CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN MICHIGAN: ACCESS AND .
JANUARY 2020CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN MICHIGAN:ACCESS AND PARTICIPATIONKEY FINDINGS:1. Approximately half of all Michigan students enroll in at least one CTE courseduring high school. Business, marketing, and health sciences are the mostpopular programs.2. Female, Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students are lesslikely to participate in CTE. These differences are smaller among students whoattend the same high school, suggesting disparities in opportunity rather thanstudent demand drive statewide participation gaps.3. More than 500,000 skilled trades jobs are expected to become available inMichigan through 2026, primarily in construction, manufacturing, healthcare,automotive technology, and information technology. While many CTEprograms align with these high-demand fields, some exhibit low participationand completion rates.1POLICY BRIEF YOUTH POLICY LAB GEORGIA POLICY LABS
CTE IN MICHIGAN: ACCESS AND PARTICIPATIONINTRODUCTIONDespite record low unemployment and continuedeconomic expansion in the U.S., economic insecurityremains pervasive throughout the population. Nearly40 million Americans live in poverty and more than8% of workers hold multiple jobs to make ends meet.i,iiFacing these prospects, the path to economic security isunclear for many young people – especially those fromdisadvantaged backgrounds. Recent estimates indicatethat a child born into the bottom fifth of the incomedistribution has just a 7.5% chance of reaching the top fifthin adulthood.iii,ivWhile the idea of sending every student to college onceenjoyed broad support as a means of combating thesetrends, the limits of this approach have become apparent.Approximately 40% of students who start college neverobtain a degree. The statistics are even worse forlow-income students, a mere 16% of whom ultimatelygraduate.v, vi Moreover, the share of student borrowerswith more than 50,000 of debt increased from 2% in1992 to 17% in 2014.vii Those interested in providing futuregenerations with pathways to economic security thus facea difficult challenge. At a time when poverty and inequalityare becoming entrenched in society, postsecondaryeducation is proving an unreliable solution for many.In part as a result of these trends, high school career andtechnical education (CTE) programs have emerged as apopular strategy for improving young people’s chancesof finding – and keeping – stable jobs. Taught by formerindustry professionals and structured around hands-onprojects, CTE aims to equip students with knowledge andskills to thrive in the workforce.2Given its potential to strengthen talent pipelines withoutrequiring students to take on excessive debt, CTE hasreceived bipartisan political support. Here in Michigan,both the Snyder (Republican) and Whitmer (Democrat)administrations have featured CTE in their plans tostrengthen the state’s workforce. Under former GovernorSnyder’s Marshall Plan for Talent, K-12 schools can receivegrant funds by partnering with employers to develop orexpand project-based curricula that lead to industryrecognized certificates (like those found in many CTEcourses). In her first state budget recommendation,Governor Whitmer proposed changes to Michigan’s schoolfunding formula to increase CTE resources by 50 million.viiiDespite this wealth of attention, we know relatively littleabout the efficacy of CTE programs. Stakeholders likeparents, students, state and local administrators all havea vested interest in better understanding the predictorsand outcomes of CTE participation. This brief aims tobegin that conversation by shedding light on access to andenrollment in Michigan’s high school CTE programs.“Approximately 40% ofstudents who start collegenever obtain a degree.”POLICY BRIEF YOUTH POLICY LAB GEORGIA POLICY LABS
CTE IN MICHIGAN: ACCESS AND PARTICIPATIONWhat is CTE?High school CTE consists of coordinated course sequences,called Programs of Study, designed to prepare studentsto work in specific jobs. As of the 2018-19 school year,there were 52 state-recognized Programs of Study. All CTEprograms in Michigan are organized around 16 federallyrecognized Career Clusters plus one in energy that theState petitioned to add. Although CTE is commonlyconflated with traditional “vocational education” andtherefore assumed to only involve the skilled trades, CTEactually encompasses a wide variety of fields. Programsrange from auto collision repair to marketing to robotics.See the Appendix for a full list of programs and clusters.Regardless of the Career Cluster in which they are housed,all programs share the common goal of fostering workreadiness. Courses prioritize hands-on projects that mirrorthe workplace rather than the lecture format found in mosttraditional classrooms. They are taught by former industryprofessionals who must have 4,000 hours of recent andrelevant work experience to receive teaching certification.As they progress through CTE programs, students areexposed to increasingly specialized content and may havethe opportunity to earn industry-recognized credentials orcollege credit through their coursework. In some districts,students also have the opportunity to participate ininternships and apprenticeships.Relative to other aspects of education, localdistricts exercise a high degree of control over CTEoperations. Michigan CTE programs are managed bya Career Education Planning District (CEPD), a group ofgeographically neighboring local educational districts. ACEPD administrator identifies the skills and programsneeded in the region, and, in partnership with local schools,coordinates CTE program offerings across high schools andcareer academies. The CEPD administrator also createsnew CTE programs and helps school districts improveexisting programs.Most CTE courses are housed at local schools orstandalone technical centers, though some dualenrollment programs operate on college campuses. If aspecific program is not offered at a student’s local school,students may have the option to enroll in the programin a different school, district, intermediate school district(ISD), or area CTE center. Receiving districts ultimatelydecide whether or not to enroll students from neighboringdistricts. Enrollment in an ISD-, center-, or consortia-basedprogram, however, is based on cooperative agreementsamong districts and ISDs.ix Districts provide busing forstudents who must travel to participate in a program.Programs of Study typically must cover 12 segments,which are groups of content standards set by theMichigan Department of Education Office of Career andTechnical Education (MDE OCTE). An entire program’sworth of segments typically are distributed across threeor four courses, which is modest relative to some otherstates. Students may stop a program at any point and aredesignated as participants, concentrators, or completersdepending on how many segments they complete.3POLICY BRIEF YOUTH POLICY LAB GEORGIA POLICY LABS
CTE IN MICHIGAN: ACCESS AND PARTICIPATIONHow Popular is CTE?Analyzing data from nine recent expected graduatingclasses (meaning an entering high school class identifiedby the year they were expected to graduate), we find thatCTE is a common part of Michigan students’ high schoolexperiences. Approximately half of each cohort hasparticipated in at least one CTE course.Figure 1: Roughly half of each expected graduating classparticipates in CTE during high school100%75%Figure 2 focuses on the expected Class of 2018 to providea recent snapshot of CTE in Michigan. Male studentsare roughly 20% (9 percentage points) more likely toparticipate in CTE than female students. A greatershare of White students (54.2%) participate than doBlack (41%) or Hispanic (44.1%) students. Economicallydisadvantaged students (i.e., those who qualify for free orreduced price lunch) participate at a level lower than thestatewide average. Students who attend urban schools aresignificantly less likely to participate compared to studentsin suburban, town, and rural environments. Studentsenrolled in charter schools are 36 percentage points lesslikely to participate than their peers who attend traditionalpublic schools.Figure 2: CTE participation varies across groups amongthe expected class of 2018ALL 4%Black0%'10'11'12'13'14'15'16'17'18While these data provide a broad overview of CTEenrollment in Michigan, we need to dig further toassess how participation compares across groups andcommunities. This is a relevant topic given current debatesover CTE. Advocates claim that along with providingstudents valuable hard and soft skills directly relevant tothe labor market, CTE can also motivate students to pursueadditional education, either by completing high school orenrolling in specific postsecondary programs. Conversely,critics argue that CTE serves to track low-achieving and/or minority students into educational programs thatdo not prepare them for work beyond low-wage, entrylevel positions. While this brief does not aim to settlethis dispute, we can begin to shed light on what types ofstudents are participating in CTE across Michigan.41%Special Education50%Economically Disadvantaged47%Limited English aditional Public School53%Charter School16%0%60%We find similar patterns when examining completionrates, with the notable exception that female students areactually more likely than males to complete programs onceenrolled. See the Appendix for further details.The 17 distinct Career Clusters and 52 Programs of Studywithin CTE represent a broad spectrum of industries andoccupations. We find that enrollment levels vary widelyacross clusters.4POLICY BRIEF YOUTH POLICY LAB GEORGIA POLICY LABS
CTE IN MICHIGAN: ACCESS AND PARTICIPATIONThe most popular programs are business, marketing, andhealth sciences (see Figure 3). Public and human servicesexhibit the lowest participation levels. It is important tonote that student interest is not the sole driver of programpopularity. Because CTE courses are organized largely asproject-based learning environments that afford studentsthe opportunity to experience actual workplace conditions,certain programs require expensive equipment that canbe cost prohibitive for some schools. This may explainwhy programs in business, marketing, and finance are sopopular – they require little in the way of resources schoolsdo not already possess.Can Access Explain Participation?Figure 3: CTE participation varies by career clusteramong the expected class of 2018Given this ambiguity, the ideal next step would be toidentify the number of programs available to the typicalstudent from each demographic group both withintheir own school and a reasonable driving distance.Juxtaposing these figures would allow us to determinewhether and to what extent access is differentiated alongracial, socioeconomic, or geographic lines. Unfortunately,comprehensive statewide data on which specific CTEprograms are available at each high school does not yetexist.x The Youth Policy Lab is actively working with theavailable data to piece together this information.Business12%11%MarketingHealth Sciences7%Finance7%Information Technology7%Transportation5%Agriculture5%Arts, A/V & Communications5%Architecture & ucation1%Law, Public Safety & Security1%Human Services1%GovernmentIn the meantime, we probe whether demographicparticipation gaps result from access to or demand forCTE by comparing students who attended the samehigh school. This allows us to “control for” access toCTE because all students within a school have the samenumber and types of programs available to them. Wealso employ a commonly used statistical technique calledmultiple regression analysis to account for a number ofimportant student characteristics: gender, race/ethnicity,special education status, free or reduced lunch eligibility,neighborhood education level, eighth-grade attendance,and prior academic achievement as measured bystandardized test scores. (See the Appendix for a fullexplanation of our analytic approach.) 1%0%5Figure 2 shows that Black, Hispanic, female, andeconomically disadvantaged students are less likely toparticipate in CTE programs throughout the state. Thereason for these demographic participation gaps is unclear,however. On the one hand, it is possible that they resultfrom lower relative interest in CTE (i.e., demand). On theother hand, it may be that students from these groups facereduced access to CTE programs (i.e., supply). That is, theymay attend schools that typically offer fewer opportunitiesto participate in the first place.20%POLICY BRIEF YOUTH POLICY LAB GEORGIA POLICY LABS
CTE IN MICHIGAN: ACCESS AND PARTICIPATIONFigure 4: The racial participation gap at the state level largely disappears at the school level, but the gender gap persists.STATE LEVELSCHOOL LEVELparticipation gapparticipation gap5NO 15Note: For Black and Hispanic students the reference group is White students; for females it is males; for economically disadvantagedstudents it is economically secure students.If participation gaps shrink after looking within schools, thiswould indicate that participation differences at the statelevel result from unequal access across communities. Ifthey persist (or grow), we can feel more confident thatgroups exhibit disparate levels of demand for CTE.Figure 4 displays the results for the expected Class of2018. Our results indicate that female students remain 9percentage points less likely to participate in CTE relativeto males who attend the same school. Racial disparities,however, are greatly diminished. The participation gapshrinks from roughly 12 percentage points for both Blackand Hispanic students at the state level to 3 percentagepoints for the former and 2 points for the latter withinschools. Students eligible for free or reduced price lunchbecome just 1 percentage point less likely to participate inCTE relative to their more affluent peers.Program CompletionWhile our analyses thus far have focused on participationlevels, there are compelling reasons to investigate programcompletion rates as well. Current research indicates thatthe benefits of CTE enrollment are driven entirely by upperlevel coursework, particularly in highly technical fields.xiThis suggests that specialization in a field and completinga Program of Study may be critical. Indeed, Programsof Study are intentionally designed with this sort ofprogression in mind. MDE OCTE sets content standards tostructure programs such that students are guided througha coherent sequence of training objectives. This raises thequestion of whether Michigan students are completingtheir programs and, moreover, whether they are morelikely to complete some types of programs than others.These results tell us that differences between schoolopportunities rather than student interest are driving racialand socioeconomic participation gaps at the state level.Female students, by contrast, seem to exhibit less demandfor CTE compared to males.6POLICY BRIEF YOUTH POLICY LAB GEORGIA POLICY LABS
CTE IN MICHIGAN: ACCESS AND PARTICIPATIONWith 52 Programs of Study spread across 17 CareerClusters, the many jobs that CTE programs map onto differsignificantly with respect to the educational attainmentthey typically require and the earning potential they offer.To obtain a sense of the educational requirements andlabor market opportunities associated with each CTEprogram, we utilize a crosswalk created by the state thatlinks programs to occupations. For each occupation, weuse data from the American Community Survey to calculatethe average hourly wage in the occupation and the shareof workers in the occupation who have at least a bachelor’sdegree. We can then aggregate this information to the CTEprogram level.Perhaps most interestingly, at almost every educationallevel, there is substantial variation in program averageearnings. For example, cooking and construction tradeshave labor forces with similar levels of college degreeattainment. Yet average hourly wages in construction areroughly 24 per hour compared with only 13 in cooking.We find comparable wage discrepancies between businessand education where approximately 40% of workers have acollege degree.It is important to note that the wages people typicallyearn in related occupations should not be conflated withthe wages individuals earn as a result of enrolling in CTE.Estimating the latter requires linking wage record datato these CTE data, each of which comes from differentdepartments within the State of Michigan. Througha partnership between YPL, OCTE, and the State’sDepartment of Labor & Economic Opportunity (LEO), YPLwill analyze CTE’s impact on participants’ employment andearnings in future work.Our results, displayed in Figure 5, reveal a varied set ofemployment opportunities across programs. Althoughwages are generally concentrated between 20 and 30per hour, there are clear outliers. Some programs lead tojobs that typically earn half as much while others nearlydouble those figures. The range of educational attainmentlevels is similarly broad. It is clear that Michigan studentshave a diverse set of options within CTE.Figure 5: Employment opportunities vary across programsProgrammingAverage Wage 40 30BusinessConstruction TradesTherapeutic Services 20CookingEducation 100%15%30%45%60%75%80%Percent with Bachelors or More0-200 Completers7200-1000 Completers1000 CompletersPOLICY BRIEF YOUTH POLICY LAB GEORGIA POLICY LABS
CTE IN MICHIGAN: ACCESS AND PARTICIPATIONSome fields are especially relevant to Michigan’s continuedeconomic recovery following the Great Recession. LEO hasargued that convincing high school students to pursuecareers in the skilled and professional trades is vital asmore Baby Boomers retire.xii Over 500,000 skilled tradesjobs are expected through 2026, primarily in construction,manufacturing, healthcare, automotive technology, andinformation technology.Of the five Career Clusters that produce the mostCompleters, two are related to these high-demand fields:Health Science and Information Technology (see Table 1).With 5,458 completers among the expected Class of 2018,Health Science actually ranks as the highest among allclusters. Information Technology has produced the fourthhighest number of completers with 2,731. On the otherhand, Marketing and Business, fields the state has notidentified as likely to spur job growth, produce the secondand third-most completers (4,256 and 3,319, respectively).The three other “high-demand” fields – Construction,Transportation, and Manufacturing – have each producedsimilar numbers that rank near the middle of the packamong all clusters.The number of students who complete a program is drivenby both the number who participate and the fraction ofparticipants who go on to complete. For this reason, it isimportant to consider both completion and participationrates when identifying ways to increase the number ofcompleters in high-demand fields. While Health Scienceexcels in both respects, the remaining four high-demandclusters would seem to require varying approaches. Table1 shows that although Manufacturing and Constructionexhibit decent completion rates, they have relatively lowrates of participation. Conversely, Information Technologyand Transportation are popular programs but turn onlyone out of every three participating students into acompleter.A couple of important caveats apply here. First, failingto complete a program is not necessarily an undesirableoutcome. By trying a program, students may learn abouttheir level of interest and comparative advantages in agiven profession. Discovering that they ultimately wishto pursue a different path can be instructive. Second, asstated above, we have yet to rigorously study CTE’s effectson employment outcomes. The relationships we highlighthere ar
there were 52 state-recognized Programs of Study. All CTE programs in Michigan are organized around 16 federally recognized Career Clusters plus one in energy that the State petitioned to add. Although CTE is commonly conflated with traditional “vocational education” and therefore assumed to only involve the skilled trades, CTE
2 Mission, Vision and Purpose of Career and Technical Education Mission: To empower all students to be successful citizens, workers and leaders in a global economy. Vision: When students participate in Career and Technical Education as an integral part of the total school experience, and when parents recognize that Career and Technical Education impacts achievement of educational and career .
Advance CTE Common Career Technical Core - Career Ready Practices . The Common Career Technical Core (CCTC) is a state-led initiative to establish a set of rigorous, high-quality standards for Career Technical Education (CTE). The CCTC includes a set of standards for each Career Cluster and corresponding Career Pathways that define what
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT Knowledge Skill Opportunity . NEW YORK STATE CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION . GUIDELINES FOR CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION ADMINISTRATORS AND SCHOOL COUNSELORS . June 2020 EDITION . The University of the State of New York/The State Education Department Office of Career and Technical Education Albany, New York 12234
This manual is designed to assist school districts to meet data reporting requirements for career and technical education (CTE) programs as they access career and technical education levy revenue. Minnesota Statutes, section 124D.4531 governs the career and technical education levy. Minnesota Statutes, section 124D.4531 Career and Technical Revenue
of Education, Office of Career and Technical Education) is for the Career and Technical Education Administrator and includes information targeted for use by those filling this role. This manual does not contain all-encompassing information, rather it provides a summary of aspects of career and technical education that will assist an administrator.
Career Clusters . Career Clusters are broad occupational groupings based on a set of common knowledge and skills required for a specific career. Career Clusters provide opportunities for all students regardless of their career goals and interests. Career Pathways . Career Pathways are a sub-grouping of occupations and career specialties used .
improve career education in government schools and make it easier for students to make better career and pathway decisions and meet industry needs by: 1. Starting career education earlier 2. Connecting career education to work 3. Making career education a priority in schools. Context: - Feedback from student leaders and research reports
address the 16 Career Clusters included in the national Career Clusters Framework*: . Framework, which includes Career Clusters and educator- and industry-defined Career Pathways, at the Advance CTE website, careertech.org. Imagine Edgenuity Career and Technical Education Page 2 . PowerPoint 2016 (MOS Exam 77 .
