CTE programs.

A multi-stage review and revision process from 2014 to 2015 was based on input from more than 270 secondary and postsecondary educators, business, industry and state leaders in CTE. The National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education/National Career Technical Education Foundation gave permission for the agriculture education community to use the Common Career and Technical Core (CCTC) Standards in support of this project. In addition, the standards have been reviewed to identify crosswalks to other national standards such as the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.

Update on Senate ESEA Reauthorization

This week, the Senate continues to debate and amend the Every Child Achieves Act (S. 1177)—a bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). As we previously reported, the House approved its ESEA reauthorization bill, the Student Success Act (H.R. 5), by a razor thin 218-213 vote last week. While the Senate is expected to complete its work later this week, here is an update on some of the important CTE provisions that have been considered so far.

When the Every Child Achieves Act was brought to the Senate floor last week, it included new provisions on promoting integrated academic and CTE content in the classroom and expanding college and career guidance programs--ACTE has been promoting these provisions and working with Members of Congress to ensure their inclusion in the bill. In Title I of the bill, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) championed the inclusion of language that allows local educational agencies to support programs that promote integrated academic and CTE content through coordinated instructional practices, including opportunities for experiential learning. Additionally, his language highlights the need for dual or concurrent enrollment opportunities that enable students to earn postsecondary credit or a credential and access comprehensive career counseling to facilitate their transition from secondary to postsecondary education, and ultimately into the workforce.

The Title II educator professional development section of the bill features a new section that encourages states and school districts to support specialized professional development opportunities focused on integrating academics and CTE. It will allow school districts to offer professional development that helps teachers to identify linkages across subjects, while providing common planning time to coordinate lesson plans and pedagogy. A new section of Title IV of the bill allows school districts to offer college and career guidance programs, which may include career awareness and exploration activities. It also provides schools with the opportunity to develop personalized learning plans and train counselors on how to best utilize labor market information in counseling students. Both provisions were added with the support of Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA).

In addition, we have been working on several other amendments. The Senate adopted an amendment offered by Sens. Kaine, Merkley, Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Tim Scott (R-SC) to recognize CTE as a core academic subject. Along with English, science, math, foreign languages, art, history, music and others, CTE will be counted among the critical subjects that contribute to the college and career success of all students. The chamber also approved an amendment sponsored by Sens. Kaine, Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Rob Portman (R-OH), co-chairs of the Senate CTE Caucus, to allow states to include career readiness indicators in state accountability systems that will give schools recognition for preparing students for postsecondary education and the workforce. Both amendments were approved with unanimous support and are key portions of ACTE's efforts to better incorporate CTE into ESEA. We will continue to provide updates on ESEA reauthorization on the CTE Policy Watch blog. Contact your Senators to urge support for CTE in ESEA!

Legislation Introduced to Enact America’s College Promise Initiative

This week, Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA.) announced a bicameral effort to codify President Obama’s America’s College Promise initiative through new legislation. The America’s College Promise Act would create a new federal program to provide financial support to students pursuing postsecondary education at community colleges, as well as low-income students seeking bachelor’s degrees at minority serving institutions.

The legislation would create a partnership between the federal government, states and Indian tribes to pay for tuition and fees while the student is enrolled at least half-time with satisfactory academic performance, with 75 percent of funds coming from the federal government and 25 percent coming from the state.

The lawmakers, along with Senate cosponsor Cory Booker (D-NJ) and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, announced the bill on a press call. Baldwin stated that “America needs out-educate the rest of the world in order to better compete in a 21st century, skills based economy,” and emphasized the importance of ensuring that affordability does not prevent students from obtaining postsecondary education.

ACTE is supportive of efforts to improve access to and expand postsecondary CTE, and issued a statement on America’s College Promise when it was first by President Obama in January. We will monitor the legislation’s progress and work with our members to ensure that CTE’s priorities for postsecondary education are reflected in Washington.

House Passes Student Success Act to Reauthorize ESEA

On Wednesday, July 8, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 5, the Student Success Act, introduced by House Education and the Workforce Chairman John Klein (R-MN) by a vote of 218-213. The measure, which would reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and institute sweeping reforms to federal education policy, sets the stage for future debate as the Senate considers its own ESEA reauthorization legislation.

The bill has proven highly controversial since its introduction early this year due to its partisan nature and inclusion of major Republican education priorities, and was pulled from consideration in February amid concerns that it lacked the votes to pass. Major provisions in the final bill include the elimination of the widely lamented adequate yearly progress accountability system implemented under No Child Left Behind, a measure to prevent the U.S. Secretary of Education from adopting the Common Core State Standards in federal regulations and the elimination of the “highly qualified” teacher requirement. The bill also includes important CTE-related provisions, such as the inclusion of student CTE achievements on state report cards and the integration of academic and CTE content.

ESEA watchers will now need to wait for the Senate to complete its floor action on the Every Child Achieves Act, which is currently underway. If the Senate bill passes, the two chambers will attempt to bridge the gap between the bills in a conference committee – however, the White House has indicated that it will veto the House version of the legislation and expressed some reservations about the Senate bill, setting a challenging course for ESEA reauthorization going forward.

Achieve Reports Highlight CTE Leadership in Ohio, Massachusetts

Achieve today released two reports highlighting state policies and leadership in CTE in Ohio and Massachusetts. The reports detail promising initiatives and best practices in the two states that have led to improved graduation rates and student achievement through CTE, including ACTE Educational Institution Member Auburn Career Center!

The report on Ohio’s CTE programs, “Seizing the Future: How Ohio’s Career-Technical Education Programs Fuse Academic Rigor and Real-World Experiences to Prepare Students for College and Careers,” begins by noting the enormous strides that the state’s CTE programs have taken in recent years. By making changes to their CTE programs like shifting accountability measures, working to align programs with the local economy and continuously working to update technical content standards, the state has turned CTE from a last resort for struggling students to a magnet for high-flyers. In addition, the schools highlighted in the report have worked with local businesses to create work based learning opportunities that give students the chance to put their knowledge and skills to the test (and even helped some students graduate with a job)!

In addition, the report on Massachusetts’ CTE system, “Best of Both Worlds: How Massachusetts Vocational Schools are Preparing Students for College and Careers,” highlights the ways that schools are successfully preparing students to accomplish their goals in postsecondary education and the workforce through CTE. For many years, the state’s educational institutions siloed CTE and academic students into different classes and curricula – however, the tides have since turned to focus on integrating the two to the benefit of all students. In addition, the state has prioritized career and guidance counseling, real-world learning opportunities and continuous involvement of district leaders and schools to ensure maintenance of academic rigor. These changes among the state’s vocational institutions have improved their student’s outcomes academically, and opened new doors to careers. Kyle Brenner, director of career and technical programs at Worcester Tech, states in the report, “Who are we to tell them they can’t [go to college]... The way I see it is, we’re giving you a key to each one of those doors.”

CTE Students Excel in Indiana

Indiana students who earn at least six CTE credits have higher graduation rates, higher Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress (ISTEP) scores and are less likely to need college remediation, according to the 2015 Indiana Career Readiness Report. Indiana CTE concentrators perform a little better than other students on the state’s ISTEP English 10 assessments and much better on the ISTEP Algebra I assessments.

In addition, more than 5,500 Hoosier CTE concentrators in 2014 earned college credits and over 3,000 earned at least one industry-recognized credential—that’s more than twice the industry credential attainment rate from the prior year.

Explore more details on Indiana CTE student attainment and achievement at www.doe.in.gov/sites/default/files/cte/2015-cte-data-analysis-report-final-6.23.2015.pdf.

Career Pathways: An Imperative for States

Eight actions for building rigorous, relevant career pathways and increasing young adults’ educational attainment are recommended by the Southern Regional Education Board’s (SREB’s) Commission on CTE in a new publication.

The SREB Commission on CTE is composed of a variety of state education leaders and state lawmakers. Their eight recommended actions for states include the following:  

1. Create bridges from high school to postsecondary education and careers through rigorous, relevant career pathways based on industry demand, incorporating integrated academic and technical curriculum; alignment and acceleration strategies such as dual enrollment, work-based learning and industry credential attainment; and career and college guidance systems
2. Make college and career readiness an expectation for all high school graduates
3. Identify technical and career readiness assessments that offer value to students
4. Provide teachers with the professional development needed
5. Restructure low-performing high schools around career pathways
6. Align technical center curricula with home high schools and postsecondary education and provide options for accelerated credential attainment
7. Incentivize attainment goals through statewide readiness standards, among other strategies
8. Develop accountability systems that recognize and reward districts and institutions who double the number of young adults who earn postsecondary credentials and have secured high-wage, high-skill employment by age 25

Many of these suggestions will be familiar to CTE advocates, and states are already making moves to strengthen education through CTE and career pathways strategies, as described in State Policies Impacting CTE: 2014 Year in Review from ACTE and the National Association of State Directors of CTE Consortium.

ESEA Reauthorization Bills Head to the Floor in House and Senate

This week, the full House and Senate will consider bills to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The Senate will begin debating and amending the Every Child Achieves Act (S. 1177), a bipartisan measure that was passed unanimously by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee in April. The House is scheduled to complete its work on the Student Success Act (H.R. 5), which has languished for months after debate originally was started on the House floor in February. 

As we previously reported, the Senate’s Every Child Achieves Act is the product of bipartisan negotiations between HELP Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA). Notably, the bill includes a provision, based on an amendment sponsored by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) during the committee markup, requiring the reporting of student attainment of CTE proficiencies on state and school report cards. This information is already collected under the Perkins Act, so this provision will provide parents, teacher and policymakers with information on student achievement in CTE without creating new reporting burdens. Other CTE-related issues that will likely be considered during the amendment process on the Senate floor include promoting teacher professional development focused on integrating academic and CTE content in the classroom, expanding college and career guidance programs, supporting career exploration in middle grades, and encouraging states to adopt college and career readiness performance indicators in their accountability systems.

In the House, the Student Success Act was very nearly passed by the full chamber in February, but was put on hold because the House leadership was unable to get sufficient support from Democrats and conservative member of the Republican caucus to approve the bill. It includes language similar to the Senate bill that would encourage states to incorporate information on student achievement on CTE proficiencies in their annual report card. Additionally, it would allow school districts to utilize funds to better integrate academics with CTE and work-based learning opportunities.

The partisan Student Success Act is expected to be offered along with several controversial amendments that may address portability in Title I funds, further rebuking the common core state standards, and providing states with the option to opt out of federal testing requirements. We will continue to provide updates on ESEA reauthorization in Congress on the CTE Policy Watch Blog.

ED Begins Implementing Gainful Employment Rules

On July 1, the U.S. Department of Education formally began implementing the new “gainful employment” (GE) regulations affecting federal student aid eligibility for postsecondary institutions offering career-related programs. As we previously reported, the finalized regulations were released last October, and have since overcome legal challenges in federal court seeking to block their implementation.  The rules are also meeting resistance from congressional Republicans; both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees recently approved education funding bills that include policy provisions that would stop or delay the regulations. The president is likely to veto these bills should they reach his desk though, and despite objections from lawmakers and higher education stakeholders, the Obama Administration will now move forward with implementation of the controversial rules.

The Higher Education Act (HEA) requires that certain educational programs offered at some postsecondary institutions, including for-profit institutions, community and technical colleges, and area CTE centers, must provide training that prepares students for “gainful employment in a recognized occupation” in order to participate in federal financial aid programs. Nearly all educational programs at for-profit higher education institutions, as well as non-degree programs at public and private nonprofit institutions, are subject to these rules. The new regulations now provide a specific outline as to how the department will evaluate a program’s effectiveness in preparing students for gainful employment after program completion. Moreover, they set requirements for programs to make certain performance and outcomes data, including program costs, earnings information and completion rates, available to the public.

The accountability metrics established under the new rule for affected GE programs focus exclusively on performance outcomes among students who receive support through HEA Title IV federal student aid programs.  It’s important to note that 91 percent of certificate-seeking students enrolled in community colleges and 82 percent of those in less-than-two-year institutions do not receive any federal student loans.  At the urging of ACTE and other stakeholder groups, the department eliminated the proposed “program cohort default rate” measure (although institutions will still have to report their program-level default rates). Going forward, programs will be assessed on a “debt-to-earnings” accountability measure that will evaluate the amount of debt that students incur to attend a program in comparison to their annual earnings after completion.  The department estimates that the vast majority of GE programs that are at risk of not passing the accountability standards are at for-profit intuitions (approximately 1,400 programs serving 840,000 students, 99 percent of whom are at for-profit schools).  

ACTE believes that this rule should appropriately hold programs accountable, while acknowledging that high-quality postsecondary CTE programs are an affordable option for many students and should not be unduly burdened. We will continue to provide updates on the implementation of these regulations on our CTE Policy Watch Blog.