High-quality CTE: Data and Program Improvement

Click the + sign next to each category below to explore resources that align with the Data and Program Improvement element of the ACTE Quality CTE Program of Study FrameworkTM.

This series of mini briefs discusses lessons learned and successful strategies from Advance CTE’s Advancing Postsecondary CTE Data Quality Initiative, in which Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Oregon and D.C. in partnership with Advance CTE developed comprehensive action plans to improve the quality and use of postsecondary CTE data.

This report outlines a new methodology to calculate equity gaps in academic outcomes at postsecondary institutions.

This spotlight discusses how state longitudinal data systems in Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey and Connecticut work with postsecondary and workforce agencies to share data, integrate and manage data, and use their collective information to support state education and workforce initiatives.

This report elevates lessons learned from the first round of CLNAs and offers recommendations going forward to ensure that the CLNA meets its promise of improving CTE quality, access and equity.

This comprehensive resource shares SLDS policies and resources in states and the District of Columbia.

This journal article provides information and guidance for using state longitudinal data systems to assess outcomes for CTE students.

This brief describes how the ACTE Quality CTE Program of Study Framework™ and its companion self-evaluation instrument can help local CTE leaders evaluate their programs and complete key portions of the CLNA.

This study explores the current state of technical education faculty access to and use of student-level data and the constraints CTE faculty face in accessing and using data for data-informed decision making.

This resource describes four steps states can take to decide whether and how they might revise their Perkins V performance targets as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This report, developed with input from national and state experts, provides nine principles for developing effective and accessible CTE data reporting tools. The companion resource Beyond the Numbers: A Toolkit for Communicating CTE Data includes customizable tools for creating communications that help stakeholders better understand and act on CTE data.

This report describes a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the University of Texas System and the U.S. Census Bureau to provide better data on student outcomes.

This paper examines the potential role that SLDS can play in providing a more complete picture of education and workforce development for CTE researchers and stakeholders.

This report describes the State Wage Interchange System, a joint data-sharing tool from the Departments of Education and Labor that enables states to exchange anonymized employment and earning data.

This series explores the pros and cons of each of the three options for the Perkins V secondary program quality indicator – work-based learning participation, postsecondary credit attainment and credential attainment – and examines different ways states are measuring and validating this indicator.

This report draws on a national survey of state CTE directors to examine how states are collecting and using career readiness data.

This report examines Every Student Succeeds Act state plans in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to see how states are taking advantage of key opportunities to support career readiness, including through career readiness metrics.

This publication examines labor market information dissemination challenges and provides real-world examples of how states are effectively communicating and disseminating LMI.

This report discusses findings and lessons learned from ACTE’s Certification Data Exchange Project, which developed and tested data sharing between state education and workforce data systems and industry certifiers. It describes a five-step process for data sharing and offers recommendations for future data-sharing and data-matching efforts.

This publication describes an Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education technical assistance project to help Nebraska develop more effective strategies for disaggregating and analyzing CTE data.

This research project examined the extent to which CTE programs use workforce needs assessment as a component of their evaluation activities.

Follow-up surveys are an important tool for collecting placement information. This guide describes how to develop, construct and administer a follow-up survey, with strategies for overcoming measurement challenges and a survey template.

Developed by the CTE Research Network, this framework provides guidance for conducting CTE research with an equity-focused lens and features a companion checklist that summarizes specific actions that researchers can take to incorporate an equity lens.

This toolkit provides guidance and examples to postsecondary leaders about analyzing student progress and success in various CTE pathways. The toolkit offers proposed questions, sample data visualizations and summaries of analyses to conduct and is accompanied by a technical guide that provides more detailed information about how to execute the examples featured in the toolkit.

This starter kit can help state and local intermediaries improve the quality of their youth apprenticeship data capacity. It is the outgrowth of a 2020 report on common challenges and barriers to collecting youth apprenticeship data.

Informed by lessons learned from a multi-year study, this toolkit walks district and school leaders through the process of identifying work-based learning data collection goals, implementing collection processes and using data to improve work-based learning programs.

Guided by quality youth apprenticeship principles established by the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship, an initiative of New America, this tool helps youth apprenticeship stakeholders reflect on program data to assess strengths and program improvement opportunities related to partnerships, program design and pathway components.

The Youth Apprenticeship Data Framework is a guide to building data systems that monitor the effectiveness of youth apprenticeship programs and inform continuous improvement activities.

This Career Readiness Metrics Framework presents a comprehensive list of metrics that span middle school through adulthood and provides a standard for practitioners, policymakers and researchers to evaluate whether learners are on track for and progressing through their career pathways.

This tool can assist state leaders in strengthening the quality and use of career readiness data. It provides a roadmap and tools for understanding the six elements of a high-quality career readiness data ecosystem and includes a number of case studies.

This toolkit contains customizable templates for creating communications that help stakeholders better understand and act on CTE data. A companion report provides nine principles for developing effective and accessible CTE data reporting tools.

This report describes the Momentum Metrics framework, which is organized around three key phases of a student’s transition from high school to college – preparing, applying and enrolling – and includes a measure of high-quality CTE pathway participation.

The guide was designed to help CTE leaders make difficult decisions as they offer remote, blended and socially distanced learning during COVID-19. It is organized around the elements of the ACTE Quality CTE Program of Study Framework, including guidance related to CTE data and program improvement.

The Maximizing Performance Data Development Model is a resource designed for use by any state, whether they have made great strides in their use of performance data to demonstrate programmatic success, are still working to fulfill the statutory vision of WIOA performance or fall somewhere in between. This toolkit includes a self-assessment and facilitation guide.

This suite of tools provides strategic and technical guidance to states committed to identifying and scaling attainment of non-degree credentials aligned to in-demand, high-skill, high-wage occupations.

This tool, developed with input from state and national experts, helps states identify the major decision points that impact the design, development and implementation of their CLNA and related local application.

This crosswalk tool, developed with input from state and national experts, can support the coordination of state- and federally required needs assessments, such as those required under Perkins V, ESSA and WIOA.

This tool provides an overview of the Perkins V comprehensive local needs assessment and helps you translate the language in the law into concrete, actionable steps.

This guide provides a summary, analysis and guidance for each major component of the comprehensive local needs assessment and describes how states can support a robust CLNA process that aligns with the state’s overall vision for CTE.

This toolkit supports CTE programs and industry partners to evaluate program alignment with workforce needs. It includes tips on who to bring to the table, suggested sources for labor market information, case studies and templates. While some information is Georgia specific, much of the toolkit can be useful to any local CTE program.

This playbook outlines key design components of a purposeful state CTE program audit, a three-phase process for establishing and conducting such an audit, a customizable framework for CTE program quality indicators, and a rubric for evaluating overall CTE program quality.

This guide provides states with step-by-step instructions for measuring non-degree credentials using student-level administrative data.

The Competency-based Education Student Outcomes Metrics Framework defines a set of measures that support descriptive and evaluative research on competency-based programs.

The Workforce Education Implementation Evaluation is a framework for evaluating hard-to-measure aspects of the design, development and delivery of workforce education partnerships and programs.

This research describes how to estimate the rate of return for secondary and postsecondary CTE by looking at the net impact of CTE on individuals’ labor market experiences and government income supports after encountering programs.

The tool from the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education identifies criteria for evaluating whether a CTE provider has sufficient capacity to implement a comprehensive program of study.

The VFA is the principal accountability framework for community colleges with measures defined to encompass the full breadth of the community college mission and the diversity of students’ goals and educational experiences.

This book explores multiple aspects of data-driven improvement in instruction, and specifically targets the importance of gradient disaggregated objective technical skill data and its systematic use to continually improve instruction. The concepts and specific ‘how-to’ examples in this book are valuable for secondary, postsecondary and adult educators.

Designed for CTE practitioners and state agency staff, these modules strengthen state and local CTE professionals’ capacity to access, understand and use CTE data and research as well as conduct research, particularly causal research.

In this webinar, Advance CTE introduces their Career Readiness Data Quality and Use Policy Benchmark Tool to help state leaders to improve their career readiness data ecosystem.

This webinar reviews protocols for CTE data reporting and how state CTE leaders can use data to craft relevant and present insights in an easy-to-understand and actionable manner.

This webinar led by Christina Kerns, Curriculum & Instruction Supervisor at Penta Career Center in Perrysburg, Ohio, discusses the importance of data collection and its use to support student success; investigates ways to provide valid and reliable aggregate data on all students in a program of study; and introduces a formalized data collection model for program improvement and gap closure.

These Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education modules address various aspects of Perkins accountability requirements, annual reporting cycles and timelines and feature presentations from OCTAE’s annual Data Quality Institutes.

This course explains the key factors that determine what Perkins funds can be spent on and the systems needed to manage Perkins funds. This information will help participants to optimize Perkins spending, design effective CTE programs and support compliance with federal requirements.

The course addresses both standalone measures such as ROI as well as measurement frameworks such as dashboards, quality models and the Balanced Scorecard. It includes a systematic process for tracking performance of initiatives that can generate improvements across the organization.

All involved in employment reporting must continuously identify ways to strengthen their system for tracking, collecting and verifying employment data. This course is designed to encourage participants to critically analyze their own employment reporting practices while sharing ideas and best practices that can help lead to the highest level of data integrity.

The Perkins Data Explorer lets you create custom reports using Consolidated Annual Report state data for CTE participant enrollment, CTE concentrator enrollment and CTE concentrator performance data, disaggregated for different learner groups and special populations and by Career Clusters. It also lists Final Agreed Upon Performance Levels (FAUPLs) by state.

This online hub includes a number of tables on topics related to secondary and postsecondary CTE and career development.

This dashboard features findings from ACTE’s annual, nationwide survey of CTE high school students and educators, conducted in partnership with myOptionsTM.

  • Data Tools – Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

These tools from the Center on Education and the Workforce include labor market information, employment and earnings, and postsecondary return on investment data.