Education

Career Preparation

May 2002

Adult Education
Assessments in Career and Technical Education
Contextual Learning
Occupational Standards and Credentials
Small Learning Communities
Funding Career and Technical Education
Tax Credits: A Tie that Binds Business and Youth
Summaries of Proposed School-to-Career 2002 Legislation

Overview

Have you noticed that vocational education has undergone a transformation? No longer called vocational education, career and technical education is now the moniker as legislatures across the nation are updating their laws to reflect the integration of more rigorous academic and technical standards in courses, the emphasis on students including postsecondary education in their career plans and the inclusion of internships or other work-based learning experiences during their high school career to better prepare them for the world of work.

The National Association of State Directors of Vocational Technical Education Consortium defines career and technical education as

An essential component of the total educational system in the United States. Career technical education provides students and adults with the technical skills, knowledge and training necessary to succeed in specific occupations and careers. It also prepares students for the world of work by introducing them to workplace competencies that are essential no matter what career they choose. And, career technical education takes academic content and makes it accessible to students by providing it in a hands-on context. See NASDCTEc's Vision Paper for more specifics.

According to the Association for Career and Technical Education, "career and technical education programs are offered in about 11,000 comprehensive high schools, several hundred vocational-technical high schools and about 1,400 area vo-tech centers, which serve students from several "sending" high schools. About 9,400 postsecondary institutions offer technical programs, including community colleges, technical institutes, skill centers and other public and private two- and four-year colleges."

Funding Career and Technical Education

Steven Klein with MPR Associates in Berkeley, California, produced a landmark publication in June 2001 that captured for the first time state funding formulas and district cost variations for supporting vocational education in high schools.

"A national survey of state funding practices for vocational education reveals that the majority employ either unit-cost-based mechanisms, in which funding is allocated based on the number of courses offered or teachers engaged in vocational instruction, or weighted, per-pupil formulas that allocate resources based on the number of students enrolled in vocational education in each district. A few states are experimenting with performance-based funding formulas tied to student outcomes, and some-typically smaller, more rural states-do not provide any supplemental resources for vocational instruction. Predictably, the rationale for the different funding strategies and levels of support varies by state according to historical practices, legislative intent, scale of the vocational enterprise, and breadth and scope of vocational programs.

This paper is intended to offer state policymakers data that will help them make more in-formed decisions about vocational education funding. Based on details supplied by state vocational administrators from across the nation, this paper communicates perspectives from the field about the intended and unintended effects of state legislation on vocational education. Different funding formulas and funding levels are arrayed to provide legislators with an under-standing of the approaches states are using to support vocational programs. A discussion of the multiple purposes of vocational education is also included to assist policymakers in deter-mining what constitutes a reasonable cost for maintaining vocational programs."

Excerpt from Financing Vocational Education: A State Policymaker's Guide