A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

The Emergence of Tech-Prep at the State and Local Levels - 1995

Potential Student Involvement in Tech-Prep

Although the number of consortia with Title IIIE funding is one indicator of the potential influence of Tech-Prep in a state, a better measure is the proportion of students who might be affected by these initiatives. Some states awarding small numbers of Title IIIE grants relative to their secondary enrollments may be disbursing the grants to consortia that include many districts and, therefore, many students. Only by considering both the number of consortia and their size (primarily the number of districts involved) can we project how many students might benefit from Tech-Prep, if it were fully implemented in every school in every district of each consortium.

To estimate the extent of potential participation in Tech-Prep, we calculated the percentage of the total secondary student population that was included in Tech-Prep districts. A Tech-Prep district is defined as any district included as a member of a consortium receiving a Title IIIE grant.

Close to one-half of all U.S. school districts belong to a Tech-Prep consortium

At the time of the fall 1993 survey, a total of 5,328 districts were members of Tech-Prep consortia. These districts represent 44 percent of the approximately 12,000 secondary districts in the United States. (Some of these districts, it should be noted, were included in more than one Tech-Prep consortium.)

Almost two-thirds of U.S. secondary students are enrolled in a Tech-Prep consortium district

High school enrollment in Tech-Prep districts accounts for approximately 60 percent of all secondary enrollment in the United States. This proportion is similar for 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades separately, as well as for grades 9 through 12 as a whole.

Districts in Tech-Prep consortia are large relative to those not in consortia. Although only 43 percent of districts are members of Tech-Prep consortia, they account for 62 percent of all secondary enrollments. This result is consistent with numbers reported in the recent NAVE study of Tech-Prep (1994), which indicated that large districts are more likely to be involved in Tech-Prep.

Tech-Prep "coverage" varies significantly by state

The percentage of secondary students included in Tech-Prep consortia in each state, based on districts identified by survey respondents, ranges from just over 9 percent to 100 percent (Figure III.4). The extent of this coverage depends, in part, on both the number of grants and the size of the consortia awarded grants. For example, Arizona and Arkansas funded a similar number of consortia for FY 1993--13 and 15, respectively--but the Arkansas consortia have fewer districts, and they include less than 30 percent of the secondary student population in the state, compared with almost 90 percent in Arizona. 

                              FIGURE III.4           PERCENTAGE OF SECONDARY STUDENT POPULATION INCLUDED IN                 RESPONDENT TECH-PREP CONSORTIA, BY STATE  Less Than 30% ------------- Alaska          Iowa             New Hampshire      Vermont Arkansas        Montana          Ohio               Wyoming  30% to 60% ------------- California      Massachusetts    New Jersey         Oregon Florida         Minnesota        New York           Pennsylvania Georgia         Mississippi      North Carolina     South Dakota Kansas          Missouri         North Dakota Kentucky        Nebraska         Oklahoma  61% to 90% ------------- Alabama         Delaware         Michigan           Washington Arizona         Illinois         New Mexico         West Virginia Colorado        Louisiana        Rhode Island       Wisconsin Connecticut     Maine            Virginia  More than 90% ------------- Hawaii          Maryland         Tennessee Idaho           Nevada           Texas Indiana         South Carolina   Utah  SOURCE: Inventory of Local Tech-Prep Planning and Implementation, Fall 1993

In states with a survey response rate of less than 100 percent, student coverage is underestimated. We were not able to identify districts and count students for nonresponding consortia. The estimates for states such as Vermont, in which only four of nine consortia completed a questionnaire, or Oregon, which had only a 35 percent response rate, are therefore particularly inaccurate. Twenty-eight other states had less than a 100 percent response rate, although only 10 had less than an 80 percent response (see Table A.1).

These estimates of Tech-Prep coverage do not in any way represent actual participation. Not all students in a Tech-Prep district are likely to participate in the program, even if it were fully implemented. States, districts, and individual schools vary in their determination of the target group for Tech-Prep, and in how they define who is counted as in a Tech-Prep program. In some districts, only a small proportion of secondary students might be participating in a fully implemented Tech-prep program, whereas in others, Tech-Prep may be designed to include a substantial proportion of the high school population. Many consortia are still planning Tech-Prep or conducting pilot implementation in some schools or districts.

The racial/ethnic distribution of students in Tech-Prep districts is somewhat different from the distribution of the total U.S. secondary school population

Relative to U.S. districts overall, Tech-Prep districts have a lower percentage of white students and higher percentages of African American, Hispanic, and Asian students (Figure III.5). This difference is probably due to the fact that urban districts, with substantial minority populations, are more likely than suburban or rural districts to be in Tech-Prep consortia. The Tech-Prep Education Act specifies that state agencies should give special consideration in awarding Title IIIE grants to consortia that "address effectively the issues of dropout prevention and re-entry and the needs of minority youth." The greater representation of minority youth in Tech-Prep districts may to some extent reflect conscious state decisions in response to this federal guidance. 

                               FIGURE III.5         PERCENTAGE OF SECONDARY STUDENTS IN ALL U.S. DISTRICTS AND                IN TECH-PREP DISTRICTS, BY RACE/ETHNICITY  RACE/ETHINICITY           White ------------------------------->69%                ==========================>59%           Black ------>15%                =========>20%        Hispanic ----->11%                ======>14%           Asian -->4%                ===>6%           Native ->1%       American =>1%                +--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+                0        20       40       60       80       100                             PERCENTAGE OF STUDENTS                ---> All Districts      ===> Tech-Prep Districts  SOURCE: Inventory of Local Tech-Prep Planning and Implementation, Fall 1993; EDINFO

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[Geographic Location and Size Of Tech-Prep Consortia] [Table of Contents] [IV. The Organization, Leadership, and Resources Of Tech-Prep Consortia]