The mission of the nation’s career- and technical-education programs must change so that more students can earn a postsecondary credential or an industry-recognized certification rather than just a high-school diploma, the U.S. education secretary said on Tuesday.
In remarks during the joint spring meeting here of the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium and the federal Office of Vocational and Adult Education, the secretary, Arne Duncan, also said that career- and technical-education advocates must make a compelling case for continued federal financial support by showing improved student outcomes.
Mr. Duncan’s speech comes less than a week after Congress approved a budget bill that cut roughly $138-million from the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act, including the elimination of the Tech-Prep program and $35-million in reductions to state career- and technical-education grants.
He told the large crowd to expect more cuts in the Perkins Act for the 2012 fiscal year.
“I understand that these cuts will be hard for your programs,” he said. “And it was a difficult choice for us to make.”
Career- and technical-education programs serve a variety of learners, including high school students and prison inmates. Programs may be housed at community colleges, technology centers, and high schools. There are more than 15 million secondary and postsecondary career- and technical-education students in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
President Obama has urged every American to get at least a year of higher education or postsecondary career training. In effect, Mr. Duncan said, the president wants every American to earn a minimum of two pieces of paper—a high-school diploma, and a degree or industry-recognized certification.
“In the years ahead, young adults are likely to need those two credentials to secure a good job,” he said.
To that end, Mr. Duncan said, career- and technical-education programs must not only be rigorous and relevant but also provide an opportunity for students to be college-ready by offering them advanced courses.
Some state directors took exception to Mr. Duncan’s assertion that career- and technical-education programs are not producing results.
Phil Berkenbile, president of the board of directors of the state directors consortium, said that his association analyzed data that found that career- and technical-education students graduate and transition to postsecondary education at higher rates than other students.
He asked Mr. Duncan to reconcile the association’s data with his own.
“CTE is a tremendous force for good, but the honest answer is that those kinds of outcomes aren’t always the norm,” he said.
Mr. Duncan said programs that deliver results would continue to thrive, while others would have a difficult time maintaining their support. He said advocates of career- and technical-education programs needed to make a convincing argument for federal dollars. The Education Department, Mr. Duncan said, should be able to look at every program in each state and know how many students graduate from high school and transition successfully into and complete at least one year of postsecondary education or training.
“If a program cannot deliver these outcomes or provide these data, then we should retool it,” he said.