CAREER TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND THE COLLEGE COMPLETION AGENDA

Traditional outcome measures used in community colleges fall well short of providing educators and state lawmakers with meaningful information about how well CTE programs are meeting workforce needs and how successful students are in meeting their CTE goals. Institutional graduation rates carry more meaning for the liberal arts mission than for CTE, where it is program performance that matters to students for employment and to communities for workforce development. Yet strong programmatic accountability is uncommon across the country. Completion rates by program require accurate data on the specific program in which each CTE student is enrolled - data that are not always collected and certainly are hard to keep up to date when students change direction. A major challenge in accounting for outcomes is that completion of a credential is not a sufficient indicator of success, as the more important outcome for students is a job or a wage gain. Accounting for labor market outcomes of CTE completers involves linkages with other agency data systems that can be problematic to implement. Further complicating accountability for CTE outcomes is the complexity of certificates, which vary greatly in length and workplace value. Additionally, many students do not seek college credentials, needing only some coursework, perhaps to prepare them to pass an industry certification or merely to learn a skill that will help them find a job or advance in their careers. Finally, much of the noncredit workforce instruction occurs through other delivery systems or mechanisms and is not reflected in college accountability reporting. Accounting for the outcomes of CTE is, therefore, a work in progress across the country. In California, accountability for CTE is not programmatic, consists primarily of counts and activities, rather than rates and outcomes, and does not reflect meaningful linkage with labor market outcomes data.