CTE Policy Watch: A blog for CTE advocates

CTE: The Pathway to Cybersecurity Careers

This week ACTE is releasing a new infographic describing opportunities in cybersecurity and how CTE prepares students for this high-wage, highly-skilled and fulfilling career pathway.

With more than 300,000 unfilled jobs in the United States needing cybersecurity skills, CTE programs—including courses, work-based learning, career and technical student organizations and opportunities to earn recognized postsecondary credentials—are critical for developing the current and future workforce in this sector.

The infographic was developed in consultation with the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), a partnership between government, academia and the private sector focused on cybersecurity education, training and workforce development, led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Parents and students can learn more about cybersecurity careers with ACTE’s STEM Parent program, which immerses students in a multi-year interactive experience exploring and test-driving some of the most in-demand STEM careers. The connected mobile app for parents keeps families apprised of their child’s progress. ACTE STEM Parent is powered by LifeJourney, a technology for families to explore careers with leading industry mentors at internet scale.

Research Round-up: Program Quality, Community College Partnerships, Employer Perceptions

Read up on the latest publications addressing postsecondary CTE program quality and student outcomes as well as externships, education-workforce data sharing and how manufacturers use credentials in hiring.  

Ensuring Postsecondary CTE Quality: How can states promote postsecondary CTE program quality? A new report from Advance CTE examines strategies for encouraging quality on the postsecondary level with examples from California, Florida and Wisconsin. The publication describes a spectrum of governance structures for postsecondary CTE and the resulting variety of program approval and review processes among states. It shares strategies for ensuring quality based on various levels of state control, including by using Perkins funding as a lever; requiring publicly funded programs to justify their existence with labor market data and/or employer partner commitments; harnessing accreditation policies; and developing state resources such as program approval and review manuals.

Ensuring Pathway Quality: Advance CTE recently produced another resource emphasizing quality assurance, this one aimed at quality in career pathways overall. This practical tool incorporates questions for programs of study and career pathways leaders to ask themselves as well as specific steps to take for reviewing, transforming and phasing out programs.

Employer Needs: Local business leaders surveyed by Business Forward reported the importance of school quality to their ability to hire and retain employees, and endorsed practical skills and technical training as a strategy that would help address their workforce needs.

Externships for OK Teachers: Participation in an Oklahoma teacher externship program in STEM subjects has dramatically increased in its second year. Educators are spending their summer with businesses such as an oil and gas control manufacturer. They report developing their own skills and learning more about career pathways for students.

Postsecondary Partnerships: A new brief from the National Skills Coalition highlights multi-stakeholder partnerships among employers, schools, community-based organizations (CBOs) and other entities. Case studies include the North Baton Rouge Industrial Training Initiative with ExxonMobil and Baton Rouge Community College; the M-Powered initiative involving Hennepin Technical College and the Precision Metalforming Association; and Mopar Career Automotive Program, a partnership of Fiat Chrysler and community colleges.

Community College Transfer: Only 5.6 percent of students who transfer from community colleges do so after earning a postsecondary certificate or associate degree, according to new data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The vast majority of transfers do not have a credential in hand upon changing institutions. Community colleges and states around the nation are addressing this challenge through reverse transfer policies that retroactively award credentials to transfer students.

Manufacturing Credentials: Credentials are not routinely required or used by manufacturing firms as a primary factor in hiring and promotion, according to a new report from Workcred, an American National Standards Institute affiliate. In addition, many manufacturers are unaware of what credentials are available or how they are relevant to the workplace. However, manufacturers report that credentials could be useful if they were better understood and more aligned with in-demand skills. The report features a number of recommendations, including aligning credentials with quality standards and adding more employability skills content to credentials.

Education-Workforce Data Sharing: A new brief from the Data Quality Campaign and the Workforce Data Quality Campaign lays out a roadmap for implementing quality data linkages between K-12 and workforce systems. The publication addresses steps for building cross-agency data governance structures, matching and analyzing data, and instituting security and privacy processes.  

Working Students: About 44 percent of school year 2011-12 first-time students in two-year colleges worked during their freshman year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, with 18 percent working 35 hours or more per week. Students who worked 20 hours or less per week were more likely to earn an associate degree in two years than both full-time workers and students who did not work.

Employability Skills: Students’ level of confidence in their employability skills is much higher than employers’ perception of their employability skills, according to data from two recent surveys reported by McGraw-Hill Education. In addition, only about 40 percent of college students feel very or extremely prepared for their careers. More than half of students surveyed say that increased opportunities for work-based learning would have helped them feel more prepared for the workforce.

Research Round-up: Certificate Benefits, Workers in the South, Growing Interest in Technical Training

The following recently published research makes the case for the benefits of CTE to students, workers and regional economies.

Students Want Technical Training: More students are considering community and technical colleges and programs, according to a survey of 500-plus U.S. high school sophomores, juniors and seniors conducted by the College Savings Foundation. This includes 28 percent looking to enroll in community colleges and 8 percent aiming to participate in postsecondary vocational/career programs—up from 20 percent and 4 percent, respectively, in 2016.

In addition, 81 percent of students would like colleges to focus more on skills training than on majors that lead to employment further down the road, and 70 percent say they would rather attend such an institution.

Data on CTE Postsecondary Students: Thirty-eight percent of college students in 2011-12 were seeking an associate degree or postsecondary certificate in a CTE field of study, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Health care was the most popular CTE program, followed by business and marketing. Subbaccalaureate CTE students most often attended public two-year colleges—65 percent—with 20 percent enrolled in for-profit institutions.

Skills Gap for Technicians: Equipment distributors are struggling to cope with a skills gap, according to this one-pager from the Associated Equipment Distributors. To address the problem, the infographic recommends incentivizing CTE programs at high school and postsecondary levels.

Building the Southern Workforce: More than half of all jobs in the Southern United States require some college education, such as an associate degree or postsecondary certificate, but less than a bachelor’s degree, according to a National Skills Coalition report. The publication describes how CTE and career pathways can improve the skilled workforce in the South.

Certificate Holders Reap Rewards: Postsecondary certificates bring rewards to Oregonians, according to an analysis from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Young certificate holders can double their earnings after completion. Mid-career workers also benefit, although their trajectory is a bit bumpier: They typically experience a decline in earnings while pursing a certificate, but make a recovery after earning their credential. Students earning certificates in health care fields typically see the largest wage gains.

ED Online Resource Library: The U.S. Department of Education has launched a new, online Comprehensive Center Network, pulling together resources from the department’s centers focused on specific education initiatives, such as the College and Career Readiness and Success Center, and from its regional centers. The network includes more than 700 resources and more than 200 projects.

State Guide to Non-degree Credentials: A new guide from the Workforce Data Quality Campaign includes step-by-step instructions for states on measuring non-degree credential attainment using student-level administrative data.

Conscientiousness Helps CTE Students Succeed

CTE students exhibit key non-cognitive skills that lead to positive education and labor market outcomes, according to a new report from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

AEI researchers Collin Hitt and Albert Cheng begin their analysis with a synthesis of CTE research showing that, on average, high school students who take more CTE courses have lower test scores in math and reading, but have positive outcomes when it comes to high school graduation, employment and earnings.

Given these lower test scores, what propels CTE students to labor market success? What skills and abilities do CTE students have that is not captured by these tests? Hitt and Cheng analyzed several measures of non-cognitive skills related to conscientiousness and found that CTE students performed higher on these measures than their non-CTE peers. These measures include teacher reports of attendance, attentiveness in class and homework completion as well as how much effort students put into completing tasks. (The researchers previously demonstrated that students and adults who take more care in accurately and completely filling out forms are more likely to achieve better education and labor market outcomes).

This research adds to a growing body of information on the connection between CTE and cross-cutting skills that lead to success in the workplace and further education.

Fact Sheet on Career Readiness and Employability Skills

ACTE has produced a new research-based fact sheet connecting the general workforce skills that employers most need—professionalism, teamwork, critical thinking, oral and written communication, leadership and more—with research demonstrating that CTE helps students develop career readiness and employability skills that have value across industries and career fields.

The research used addresses various aspects of CTE programs, including curriculum, work-based learning, career and technical student organizations and career guidance. Use this fact sheet to show students, parents and others how CTE leads to readiness for all careers!

You can access this one-page publication and ACTE’s other fact sheets online.

Research Round-up: Confidence in Career Readiness, Associate’s Degree Skills

From career decision-making influences to education and workforce data governance to the impact of loans on community college student outcomes, the following publications address topics of relevance to CTE.

Adding Skills to the AA: The American Enterprise Institute has published research and recommendations on how community colleges can make associate of arts (AA) degrees more marketable. The report describes how the AA as a terminal degree typically has less labor market value than career and technical associate degrees. One way to improve the labor market success of AA graduates is to add skills to program curricula in occupation-specific software, business and management, and sales. Community colleges can also use their connections to local employers to increase awareness of skills needed and provide students with employment options.

Career Decision-making Influences: Data analysis from the National Center on Education Statistics confirms prior research demonstrating that students are primarily influenced in making postsecondary and career decision by family members and by themselves, far more than by teachers, counselors, friends, employers or recruiters.

College Student Career Readiness: Only one-third of more than 32,000 postsecondary students surveyed by Gallup and Strada Education Network^SM are confident that they will graduate with the skills and knowledge to be successful in the job market (34 percent) or in the workplace (36 percent). Only slightly more than half believe their college major will lead to a good job. In addition:

• Confidence in job prospects is higher among STEM students (62 percent), following by students in education, social work and criminal justice (58); business (51); and liberal arts (40).
• 39 percent have never visited their institution’s career services resources.
• First-generation, older and minority students rate career services and advisors as more helpful.

Washington State CTE: An audit of Washington secondary CTE programs found that the most-highly-enrolled program areas need to more strongly align with high-wage, high-demand occupational areas. The audit identified areas of improvement, including career guidance, employer engagement, review processes for using labor market data and dual-credit expansion.

Loans Lead to Better Outcomes: A recent experiment found that community college students randomly offered a loan and who subsequently borrowed had higher GPAs and earned more credits—a 30-percent increase in both cases—than students offered a loan for $0.

Data Governance: The Data Quality Campaign has provided state leaders with a roadmap for cross-agency governance of state longitudinal data systems, including recommendations on vision and mission, composition and membership, roles and responsibilities, data decisions, committee processes and sustainability. Examples are included from Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Utah and Washington.

Problem-solving Skills: U.S. 15-year-olds performed higher than average on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) collaborative problem-solving assessment. Students in 10 systems scored higher than U.S. students: Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Macau, New Zealand and Australia.

New Report: 2017 State CTE Policy Review

Last year saw a significant expansion of state CTE policy, with 49 states and DC enacting 241 CTE-related laws, executive orders, boards of education actions and budget provisions, as documented in State Policies Impacting CTE: 2017 Year in Review from ACTE and Advance CTE.

The publication summarizes each state’s CTE policy activity and describes major themes and intersections with federal policy. The analysis identifies funding as the top policy category for 2017, with 44 states passing funding-related provisions. This was followed by data, reporting and/or accountability (42); industry-recognized credentials (39); dual/concurrent enrollment, articulation and early college (38); and industry partnerships/work-based learning (36). This is the fifth year that Advance CTE and ACTE have published this report.

To accompany the report, we are holding a webinar Wednesday, January 31 from 2:00-3:00pm ET that will unpack findings and examine how the CTE policy landscape has changed over the past few years. Participants will also hear from state leaders about policy developments in their states. We have limited seating left, so register now at https://advancecte.webex.com/advancecte/onstage/g.php?MTID=efcae420985fcfaec713830c35df97f82.

Research Round-up: Grad Rates, ESSA, Concentrators in Postsecondary Education

Start the new year off with these recent reports and research about CTE, on topics ranging from rural CTE access to a new website that hosts information on a variety of credentials to how career readiness has fared in Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plans.

Expanding access for rural students: States can help rural CTE students access diverse career pathways by facilitating meaningful local partnerships, encouraging the sharing of resources and funds, expanding the use of technology and supporting local innovations, according to Advance CTE’s CTE on the Frontier: Providing Learners Access to Diverse Career Pathways. The publication features examples from Nebraska, Rhode Island, Alaska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Idaho.

CTE concentrators and postsecondary enrollment: According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 82 percent of 2004 high school graduates who were CTE concentrators had enrolled in postsecondary education within eight years. In comparison, graduates who earned 3 or more credits across different CTE areas of study, sometimes known as explorers, enrolled in college at a rate of 88 percent, and graduates who earned fewer than 3 CTE credits enrolled at a rate of 92 percent. Field of study matters: Concentrators in computer and information sciences, health sciences and marketing enrolled in postsecondary education at similar rates to nonconcentrators.

Career readiness and ESSA: Forty-nine states included at least one strategy to expand career readiness in their ESSA state plans, according to Advance CTE and Education Strategy Group. Thirty-five states incorporated a career-focused measure in high school accountability systems, and 20 states identified career readiness as an explicit priority for 21st Century Community Learning Centers competitive funding under Title IV, Part B. Only two states plan to leverage the Title I direct student services set-aside to expand CTE, AP and IB pathways.

Credential Registry launches: The new Credential Registry is a centralized online source for information on credentials of all types, from degrees to badges to licenses. Users can search and compare credentials on a variety of criteria. As of December, more than 1,500 credentials from more than 170 organizations had been added. The Credential Registry is a project of Credential Engine, which will gather credentialing data on a larger scale, work with vendors to develop new applications to leverage that data and launch international outreach efforts to map the global credential landscape. 

U.S. graduation rates rise: The national graduation rate increased to 84.1 percent for the class of 2016, up from 83.2 percent a year prior. In addition, differences between student sub-groups have shrunk. However, according to the Alliance for Excellent Education, the nation will likely fall short of the GradNation goal of a 90-percent graduation rate by 2020.

Returns to stackable credentials: Positive labor market returns to stackable credentials are modest at best, according to a new Community College Research Center working paper. Future research should explore why students stack awards and how best to combine awards for maximum value.

How Career Readiness Fared in the First ESSA State Plans

The guest piece below was written by representatives of Advance CTE.

By: Austin Estes and Kate Kreamer, Advance CTE

On December 10, 2015, the day he signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) into law, President Barack Obama praised the bill, saying “I’m proud to sign a law that’s going to make sure that every student is prepared to succeed in the 21st century.” ESSA did provide a much-needed upgrade to the nation’s largest K-12 education program, adopting measures to ensure all learners would be prepared for success. But now that the first 16 states and D.C. have submitted their ESSA plans for review, are they taking full advantage of the opportunities to prepare students for life after high school? After reading through each of the round 1 plans, Advance CTE and the Education Strategy Group found that, while more than half plan to adopt measures of career readiness in their accountability systems, many states missed an opportunity to fully leverage ESSA to advance a statewide vision of career readiness.

The primary area where career readiness shows up in round 1 ESSA plans is in state accountability systems. Under ESSA, state leaders have broad flexibility to identify the appropriate metrics and methodology to hold schools accountable for student success. Specifically, ESSA’s fifth indicator, a state-selected measure of “school quality or student success,” enables states to innovate in selecting a measure that best values their priorities. Among other measures, states were encouraged to examine advanced coursework and postsecondary success.

In total, 11 out of the first 17 submitted plans identified at least one measure of career readiness in their accountability systems. In Nevada, for example, the state plans to measure the number of students completing postsecondary pathway options such as Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or industry-aligned and state board-approved credentials. North Dakota, on the other hand, aims to track the number of students graduating “choice-ready,” or prepared for success in college, military or the workforce. The state’s career ready pathway identifies students who complete certain career preparation activities — including work-based learning, Career Technical Education (CTE) pathway completion and industry credential attainment — on top of core academic achievements.

Yet, when it came to other areas of the law, many states missed the opportunity to further a statewide vision for career readiness. Despite what they said in their goals and accountability systems, many state plans were light on details about how they would support local districts to advance career readiness. Only five states identified state-level activities under Title IV, Part A (Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants) to support career readiness, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and/or dual enrollment. These included Connecticut, which plans to provide technical assistance to districts building new CTE pathways and increasing work-based learning opportunities, and Nevada, which plans to braid funding across Title programs to help districts engage families and facilitate a deeper understanding of a well-rounded education, including enrollment in advanced coursework such as CTE. (Most states listed CTE and other strategies as a state support for well-rounded education, but fell short of describing how ESSA would be used to expand these strategies).

Needless to stay, there is still time to promote career readiness through implementation. In the spirit of flexibility, the U.S. Department of Education’s requirements for ESSA plan submissions were incredibly tolerant, allowing states to describe in loose terms how they planned to implement the law. While state plans were light on details, supporting career preparation was a major theme surfaced through many states’ stakeholder engagement. It is possible that state leaders will yet be responsive to this feedback and find ways to strengthen career readiness beyond accountability.

For the 34 states planning to submit their plans in September, now is the time to ensure career readiness is prioritized. ESSA was designed to create space and flexibility for states to advance their own needs and priorities. But if it is truly going to prepare all students for success in the 21st century, states must maximize every opportunity to connect ESSA to their statewide vision for career readiness.

* The opinions expressed in this piece are those of Advance CTE.

Career Readiness and State ESSA Plans

The guest piece below was written by Terry Holliday, former commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Education and current board chairman of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Dr. Holliday was also ACTE’s 2016 Champion of the Year, and continues to play an active role in education at the national level through involvement in projects like New Skills for Youth. We are pleased to share his insights into ESSA implementation*!

By: Terry Holliday

I recently reviewed the Every Student Succeeds Act plans from the 17 states (including DC) who have submitted their plans for review by the U.S. Department of Education. Of interest to me were the measures that states are using to identify college and career readiness. I also researched the draft plans of the other 33 states and if they did not have a plan available, I looked at the existing state accountability model.

What I found is very interesting. During the NCLB era, there were very few states who utilized a measure in the state accountability model for college and career readiness. Kentucky and Louisiana were among the very few states to have actual measures of college and career readiness included in their models. Based on my quick review, 25 states will have measures of college and career readiness in their new ESSA state accountability model. 10 states are continuing to discuss the inclusion of a measure and 16 states do not have any plans for college- and career-ready measures.

Why the change in state measures? Some part of the change is due to the public perception of the “honesty gap.” For years, high school graduation rates have been improving. The United States currently has the highest graduation rate in the history of the nation—over 80 percent. However, the postsecondary remediation rate in some states is over 70 percent of high school graduates. This means that a high school diploma does not validate that a student is academically prepared for college credit-bearing courses. Also, the research has been very clear that many of America’s high school graduates are not prepared for entry level academic and/or technical programs that lead to jobs that pay a living wage.

States have been responding to these concerns. Council of Chief State School Officers and numerous other national and regional organizations have been responding to the “honesty gap” issue and one of the strongest policy responses is to include college and career readiness in the state accountability model.

However, there is a growing concern with the models that I have seen to this point. Most states have been using a “menu” model for state accountability. Schools will be held accountable based on the percentage of students who choose among menu options. The menu of college and career indicators usually includes student performance on Advance Placement, dual credit courses, International Baccalaureate exams, WorkKeys, SAT, ACT, Accuplacer, completion of a CTE course of study, ASVAB, and industry-recognized certifications. These measures are good measures, however, there are some potential pitfalls that states should avoid or we will find that many students are pushed toward measures that are seen as “lesser than” measures and most of these are aligned with the career-ready label.

“Career ready” should be a measure that ALL students who graduate from high school have obtained. Whether a student is preparing to become a surgeon or obtain a two-year technical credential, ALL students need to have academic preparation equal to the requirements of entry-level postsecondary courses. While some students will focus primarily on the academic measures, many students will already know that they have an interest in a career area and these students should have an opportunity to gain the technical skills that will give them advance credit and preparation for their future studies.

The bottom line is that career readiness needs to be something all students strive for as a graduation measure and must include measures of both academic and technical skills. College readiness should be a subset of career readiness and only ensures a student is academically prepared to enter postsecondary credit bearing courses. If the career-ready measures used by our states are a “lesser than” model, then we will continue to perpetuate the myth that “career-ready courses are for those other students and not for my students.” Our nation has a perception problem when it comes to career education in high school and we have a great opportunity to address that problem with the ESSA accountability models. If readers want to see a few states that have good models of career-ready measures, I refer them to the Delaware, Tennessee and Louisiana plans that can be found at www.ccsso.org/essa.

*The opinions expressed in this piece are not formal ACTE policy positions.