Today, the U.S. Department of Education released data from states’ Consolidated Annual Report (CAR) submissions for program year 2020-2021 – the first year that states reported performance data under Perkins V.
Today’s release includes CTE participant numbers, CTE concentrator numbers and CTE concentrator performance on the Perkins accountability indicators, including the secondary program quality indicators new under Perkins V. The data can be accessed on the Perkins Collaborative Research Network in several formats:
- National and state-level summaries showing funding distribution, CTE participant data, CTE concentrator enrollment by Career Cluster, and CTE concentrator performance data
- A new dashboard of national- and state-level performance data, which can be filtered by gender, race/ethnicity, special populations and Career Clusters
- The Perkins Data Explorer, which enables users to generate custom reports on CTE participation, concentration and performance
We’ve shared several takeaways from this dataset below. Please note that national-level average performance should be interpreted with caution, owing to differences in how states define each indicator, particularly for the placement, postsecondary credential attainment and secondary program quality indicators:
- In 2020-21, there were almost 12 million participants in CTE nationwide, including 8.3 million secondary CTE participants and 3.5 million postsecondary CTE participants.
- In 2020-21, there were about 3 million secondary CTE concentrators and close to 1.9 million postsecondary CTE concentrators nationwide.
- The top four Career Clusters among secondary concentrators were Health Science; Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources; Business Management & Administration; and Arts, A/V Technology & Communications.
- The top four Career Clusters among postsecondary concentrators were Health Science; Business Management & Administration; Law, Public Safety, Corrections & Security; and Information Technology.
- The average four-year graduation rate for secondary concentrators across the nation was 96%.
In addition to exercising caution when interpreting national averages, please also remember that COVID-19 may have impacted data for the 2020-21 program year, particularly in regards to performance on academic assessments and secondary program quality indicators such as recognized postsecondary credential attainment and work-based learning participation.
We encourage CTE educators to explore their state’s disaggregated data, and ACTE will be digging into this data and will share additional findings and takeaways with the CTE community soon.
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