The U.S. Department of Education has released data for program year 2021-22, the second year that states reported performance data under Perkins V.
In a previous blog post, we announced the data release and shared high-level takeaways. This post will offer a more in-depth look at the new data, which is accessible through the Perkins Collaborative Resource Network. This data hub includes national- and state-level summaries, a dashboard of national- and state-level performance data and the customizable Perkins Data Explorer tool.
CTE Participants: In 2021-22, there were 11.5 million CTE participants nationwide, including more than 8.1 million secondary participants and more than 3.3 million postsecondary participants. The number of male and female CTE participants is divided roughly evenly, with slightly more males at the secondary level (53%) and slightly more females at the postsecondary level (54%). The data disaggregated by race and ethnicity provides the following insights:
- 2 million CTE participants identified as white
- 3 million identified as Hispanic/Latino
- 7 million identified as Black or African American
- Over 600,000 identified as Asian
- Almost 500,000 identified as two or more races
- About 155,000 identified as unknown race
- Approximately 109,000 identified as American Indian or Alaska Native
- About 43,000 identified as Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
In addition, below are several highlights of participation by special population status:
- 3 million CTE participants identified as individuals from an economically disadvantaged family
- 6 million were preparing for career fields nontraditional to their gender
- Over 1 million identified as individuals with disabilities
- More than 700,000 were English learners
- About 500,000 were out-of-workforce learners
- More than 150,000 were individuals experiencing homelessness
CTE Concentrators: School year 2021-22 recorded 2.8 million concentrators and approximately 1.8 million postsecondary concentrators nationwide for a total of about 4.6 million CTE concentrators. Similar to CTE participants, the percentages of male and female concentrators were roughly equal, with more male CTE concentrators at the secondary level and more female concentrators at the postsecondary level. Disaggregated data by race and ethnicity provides the following insights:
- 3 million CTE concentrators identified as white
- 2 million identified as Hispanic/Latino
- Over 600,000 identified as Black or African American
- Over 200,000 identified as Asian
- Almost 200,000 identified as two or more races
- 65,000 identified as unknown race
- About 42,000 identified as American Indian or Alaskan Native
- About 16,000 identified as Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
The following are highlights of the data when disaggregated by special population status:
- Approximately 2 million CTE concentrators identified as individuals from an economically disadvantaged family
- 1 million were preparing for career fields nontraditional to their gender
- Over 380,000 identified as individuals with disabilities
- More than 200,000 were English learners
- Over 90,000 were out-of-workforce learners
- About 46,000 were individuals experiencing homelessness
Note that cross-state comparisons should be proceeded with caution since states have different ways of operationalizing the legislative definition of concentrator in Perkins V.
Concentrator Performance: 2021-22 marked the second year that local recipients and states reported CTE concentrator performance on the Perkins V accountability indicators.
Secondary Performance
- School year 2021-22 saw an average graduation rate across the nation of approximately 96%, the same as in school year 2020-21.
- 40 states out of 53 states, districts and territories met their targets for reading and language arts proficiency, 35 met targets for mathematics proficiency and 34 met targets for science proficiency.
- 47 states met their targets for post-program placement, defined as concentrators who are in postsecondary education, advanced training, military service, national service, the Peace Corps or are employed after graduation.
- 41 states met their targets for nontraditional program concentration, measuring the percentage of concentrators from underrepresented gender groups studying for career fields in which individuals of that gender comprise less than 25% of the workforce.
- 20 out of 22 states, districts and territories met their targets for attainment of recognized postsecondary credentials.
- 11 out of 12 states met their targets for attainment of postsecondary credits.
- 24 out of 29 states met their targets for participation in work-based learning experiences.
Postsecondary Performance
- 49 states out of 53 states, districts or territories met their targets for postsecondary placement, which is defined as concentrators who remain enrolled in postsecondary education or pursue advanced training, military service, national service, the Peace Corps or employment after graduation.
- 50 states met their targets for attainment of recognized postsecondary credentials.
- 46 states met their targets for nontraditional program concentration.
Cross-state comparisons and data aggregated across states should be interpreted with caution due to different measurement approaches and definitions.
Framing Parents' Attitudes Toward CTE: The CTE Research Network recently published a report that analyzes the perceptions and opinions of CTE held by the general public and parents’ support of CTE policies. Researchers discovered that CTE enjoys widespread support by the public and that it may see even more support when framed as a workforce development pathway.
The following are findings from the survey:
- Parents who value individualism and who are especially sensitive to labor market trends are more positively inclined to support CTE when it is presented as an in-demand jobs preparation pathway.
- Respondents identified that around 32-35% of school hours should be spent on CTE.
- Black and Hispanic/Latino parents both value CTE more highly than parents from other demographics in regard to time that should be spent on CTE and tax dollars that should be spent on CTE-related programs.
- Higher levels of education are associated with a greater willingness to pay more tax dollars to support CTE programs.
Researchers note that perceptions of CTE vary widely among demographics, so programming and marketing should be designed with the needs of the particular community in mind.
Condition of Career Readiness in The United States: The Coalition for Career Development Center recently published a national snapshot of students’ college and career readiness outcomes. Findings and insights from the report are below:
- 60% of high school graduates enter either a two- or four-year postsecondary institution in the fall.
- 75% of students attending a postsecondary institution full-time continued their education into their second year.
- 47% of students attending a postsecondary institution part-time continued their education into their second year.
- Participating in personalized career and academic plans as early as middle school positively impacts future earnings.
MDRC recently published a report that explores the resurgence and popularity of CTE as a path to providing learners with in-demand skills and preparation for today’s labor market. It also tackles challenges and opportunities that would enable CTE to scale up and systematize its most effective elements and models.
The report makes the case for CTE as a solution to the skills gap crisis due to its nature as a hands-on learning model and demonstrated positive association with learner workforce and postsecondary outcomes. Researchers note that career-related certificates and associate degrees lead to higher employment rates and increased wages, yet access to high-quality CTE and early postsecondary programs remains limited, which further exacerbates inequality and makes credential attainment for underrepresented populations more difficult.
To combat these challenges and help CTE fulfill its potential for all learners, researchers made some of the following recommendations:
- Tie education and training to booming economic sectors by building regional capacity to align CTE and workforce needs.
- Ensure that evidence-based program models remain faithful to their purpose by scaling practices while adapting to diverse labor markets and contexts.
- Disseminate CTE research to help inform policymakers and practitioners about emerging trends and practices.
- Expand data collection capacities to build the knowledge base and help practitioners understand the variation in outcomes for specific student populations.
In particular, researchers recommend that leaders prioritize ensuring equitable access to programs for underrepresented learners as they seek to entrench CTE in the fabric of the American education and workforce system.
The Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education has released an update to its Perkins Data Explorer with school year 2021-22 enrollment and performance data. CTE practitioners and researchers can use this data to better understand CTE student outcomes nationwide and in their states.
Notable findings and figures are listed below:
- School year 2021-22 recorded more than 11.5 million CTE participants across secondary and postsecondary education.
- School year 2021-22 recorded more than 4.6 million secondary and postsecondary CTE concentrators nationwide.
- In school year 2021-22, secondary CTE concentrators achieved a 96% four-year graduation rate.
- In school year 2021-22, Health Science was the most popular Career Cluster.
To learn more, access the Perkins Data Explorer tool and a national summary of the data from 2021-22. A lengthier and more in-depth post digging deeper into data points from the release will be published on the CTE Policy Watch Blog in the coming days.
The Community College Research Center (CCRC) recently published a series of reports to accompany its Dual Enrollment Equity Pathways (DEEP) framework, a new initiative that aims to rethink dual enrollment (DE) as an equitable ramp to postsecondary programs that can lead to good-paying, family- and self-sustaining careers for learners who might not have otherwise pursued education after high school. The framework centers around the following four areas of practice:
- Outreach to underserved students and schools
- Alignment to college degrees and careers in fields of interest
- Early career and academic exploration, advising and planning
- High-quality college instruction and academic support
Redesigning Dual Enrollment as a Purposeful Pathway to College and Career Opportunity: The initial report of the series presents the DEEP model and draws on the authors’ conclusions from institutions that were early adopters of whole-college guided pathways (GP) reforms. Researchers identified that approximately one in five school districts nationwide have closed the racial equity access gap to DE, indicating the importance of scaling and sharing program strategies happening at the local level.
The following list spells out key strategies that leaders can use to implement the DEEP framework in their DE programs:
- Engage in outreach to low-income students and students of color beginning in middle school to make learners aware of DE opportunities when they reach high school.
- “Backward map” all programs to ensure that they lead to a good job, an associate degree or a bachelor’s degree.
- Provide separate advising and planning assistance to DE students to better assist them and reduce the work of overburdened high school advisors.
- Expose learners to postsecondary instructional methods that help them improve academic performance and assimilate to college norms and expectations.
Rethinking Dual Enrollment as an Equitable On-ramp to a Career-path College Degree Program After High School: The second report presents findings that researchers gained through field research at six community college-K-12 partnerships across Florida and Texas that have achieved positive results in expanding postsecondary access to underrepresented learners and economically disadvantaged individuals through the reforming and extension of GP practices and DE offerings. Researchers found that more than 1.5 million high school students take DE courses each year, but the majority of these courses are à la carte with no opportunity for specializing.
The following list contains strategies and recommendations that community college-K-12 partnerships can use to implement GP reforms and increase participation opportunities for underserved individuals:
- Embed program-specific DE coursework into high school CTE programs to market DE to learners, building on existing career-focused academies and programs.
- Create more efficient and streamlined pathways to teaching careers for high school students by aligning DE with teacher education pathway programs.
- Set high expectations across the board and provide essential supports such as tutoring, advising and purposeful pathways to ensure learner success.
- Frame DE pathways as a route to facilitating upward mobility and creating productive citizens when marketing to underserved communities.
Researchers also shared a key recommendation gleaned from the partnerships that they engaged with: Using current academy and DE students as ambassadors to describe DE opportunities to elementary and middle school students and families.
State of CTE Funding: Advance CTE recently published the 2023 State of CTE report, which provides an overview of secondary CTE funding models across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It also serves as a resource for those interested in conducting side-by-side state comparisons of funding models and related factors. One of the report’s key findings is that CTE funding models are deeply varied and complex due to the reliance on a mix of federal, state and local policies to provide funds for secondary CTE.
More findings from the report below:
- The categorical student-based funding approach, which distributes funds relative to the number of CTE learners enrolled, is the most common model used by states (23).
- States have increased their CTE funding over the past 10 years, with an average state increase of over $180 million, reflecting the growing focus and attention on CTE by policymakers.
- Secondary CTE programs of study used state funds to support equitable access (65%), program of study completion (56%) and the purchase of equipment and resources (54%).
- Maine was the state with the highest amount of CTE funds per FTE in FY 2022 with a range of $7,500-7,999.
The report recommends that CTE leaders actively look for opportunities for continuous improvement to better their models in areas such as ongoing policy and practice, formula design and innovation and incentives.
Lessons in how to build students’ social capital through career-connected learning: The Christensen Institute recently published a report that offers field-tested strategies for building learners’ social capital through existing CTE pathways by increased networking opportunities and personal and professional relationships. After an 18-month pilot initiative conducted with partner organizations like Education Strategy Group, researchers developed 10 crucial social capital building lessons for school leaders.
The following list highlights some of these lesson topics. Leaders can implement these lessons to help learners expand their networks and engage in more networking opportunities:
- Embed social capital into your infrastructure. Hiring the right staff can help foster change but embedding practices into curricula, roles and data systems helps maintain it.
- Prioritize building curricula and allocate time and resources for social capital training instead of purchasing poorly fit off-the-shelf products.
- Adapt practices to cultural norms. Social capital requires cooperation between students and staff. Tailor your strategies to align with learner backgrounds.
- Take a show-not-tell approach to teaching about social capital. Rather than adapting it as a subject matter, immerse students in experiences that build their understanding.
Increasing Equitable Postsecondary Value: A report recently published by the Institute for Higher Education Policy tackles the issue of equitable value in postsecondary education by exploring policy interventions that aim to break down barriers and assess the economic value of postsecondary credentials through publicly available data that estimates a minimum economic return to students. Researchers discovered that approximately 88% of public two-year or less-than-two-year institutions provide students with at least a minimum economic return on their investment.
To go beyond the threshold of minimum return, school leaders, administrators and policymakers must address the shortcomings and inequities that underserved learner groups face nationwide. Researchers made the following recommendations to help institutions address these issues and strive further toward equitable value:
- Invest in first-dollar free college programs to increase affordability value by maximizing aid for high-need students.
- Assist low-income background students with non-tuition expenses to reduce affordability barriers and facilitate completion.
- Make financial aid more feasible for low-income students by avoiding restrictions on part-time status, enrollment age, state background and transfer status.
- Advocate for changes in federal and state law to decrease time-to-degree and increase completion rates.
The U.S. Department of Education recently published a report on increasing student diversity, equity and inclusion, which aims to serve as a resource to postsecondary institutions and states in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina et al.
The report describes research demonstrating the effectiveness of pathway programs for increasing diversity and encouraging more low-income and minority students to apply to postsecondary institutions. The authors also note that, despite the resource-intensive nature of pathway programs, in the long run they lead to positive effects on postsecondary application and enrollment rates for underrepresented learners.
The report also highlights dual enrollment as a strategy to boost diversity for postsecondary institutions. However, dual enrollment courses are not equally accessible to low-income students and students of color, who are more likely to attend schools that do not offer this option. Even when it is available to them, barriers such as insufficient advising and financial hardships can disincentivize these learners’ participation.
To increase access, the report highlights examples from states across the country that have developed innovative pathway and dual enrollment approaches. For instance, Georgia is attempting to expand dual enrollment opportunities to underrepresented students by including these courses in its statewide accountability system. New Mexico is building its Four Corners College and Career Pathways Partnership, which aims to help secondary students in rural areas earn 12-30 hours of early college credit. The credits will seamlessly transition to an aligned certificate, a degree program or an apprenticeship program.
In addition, the authors recommended the following strategies that institutions can apply to reach a more diverse pool of student talent:
- Prioritize targeted outreach in communities with higher levels of low-income learners and learners of color.
- Establish partnerships with K-12 educators, counselors, college access groups and other community-based organizations to deliver clear information about postsecondary options to students and their families.
- Establish partnerships between community colleges and four-year institutions to smooth transfer pathways.
- Support visits to college campuses and assign higher numbers of admissions recruiters to high schools with few prior recruitments.
- Provide opportunities to explore career interests and identify the education options that will help students meet their career goals.
This week in Washington continued to revolve around the appropriations process as Congress made last-ditch efforts to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the fiscal year. On Thursday, the Senate voted 76-22 to continue moving forward on a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open, but procedural rules could delay an actual vote until the weekend. Meanwhile, the House approved three of its FY 24 appropriations bills in a partisan fashion, including legislation for foreign affairs, homeland security and defense spending. However, these bills will not be able to pass the Senate, and the House has failed on votes to pass its own CR. A shutdown of some length now appears increasingly likely with little time remaining on the clock before the midnight Saturday deadline. You can read more on the appropriations process from early this week here, and we will share the latest updates on Monday! Further news and notes below:
- Department of Education Announces Final Gainful Employment Rules: ED has released final regulations that establish new metrics that all certificate programs at public community and technical colleges and all programs at for-profit institutions must meet to remain eligible for financial aid. Read more on the blog.
- White House Hosts Event on Increasing Diversity and Opportunity in Higher Education: On September 28, the White House Domestic Policy Council joined ED to host a virtual event with postsecondary leaders focused on increasing diversity and opportunity at their institutions, including community colleges. The event also highlighted a new report from ED: Strategies for Increasing Diversity and Opportunity in Higher Education.
- Department of Labor Announces Funding to Train and Expand Pathways for Women in Registered Apprenticeships, Nontraditional Occupations: DOL has announced an award of $5 million aimed at increasing the number of women in registered apprenticeship programs. The grant will be dispersed across seven different states and has the goal of connecting more women to good-paying jobs in nontraditional occupations.
- Department of Labor Announces Funding to Improve Job Quality and Expand Access to Jobs in Critical Sectors: DOL has announced multiple grants totaling $16 million aimed at improving job quality and increasing the availability of jobs in the care, climate resiliency and hospitality sectors. The grants will support organizations across 12 states in their efforts to pilot strategies to guide employers, local workforce systems and other partner organizations to enhance the job quality of local communities across the nation.
- ACTE and Advance CTE Submit Comments on Unemployment Compensation Information Data: ACTE and Advance CTE have submitted comments to the Department of Labor (DOL) in response to a request for information (RFI) regarding unemployment compensation (UC) records and related access to these sources of data. Our comments emphasized the importance of UC records as a key source of information on the labor market outcomes of learners enrolled in CTE and other workforce development programs. They also encourage DOL to make UC information more explicitly accessible to CTE stakeholders as they work to better support learners, workers and employers regularly served by CTE programs across the nation.
- Department of Education Releases Updated Data Strategy Handbook: ED has released its annual data strategy handbook that describes its vision for accelerating progress toward becoming more data-driven to fully leverage the mission and the purpose of the Department. The strategy is intended to help ED realize the use of high-quality data in advancing priorities and improving education outcomes, policy insights and excellence for the nation’s learners.
Today ACTE has released CTE: Developing the Manufacturing Workforce, the fifth in our revamped series of Sector Sheets describing CTE’s role in growing the workforce for vital industry sectors. The Sector Sheet series is published with support from ACTE’s long-time partner Pearson.
These revised Sector Sheets include job opportunities in each sector and descriptions of how CTE prepares learners for the workforce in each sector, all in a new format featuring streamlined text and additional graphics to make these advocacy tools even more effective.
This Sector Sheet describes how CTE supports the critical manufacturing workforce, which employs almost 13 million people nationwide with countless more workers needed each year to meet industry demand. It also shares information on occupations, earnings and credentials that give readers guidance for how to enter and progress within fields such as semiconductor manufacturing, electric vehicle and battery manufacturing, and supply chains. Finally, the Manufacturing Sector Sheet demonstrates the importance of CTE in developing the workforce by describing how CTE prepares learners through courses, industry credentials, work-based learning, career and technical student organizations and more.
As we move forward with the revamped Sector Sheets, both the newer and older Sector Sheets will be available on the ACTE Sector Sheet webpage for download and use. We encourage you to share these tools with students, counselors, policymakers and others to spread the message about CTE and its benefits for students and the workforce.
Guided Pathways Adoption by Community Colleges: The Community College Research Center (CCRC) recently published a report on guided pathways implementation across community and technical colleges in Ohio, Tennessee and Washington. Researchers found that CTE pathways were the most likely to be mapped and scaled in all three states, regardless of the total level of guided pathways adoption in each state.
The following list details how community and technical colleges are implementing guided pathways:
- In Ohio, 89% of all colleges have mapped out requirements and course sequences for CTE program pathways.
- Colleges are increasingly organizing their programs by meta-majors to help students’ direct entry into the workforce or career advancement education.
- Advising and onboarding practices like students taking career-relevant courses early in their postsecondary education and mandatory education planning were usually adopted in tandem across each state.
Researchers recommend that any institutions interested in following the model discussed in this report design their practices, policies and systems parallel to the four pillars of the guided pathways system.
Reforming Government-supported Job Training: The American Enterprise Institute recently published a series of reports analyzing the effectiveness of federal programs funded through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and presenting options for experimentation at the local level. In the first of these reports, researchers share that job training programs are struggling to show positive outcomes for participants and that job training funding has been declining since the 1970s.
Researchers suggested the following changes to fix WIOA program operations for increased outcomes, success and efficiency:
- Reduce administrative red tape for participation in a WIOA program to improve opportunity for individuals who are in the reentry process following incarceration, are economically disadvantaged or have disabilities.
- Clarify which agencies must co-locate in a job center to share costs and provide local WIOA officials with the ability to enforce cost-sharing rules.
- Hold annual meetings at the start of each program year allowing local, state and federal workforce development administrators to provide input into setting goals and discuss systems improvements.
- Expand sector-based training programs, allowing workers without degrees to earn living wages and receive training for key sectors of the economy where labor demand is strong.
The report also suggests that increased WIOA funding would lay the groundwork for improving programs and lead to better outcomes.
Addressing Equity Blockers to Work-based Learning: A report recently published by the Education Strategy Group examined how leaders are identifying and effectively addressing equity blockers affecting students in work-based learning on the secondary and postsecondary levels. Researchers found that offering equitable work-based learning opportunities was a key focus area for each of the six communities within the New Skills Ready Network (NSRN) as leaders across the country increasingly look to erase barriers and improve meaningful experiences for all students.
The report highlights some of the following issues, barriers and circumstances limiting students’ participation in a work-based learning program:
- Geographic proximity and transportation challenges, with a lack of effective transit routes convenient enough for economically disadvantaged individuals.
- Scheduling constraints owing to existing part-time employment for students with financial needs as well as limited availability for students with caregiving responsibilities.
- Minimum requirements for participation that lead many types of students to self-select out of applying for a work-based learning experience.
- Lack of local staff capacity to identify, vet and engage industry partners; provide support; and collect data.
To combat these barriers and target increased access to students who need it most, researchers emphasize the importance of information sharing and recommend that districts ramp up their efforts to formalize and publish their policies, which may serve as examples to others.
