The Department of Commerce recently released a brief on progress in implementing the CHIPS and Science Act. This legislation, signed into law by President Biden in August of 2022, aims to support domestic manufacturing and research within the semiconductor industry. 

The brief builds on the Administration’s vision for CHIPS, which includes doubling the semiconductor workforce, tripling the number of graduates in semiconductor-related fields, training 100,000 new technicians, and launching semiconductor industry careers for underserved or underrepresented populations. 

To achieve this vision, CHIPS for America, which encompasses two federal offices responsible for implementing the law, has partnered with industry leaders, education providers, and labor unions to engage in key strategies:

1. Catalyzing employer investment in the workforce
2. Encouraging high-quality jobs
3. Promoting state and local participation
4. Engaging community organizations, labor unions, industry and academia 
5. Leveraging research and development investments for workforce needs 
6. Expanding the workforce pipeline 

Through these strategies, CHIPS for America expects total public and private workforce investments for CHIPS-funded facilities to surpass $500 million. Additionally, since the signing of the legislation, over 50 community colleges across 19 states have announced new or expanded semiconductor programming and 7 states have dedicated new funding to support semiconductor workforce training. 

The brief also emphasized a commitment to a research and development approach for determining the most effective training models. The National Semiconductor Technology Center, composed of stakeholders ranging from industry leaders to educational leaders, would facilitate this approach through a variety of research initiatives. 

To continue defining and pursuing its goals within the coming year, CHIPS for America will conduct community forums starting this month to gather constructive input. Be on the lookout for more information and opportunities to collaborate on these initiatives in your communities.

Congress returned to considering regular legislation this week in Washington as Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) began his first full week in charge as the new Speaker of the House. Activity mostly centered around support for Israel and the appropriations process (read more below). Reminder to continue letting your Members of Congress know about the importance of Perkins funding to CTE for programs across the nation as this process resumes in full swing. Read more news and notes below:

• Congress Makes Progress on FY 24 Appropriations Bills: In an 82-15 vote, the Senate successfully passed three of its FY 2024 appropriations bills this week: Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, and Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. The House also cleared the Legislative Branch and Interior and Environment bills, as well as a supplemental bill with emergency funding for Israel. Neither chamber has considered the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill.
• Biden Administration Releases Executive Order on AI: On October 30, the White House issued an Executive Order titled, “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).” The Executive Order contains several relevant sections, including on supporting worker and students as well as attracting AI talent.
• Senate HELP Committee Holds Hearing on AI: Following the release of the Executive Order, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee on Employment and Workforce Safety held a hearing to discuss relevant issues. The hearing was titled “AI and the Future of Work: Moving Forward Together.” While it primarily focused on the impact of AI on jobs, Sen. Kaine was able to promote the JOBS Act and the need for high-quality short-term CTE programs during the conversation.

• National Student Clearinghouse Releases Updated Postsecondary Enrollment Data: The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center has published a preliminary update sharing an early look at fall 2023 postsecondary enrollment numbers. The release includes insights on student diversity gains and enrollment increases for community colleges and four-year universities. Read more on the CTE Policy Watch Blog.

• Department of Education Announces Efforts to Provide Debt Relief for More Student Loan Borrowers: Ed has announced the release of new draft regulatory text that would provide relief for specific categories of student borrowers. This new draft would serve four groups of borrowers including those experiencing economic hardship, those that currently have outstanding federal student loan balances that exceed the originally borrowed amount, students that took out loans to attend training programs that created unreasonable debt loads or provided insufficient earnings upon graduation, and individuals involved in programs like the Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) Research Center recently published ­­a preliminary update sharing an early look at fall 2023 postsecondary enrollment numbers. Researchers discovered that community college enrollment rose by approximately 4.4%, which accounted for most of the total undergraduate enrollment increase in fall 2023. In addition, undergraduate certificate programs are booming with 9.9% growth, compared to 3.6% for associate degrees and 0.9% for bachelor’s degrees.

A companion article in Inside Higher Ed noted that 40% of total community college enrollment growth came from learners in dual enrollment programs, continuing a trend from fall 2022. Here are more statistics and insights:

• Health care program enrollment is beginning to rebound after large declines from the pandemic, specifically among those seeking undergraduate certificates (+5.7%) and associate degrees (+4.4%).
• Trade-related programs of study such as mechanic and repair technology (+10.3%), precision production (+14.2%) and construction trades (+10.4%) saw continued growth in students enrolling in undergraduate certificate programs.
• Computer and information sciences enrollment grew by 11.9% for undergraduate certificate programs and 10.4% for associate degree programs.
• Black, Hispanic/Latino and Asian students drove most of the undergraduate enrollment growth this year, with these populations seeing enrollment increases of 2.1%, 4.2% and 4.0% respectively.
• Community colleges experienced an enrollment surge of for students from the lowest-income areas.

The NSC Research Center will release more fall 2023 postsecondary data in January.

Today ACTE has released CTE: Developing the Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Workforce, the sixth 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 describe career opportunities and share 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 agriculture, food and natural resources workforce, which employs more than 3.5 million people nationwide. It shares information on occupations, earnings and credentials that enable individuals to enter and progress within fields such as animal systems, plant systems and environmental and natural resources. Finally, the Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Sector Sheet demonstrates the importance of CTE in developing this 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 these 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.

Our partners at Advance CTE are requesting your help to complete the National Career Clusters Framework National Implementation Survey.

The National Career Clusters® Framework is undergoing a modernization effort to ensure it remains responsive and relevant to the work and learner needs for decades to come. An updated framework will be unveiled in Fall 2024, but your voice is needed now!

How do you currently use the Framework, and how do you want to use the Framework in the future? Share your perspective in the The National Career Clusters® Framework National Implementation Survey.

The project team is committed to soliciting and considering input from all Framework partners, and this survey serves as the next step of a multi-year input-gathering process from all groups impacted by the Framework prior to the creation and validation of a new Framework in 2024.

WHO:     
Professionals of all experience levels who design, implement, teach or support secondary or postsecondary programs aligned to The Nation Career Clusters Framework are invited to respond.

WHAT:     
A 10-minute survey to share how practitioners currently use the Framework, how they hope to use it in the future, and what tools would be useful in implementing a modernized Framework. Please note this survey is only about the use of the Framework and its implementation, and will not provide additional information about future content changes to the Framework itself. Such input will be solicited as part of the validation process in spring 2024.

WHEN:    
The survey is open NOW until December 1, 2023. In January 2024, Advance CTE will share topline findings from the survey.

WHY:       
Your feedback on how you currently use the Framework and hope to use it in the future will inform the Framework design and associated guidance, implementation, and communications tools released alongside the framework.

HOW:  
Complete the survey and use our promotional materials to share this opportunity with your colleagues.

Watch the explainer video below to get started and respond by December 1.

This week in Washington a new Speaker of the House was elected after weeks of discussion and failed candidates. Congress can now move forward on pressing legislative issues. One of those key issues is the looming deadline of November 17 for appropriations bills. Congress must complete work on these bills or pass a new continuing resolution by this date to avoid a government shutdown. Now that work has resumed on appropriations bills, it is critical to continue letting Members of Congress know how important Perkins funding is to CTE programs across the country. You can find an updated action alert here. More news and updates below:

• House Elects GOP’s Mike Johnson as New House Speaker: The House of Representatives has elected Representative Mike Johnson (R-LA) as the new speaker of the House earlier this week in what turned out to be a unanimous Republican vote in favor of Johnson. With the election of the Speaker now finalized the House and the Senate can now fully return to business as usual and resume their efforts on finalizing the appropriations process. Read more about this development in the CTE Policy Watch Blog.
• House Oversight Committee Holds Hearing on Community Colleges and Apprenticeships: On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee’s subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy and Regulatory Affairs held the hearing titled, “The Power of Apprenticeships: Faster, Better Paths to Prosperous Jobs and Less Waste in Higher Education.” This hearing discussed ways to draw more youth into exploring career options through CTE, apprenticeships and other work-based learning models.  

  OCTAE Releases New Perkins Program Memo: The Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education (OCTAE) released a memo this week outlining critical policy levers that states could consider through the Perkins V state planning process. This non-regulatory guidance memo could inform state decision-making as they update their Perkins plans this school year.

• Department of Commerce Designates Multiple Tech Hubs Across America: The Department of Commerce has announced the designation of 31 Tech Hub locations across the nation as a part of an economic development initiative designed to drive innovation and job creation by strengthening each region’s capacity to manufacture, commercialize and deploy technology. The Tech Hubs will be located across 32 states and Puerto Rico representing a cross-section of urban and rural regions to invest directly into burgeoning, high-potential U.S. regions to transform them into globally competitive innovation centers. 

• Department of Education Releases Additional Rules on Accountability for Colleges and Consumer Protection for Students: ED has announced final regulations that aim to strengthen ED’s ability to protect students and taxpayers from the negative effects of sudden college closures and require institutions to communicate more clearly about the financial aid each student will receive, among other things. This new set of rules is set to go into effect July 1, 2024.

• White House Requests Emergency Domestic Funding Package to Address Array of Issues: The Biden-Harris Administration has asked Congress for $56 billion in supplemental appropriations to tackle issues such as childcare access, natural disaster relief, low-income broadband internet subsidies and security for U.S. based religious institutions being affected by the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

• New Dual Enrollment Research Fund Opens Call for Proposals: The Dual Enrollment Research Fund has announced that it is looking for applications for a grant of at least $1 million aimed at supporting research that expands and deepens the body of knowledge and evidence on dual enrollment as a tool for increasing college access and success. The initiative is seeking rigorous research projects that will answer urgent questions and directly inform the adoption of dual enrollment policies and practices to benefit students.

• IES Releases FY 2024 Applications for Research Network Grant Opportunities: The Institute for Education Sciences (IES) has released a request for applications (RFA) for the Research Networks Focused on Critical Problems of Education Policy and Practice program. Through this RFA, interested parties can form a part of research teams for the Career and Technical Education Network, which will be made up of up to five teams, and the Digital Learning Platforms Network, which will be made up of up to 10 teams. For further information visit the IES funding opportunities web page.

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.