Part 1: Key Facts
Student & Teacher Information
According to 2004-2005 data from the U.S. Department of Education (the latest numbers publicly available), the total number of CTE students in Oklahoma was 158,016. This included:
- Secondary: 124,217
- Postsecondary: 20,825
- Adult: 12,974
The total number of CTE teachers for 2007-2007 was 2,641, with 1,406 in 562 comprehensive public schools.
Delivery System/School Information
Oklahoma has a relatively small population of 3,579,212 residents spread over a large geographic space.
Oklahoma’s signature feature of CTE is its system of technology centers which serve both high school enrolled youths and adults in programs that lead to certificates. Twenty-nine technology center districts operate 56 campuses, with each center having been approved by local voters with a locally elected board and funding derived from local tax levy. This system dates back to a state constitutional amendment in 1965 that authorized the creation of what were called “area vocational-technical schools.” There are also comprehensive high schools in 398 comprehensive school districts, 25 skill centers and three juvenile facilities.
Equipment-intensive programs are delivered through the regional technology centers, and less equipment intensive programs like business, family and consumer sciences, and agriculture are delivered through comprehensive high schools. Most of Oklahoma's career and technology education students at the secondary level are enrolled in CTE programs in their local schools.
Oklahoma’s higher education system includes 18 community colleges, 20 public universities and colleges, and 14 private universities and colleges.
The newest of Oklahoma's CTE delivery systems is the CareerTech Learning Network. This network offers 24-hours-a-day training to customers in their homes, businesses and classrooms. In FY 2006, enrollment in the CTE system’s business and industry training programs offered by Oklahoma's technology centers totaled more than 380,000. These programs are primarily in three different categories: industry-specific and existing industry, adult and career development, and the Training for Industry Program.
Funding/Financing for CTE
Federal: Oklahoma is estimated to receive $15,709,771 from the Perkins Basic State Grant and $1,571,037 from Tech Prep in FY 2007.
State: The Oklahoma legislature appropriates about $130.3 million in state funds for CTE. Local districts generate over $276.4 million in tax revenue, and another $6.3 million is generated at the local level for CTE.
Within comprehensive high schools, each district receives $200 per contract month for each CTE teacher. This money is used to support student organizations and professional development activities. Additionally, the state provides grants ranging from $560 to $8,280, depending upon CTE program area, to compensate for equipment, supplies, and staff development training. Area Technology Centers in Oklahoma follow the state’s Quality Foundation Formula, which stipulates the standard of instruction for all students and the cost of meeting these standards ($118,359 per FTE program in 2000–01). Knowing in advance the amount of funding for which they will be eligible helps local agencies set the level of CTE they wish to offer and balance a mix of services that match student and community needs.
Part 2: State Administration
Key State CTE Contacts
Dr. Phil Berkenbile
State Director, OK Department of Career & Technology Education
1500 West Seventh Avenue
Stillwater, OK 74074-4364
Phone: 405-743-5444
Fax: 405-743-5541
Dr. Belinda McCharen
Associate State Director for Career Services
OK Department of Career & Technology Education
1500 West Seventh Avenue
Stillwater, OK 74074
Phone: 405-743-5432
Fax: 405-743-5541
State Agencies
The Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education (ODCTE), governed by the State Board of Career and Technology Education, is the lead state agency for administration of the Perkins CTE funds. Some postsecondary CTE is delivered through the Community Colleges and Technical Colleges as well under the State Regents for Higher Education.
In ODCTE, the director of CTE, Phil Berkenbile, reports directly to the State Board of CTE; the State Board, in turn, reports to the Governor. Approximately 114 staff members work on CTE issues for ODCTE. The elected Superintendent of Public Instruction also sits as a member of the State Board of CTE. The current superintendent is Sandy Garrett.
General responsibility for high school education is given to the Oklahoma Department of Education, which is headed by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
State Standards for CTE
The Department of Career and Technology Education is beginning a process for the development of state CTE content standards, through approved Career Majors. See Academic and CTE Integration.
Program Approval/Quality Control
Oklahoma is moving from Programs to “Career Majors” as the basis for its CTE efforts. All CTE students must be enrolled in a career major. In 2008, there will be a state-approved list of Career Majors that will be pre-approved for use by local districts. These Career Majors will be available on the state Web site. If a district or technology center wishes to create a customized Career Major, it must be approved by the state. The state will only approve programs that have a program of study that leads to a postsecondary credential, and a specific need as demonstrated by the local labor market. When a Customized Career Major has been created, it will be publicly available to all other districts and technology centers in the state.
The State Board for CTE has policy that includes on-site reviews of technology center programs by a team of state-level and peer evaluators. Each local program must have an advisory committee composed of faculty, employers, and practitioners to review program curriculum and to maintain contact with industry.
There is also a statewide CareerTech Advisory Committee with representation from public employment services, employers, postsecondary technical educators, students and the general public to advise the Board of Regents on CTE matters affecting high school and non-college level CTE programs. A parallel advisory structure, the Technical Occupational Council, advises the Board of Regents on matters affecting postsecondary CTE programs.
Part 3: CTE Initiatives & Related Policies
State Education & Workforce Agenda
Oklahoma hopes to dramatically increase its high school graduation rate in coming years, by implementing legislation that ensures every Oklahoma teenager completes a high school education and has the necessary training to receive a Career Ready Certificate
The Governor's Council for Workforce and Economic Development brings together leaders from across a variety of private and public sector organizations to develop a strategy for accelerated economic growth and to provide direction to state administration. The Council's vision is for Oklahoma to have a competitive advantage through integrated workforce and economic development objectives. The Council will achieve this vision through its mission to advance a demand-driven workforce and economic development system.
High School Redesign
Oklahoma’s efforts in high school redesign have primarily focused on raising expectations through increased course taking requirements, end-of-course exams, and alignment of course standards to college-readiness.
Oklahoma currently requires 23 credits for high school graduation. Beginning with the freshman class of 2006-2007, high school students are required to enroll in a state mandated college preparatory/work ready curriculum. The required curriculum includes: four units of English; three units of mathematics; three units of laboratory science; three units history and citizenship skills; two units of the same foreign or non-English language, or two units computer technology; one additional unit (selected from the courses listed above or career and technology education courses approved for college admission requirements; and one unit or set of competencies of fine arts, such as music, art, or drama, or one unit or set of competencies of speech. The local school board’s graduation requirements may exceed the state graduation requirements of 23 units. The student may enroll in a less demanding course of study called the “core curriculum” with the written consent of the parent or guardian.
In implementing the Perkins Act, the Department of Career and Technology Education requires that in submitting their Perkins plans, schools must identify any CTE students that are not enrolled in the required curriculum (who have opted for a less demanding curriculum) and the reason. The school will be required to identify the interventions they will use if a student is in danger of failing to meet high school graduation and college admission standards and to graduate with their high school class.
Oklahoma is also developing seven end-of-course exams that will affect student graduation. Beginning with the class of 2012, students will need to pass end-of-course exams in Algebra I and English II, as well as two additional exams from a list including Algebra II, Geometry, English II, U.S. History and Biology I.
The state Department of Education and the Department of Career and Technology Education are currently undertaking a review of industry-based certifications available for use within the state. State legislation indicates that, if jointly approved by the two agencies, an industry-based certification earned by a student may count for one of the unspecified exit exams required for a regular diploma.
In January 2007, Oklahoma broke ground with a first-of-its-kind school improvement initiative in technology centers – Technology Centers That Work, developed by the Southern Regional Education Board and based on its High Schools That Work improvement process. Nine of the 29 technology center districts are participating in the initiative. The HSTW/TCTW initiatives share common-ground goals, which include increasing the percentage of technology center graduates who enter employment in the field studied; increasing the number of high school students in programs at technology centers who finish high school on time with their graduating class, and increasing the annual percentage of students who leave technology centers with postsecondary credit or having met standards for advanced study without remedial courses.
CTE-Related Graduation Requirements Summary: According to the Education Commission of the States, Oklahoma students may substitute an approved CTE course for a standard core course to meet high school graduation requirements.
Career Academies
The Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education supports the development and implementation of high-tech, high-wage Career Academies that support and align with local, state, and national industry’s existing and emerging workforce needs. These academies focus on college and career preparation, are committed to raising student aspirations and commitment, and are focused on increasing student achievement. They embrace rigorous instruction in all academy designated academic and technical courses.
Oklahoma’s definition of a career academy is:
“A smaller learning community associated with a high school or technology center that integrates rigorous academic preparation in math, science, and a focused field of career study and gives students an opportunity to experience an industry through career focused learning opportunities. Academies shall focus on a particular industry cluster and must identify pathways and career majors that lead to postsecondary certifications, licenses, and/or degree opportunities through continued education.”
The Department is actively promoting career academies, particularly in the technology centers. However, Oklahoma does not appear to be a significant player in the smaller learning community school reform effort, as just five high schools have received federal Smaller Learning Communities federal grants, and those were in fiscal years 2001 and 2003.
Role of Career Clusters
Oklahoma has adopted the Career Clusters as its organizational model for CTE, although it has modified the model 16 clusters into 15 clusters for its use. The state is currently creating a system of Career Majors based around the Clusters. All career and technology education content will be organized into courses that correlate with the clusters knowledge and skills at the foundation, pathway, or specialty-area level.
Fifteen Career Cluster teams have been convened to “develop or realign current courses with the national Career Clusters knowledge and skills” statements. The cluster teams are required to have a specified membership of industry representatives and secondary and postsecondary representatives.
The governor’s office received an award from the National Governor’s Association to create “sector-based” economic development strategies. In developing this project, Oklahoma’s governor adopted the 15 Career Clusters as the organizing principle, and is building the project around the Clusters model.
Academic & CTE Integration
The Department of Education has developed course-specific content standards in most core content areas. Currently, the Department of Career and Technology Education is developing state CTE content standards, through the development of the pre-approved Career Majors. During the development of standards for the Career Major courses, the content teams will also complete a cross-walk between the state academic content standards and the career major content. Each Career Major will have a syllabus of what will be taught.
The Department of Career and Technology Education has hired a full-time Math/Science Specialist to create course syllabi for academic courses delivered in a shared-time technology center, based on state and national academic standards. This will allow students attending technology centers to earn academic credits in academic courses as well as fully integrated academic/CTE courses.
Currently, there are not model lesson plans available to CTE teachers for how to teach the integrated academic/CTE content. There are no specific plans underway to create these model lessons or provide specific professional development around academic/CTE integration. However, some high school agriculture teachers in Oklahoma participated in the “Math-in-CTE project” operated by the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education. This project demonstrated a process by which CTE teachers and math teachers would collaborate to identify the embedded academic content in a CTE program, and create lesson plans for teaching that academic content in a more explicit manner than had typically been done.
Oklahoma’s technology centers are taking responsibility for the academic preparation of their students, and every technology center must have an active “academic center.” Academic centers provide just-in-time and remedial instruction for students to enhance the math and language skills that are required for success in CTE programs. The centers provide ACT test preparation and on-line academic courses, and assessments, such as the ACT Explore and ACT Plan (eighth- and tenth-grade diagnostic assessments), the ACT (a college entrance assessment) and the ACT Compass (a college placement assessment).
Secondary/Postsecondary Linkages
Oklahoma is current implementing a new form of cooperation between the regional technology centers and higher education institutions. This is called the “Cooperative Alliance.” Previous forms of articulation agreements were focused on program-to-program agreements that allowed credits to be held “in escrow” for students once they enrolled in a particular postsecondary institution and earned a certain number of credits. Due to the operational challenges of the old system, many students never actually were awarded the college-level credits they had earned.
The new Cooperative Alliance approach will develop an ongoing relationship between the technology center and one or more higher education institutions that covers all articulation agreements among the alliance partners. The Alliance structure will allow for a real-time “dual credit” arrangement that provides immediately transcripted college credits for participating high school students. There is no tuition charged to the student to earn the credit. The only student cost incurred is an $8 per credit transcript processing fee. Organizing articulation agreements around courses, rather than more broadly for programs, will allow for more clearly defined course-to-course articulation.
Each Cooperative Alliance college ties its data into a strong statewide data system among postsecondary institutions; this statewide system will allow the student’s transcripted credits to “follow the student” regardless of where they choose to attend postsecondary education within the state.
The Cooperative Alliance will set parameters for much more than just course content coordination. The Alliance agreement will also cover joint activities for professional development, supportive services for students, recruitment, joint marketing of programs, and business and industry involvement. The first three regional alliances were formed in spring of 2004, and currently all but one of the state’s 29 technology centers has joined a Cooperative Alliance.
One important feature of the Alliance will be expanding access to postsecondary CTE programs throughout the state. If a local college does not offer the postsecondary portion of a program that is offered by the local technology center, then the Alliance college will broker those services for the student from another college in the state.
Tech Prep: Oklahoma currently funds 26 Tech Prep consortia, based on a formula established by Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education. The base amount for each consortium is $45,000 with increased funding based on the relative size of the consortia’s offerings and student participation.
Under the state’s one-year Perkins transition plan, Tech Prep activities and the work of the new Cooperative Alliances will be carried out simultaneously. The state’s Perkins transition plan does not provide any substantive detail on how these activities will be coordinated. It seems that Tech Prep activities, while funded through a separate mechanism, will be subsumed into the broader Cooperative Alliance agreement among school districts and institutions of higher education.
The Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education supports a Tech Prep and Alliance Coordinator staff position that provides leadership, technical support, and ongoing communications to Oklahoma Tech Prep consortia.
Statewide Articulation Agreements:Statewide agreements are coordinated through both higher education institutions and technology centers to accept the state-developed competency tests for advanced standing credit. This allows college credit to be awarded for earned state/national licensures in Associate of Applied Science degree programs. Under the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education’s policy for “Credit for Extrainstitutional Learning,” academic content gained in settings outside of the higher education classroom are evaluated for college credit.
Career Guidance & Advisement
In each local Perkins plan, the recipients must identify the process they will use to enroll each CTE student in a career major and provide guidance and advisement, as well as monitor their improvement in academic achievement. Each recipient will be expected to develop an individual plan of study for each student as the basis of the process.
Under Oklahoma’s new Perkins plan, all CTE students in schools receiving Perkins funds will be “required to have an individual plan of study for the cluster, pathway, and major in which they are enrolled. The student, school official and parent or guardian must review each plan or study annually. The plan of study must include academic courses required for college admission as well as CTE courses required for the career major.”
Since a large percentage of students take some CTE courses, it is likely that 70-85 percent of Oklahoma students will create personalized plans of study under this provision.
Several tools are available to help students understand career options and create a personalized plan of study:
- OKCIS (the Oklahoma Career Information System) allows middle and high school students and adults to access current career and labor market information.
- OKcollegestart.org helps students search for information about and apply to colleges in Oklahoma.
- The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education launched a web-based student information portal in March 2007 to communicate information regarding the availability of degree programs.
Business & Industry Involvement
Each CTE program at the high school and technology center, and each Associate of Applied Science program, must have an advisory committee composed of faculty, staff, employers, and practitioners to assist in the development of curriculum content, in keeping the curriculum current, and in maintaining contact with the occupational community.
There are also two statewide advisory committees – the CareerTech Advisory Committee and the Technical Occupational Council – that advise the Board of Regents on CTE programs at the high school, technology center, and postsecondary levels. These committees must include employer participation, among other representation. Each of the state’s 15 Career Clusters teams, that will develop content standards for each of the career majors, must include representatives from business and industry.
During 2007-2008, Oklahoma will be working to define an internship and mentorship system for Career Clusters, especially for special needs students. The Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education will use and expand the internship model from Automotive Youth Education Systems (AYES) to aviation, manufacturing, and health care. AYES is a partnership among participating automotive manufacturers, participating dealers, and selected high schools/Tech Prep programs. It is designed to encourage young people to consider satisfying careers in retail automotive service and prepare them for entry-level career positions or advanced studies in automotive technology. Typically, AYES eligible students begin their internships at a dealership on a full-time basis during the summer between their junior and senior years. Under the guidance of a "mentor" (an experienced technician), students will develop both their technical skills and their skills as valuable employees. Upon high school graduation and AYES certification, participating students are prepared to begin full-time entry-level employment, or to advance their technical education. The aviation, manufacturing, and health care cluster areas have been defined by the Oklahoma Department of Commerce as Oklahoma’s key industry sectors for high-wage, high-skill, or high-demand careers.
Technical Skills Assessments
Oklahoma has adopted a Career Readiness Certificate based upon the WorkKeys Assessment. The Oklahoma Department of Commerce administers the program and issues the certificates based upon the individual’s WorkKeys scores. The Department of Career and Technology Education will access the Department of Commerce database to determine which CTE students have achieved the Career Readiness Certificate and at what achievement levels.
The state is using federal Perkins funds to create, modify, or adopt new assessments to measure technical skill attainment. Technical assessments will be adapted or aligned to the national Career Clusters academic and technical knowledge and skills, as well as other state, national or industry-based standards that are appropriate. The assessments will also be cross-walked with the approved state end-of-course academic tests, developed and administered through the Oklahoma Department of Education. Oklahoma is considering administering the technical skill assessments at a career major (pathway) level and to measure academic integration through the assessment, as well as technical skills.
Other benchmarks such as ACT scores and remediation rates of CTE students entering college will also be used to set performance levels for eligible recipients of Perkins funds.
Educator Development
The Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education (ODCTE) has created a teacher induction program in partnership with two teacher education institutions. Teacher retention has improved dramatically at the technology centers that are participating in the initiatives. In the future, ODCTE plans to redirect some Perkins funds to provide induction activities for new CTE teachers at additional comprehensive high schools.
The ODCTE Instructional Services Division is focusing its professional development activities to support and educate state staff and eligible recipients to implement Career Clusters, pathways, and majors. In addition, ODCTE’s Guidance Division is working closely with the Career Clusters Project Management Office to disseminate information and to conduct professional development with comprehensive school and technology center counselors and student services staff regarding the improvement of the new programs of study.
Part 4: Results
Coming Soon!
This state profile was developed by the Association of Career and Technical Education with the assistance of the Meeder Consulting Group, LLC. If you need further information or more specific details, please contact ACTE. Customized reports can be developed on specific topics or entities.
Last Updated 7/18/08
