Credential Quality in Career and Technical Education
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The education-to-employment landscape of college and career pathways is complex and varies from state to state. This report investigates one of three new program quality indicators introduced under the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V), which requires state Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs to report the percentage of CTE concentrators graduating from high school having obtained a recognized postsecondary credential (5S1). Although systemic change is challenging, in our research, we find significant opportunities for the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) to leverage this new metric to spur innovation, drive systems change, increase data quality and governance, and support career-connected learning for all young adults.
In the subsequent pages, we provide a brief history on the status quo of Perkins V and details of our research methodology. Then, we walk through the definition of the 5S1 indicator; we identify concerns over differences in state interpretations and their implications for data governance in four key components of the definition:
•“Percentage”: States articulate their own numerator and denominator for the percentage of students obtaining postsecondary/industry-recognized credentials.
•“CTE Concentrators”: States develop their own operating definitions of this term.
•“Recognized”: States have their own processes and criteria for deciding what constitutes a quality, recognized credential.
•“Credential”: States define credential stackability, portability, and relevance on their own.
Across the four substantive areas, we outline five policy recommendations on non-regulatory guidance OCTAE should provide states to better align data systems and support systems change:
•Issue stronger data governance practices, especially around reporting numerators and denominators.
•Issue federal definitions of key terms related to “CTE Concentrator” and credentials of quality, such as “course,” program of study,” “portability,” “stackability,” and “relevance.”
•Outline federal criteria and guidelines for evaluating credential quality.
•Provide technical assistance on building and maintaining strong quality assurance practices.
•Model inter-agency collaboration and data sharing practices across agencies and key stakeholders.
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Hong, Ashley
Etemadi, Ashley
Hilliard, Ariayne
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Project on Workforce at Harvard
