CTE Policy Watch

By: Jason

Earlier this week I went to the National Assessment of Career and Technical Education (NACTE) Independent Advisory Panel (IAP) meeting at the Department of Education - or for short – the NACTE IAP at the DOE. The NACTE (formerly the National Assessment of Vocational Education (NAVE)) is legislatively mandated report that looks at evidence of the implementation and outcomes of CTE and the Perkins Act of 2006. The last NAVE took place in 2004 and looked at the Perkins Act of 1998.

The IAP is made up of education and workforce policy experts, education researchers from universities and associations, state directors of CTE, and representatives of business and industry.  The IAP has three responsibilities for the NACTE: identify the key policy and research questions that the NACTE will address; review research designs and projects being considered for funding and use in the final NACTE report; and receive and help analyze the results of the selected research studies. The actual NACTE report will be written by Department of Education staff. The IAP has the option to release its own report and will be doing so.

The final NACTE report is scheduled to be delivered to Congress in July 2011. Currently the NACTE and the IAP are still in the first stage, identifying the key policy and research questions.

What I found most interesting about these meetings is hearing about the research that is being looked at by the IAP. There were four presentations on various outcomes of CTE at the city (Philadelphia & San Diego), state (Florida) and national level. Being a research geek, I was in heaven as the presenters talked about various methodologies used, case studies and randomized selection processes, and explained their results. I was in awe of how quickly the panel digested the information and found areas that the researchers had not looked at that would make the results from the studies more accurate. I will spare you the details, which were many. There was also a discussion on the proposed implementation study of the Perkins Act of 2006. The plan is to look at how well the new accountability systems promote program improvement, how states and local agencies are creating Programs of Study, and how the new Perkins Act requirements are changing how states fund CTE. I talked to Steve Klein of MPR about how the ACTE State Profiles project could help during the early stages of the implementation study.

The NACTE report could have a significant impact on CTE as it is the official position of the Department of Education on the effectiveness of the Perkins Act and CTE. There are still plenty of IAP meetings yet to come and more information to analyze. ACTE will have at least one person at all the meetings, which are open to the public, to keep an eye on how things are going.

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