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

Defining Membership in a Consortium

What is a consortium? The Tech-Prep Education Act promotes the formation of a team of one or more secondary districts (regular or vocational) working together with one or more colleges, universities, or proprietary schools that grant two-year degrees or certificates. The close cooperation and working relationships among consortium members that would appear necessary to achieve Tech-Prep objectives might be expected to affect the structure of consortia. Although the legislation does not mandate particular structures, we expected to find secondary districts and postsecondary institutions linked in cohesive and distinct groups--specifically, that each district and college would become part of a single consortium working as a unit to create a locally accessible set of programs linking high school and postsecondary study.

The Tech-Prep legislation, however, offers no definition of "membership" in a consortium, or the extent of participation expected of the institutions that form a consortium. Although the survey asked local consortium coordinators to list institutions and organizations that are "actively involved in planning or implementing aspects of Tech-Prep," coordinators undoubtedly interpreted this guidance differently. For example, some consortia may have counted postsecondary institutions as members only if they have or are developing articulation agreements with member districts. In other consortia, all area postsecondary institutions may be designated members, whatever their level of active involvement.

Data from the fall 1993 survey and informal discussions with some state Tech-Prep coordinators suggest that consortia can be relatively loose groupings of institutions. Such institutional arrangements, explored in more detail in the remainder of this section, may in some ways increase students' educational options but at the same time contribute to difficulties in reporting on student participation and activities in Tech-Prep programs.

Multiple consortia may share members

Some secondary districts belong to more than one consortium. About 530, or 10 percent, of all secondary districts involved in Tech-Prep in 1993 were identified as members of more than one consortium. More than 30 states contained some districts that were counted in at least two consortia. Overlap in consortium membership is relatively common in states that are small geographically, such as Connecticut, or that have a large community college system, such as California. In both situations, school districts, particularly in urban areas, are likely to be in relatively close proximity to, and to develop links, with several postsecondary institutions.

This arrangement is fairly widespread. Approximately 200 consortia across 30 states (28 percent of those responding to the survey) contain districts that are counted as members of at least one other consortium. In most of these consortia, only one district is cited as a member by another consortium. However, the shared districts often represent a significant proportion of the total number of districts identified as members of the consortium, particularly in Alabama, Georgia, New York, North Carolina, and West Virginia. In other states, the overlap of consortia appears to be marginal and represents only a small fraction of the total number of districts in each consortium.

Consortia also share postsecondary institutions. Some secondary districts go outside their consortium to develop articulation agreements with colleges in other consortia. About 4 percent of all consortia report articulation agreements involving more postsecondary institutions than were identified as members of the consortium.1 Twenty percent of consortia have articulated with more postsecondary institutions than their member community colleges. This latter figure may more accurately represent the extent to which consortium districts form links with institutions beyond their member postsecondary partners, since other research suggests that articulation with four-year colleges, proprietary schools, and apprenticeship programs is not widespread.

Discussion with state Tech-Prep coordinators suggests that, in the initial years of Tech-Prep, some colleges worked separately with multiple groups of districts, particularly as districts began Tech-Prep development at different times. However, several state coordinators reported imposing new rules for Tech-Prep funding within the past year that require each postsecondary institution to join only one consortium. In part, states would like to minimize the involvement of postsecondary institutions in multiple consortia because colleges are often the fiscal agent for Tech-Prep grants. This role becomes more complicated if the college must allocate multiple grants to different sets of partners, and must account for its own use of resources under these different funding units.

Working with institutions in other consortia is often useful

Discussions with staff from the in-depth study sites and with state Tech-Prep coordinators suggest that, in many cases, overlap in consortium membership is useful. Some school districts and vocational centers develop articulation agreements with multiple postsecondary institutions, regardless of whether they are all part of a single formal consortium, in order to overcome limitations in the program offerings of any individual community college, thereby offering students a broader choice of postsecondary options. If consortium membership is based primarily on articulation, a district often will join more than one consortium in order to gain access to additional postsecondary partners. Other districts will maintain membership in one consortium, but will develop articulation agreements with postsecondary institutions outside the formal boundaries of the consortium. These diverse patterns underscore the fact that "membership" in a consortium may be defined in quite different ways.

Overlapping consortium membership may complicate efforts to document student participation and outcomes accurately

If consortia are the reporting unit for student outcomes, then inclusion of districts or postsecondary institutions in more than one consortium can lead to inaccurate estimates of Tech-Prep participation. Districts that can identify and count Tech-Prep students but that belong to multiple consortia might report the same enrollment numbers to several consortium coordinators. Community colleges that serve Tech-Prep students from more than one consortium may lack the ability to distinguish accurately between students from the individual consortia, and therefore report the combined total to each consortium coordinator.

Distortions due to such double counting in the estimates from the 1993 survey are probably small, however. Fewer than one-third of the consortia that include districts participating in multiple consortia reported that they were able to count Tech-Prep enrollments. An even smaller proportion (10 percent) could report the number of Tech-Prep high school graduates.

1 The total number of postsecondary institutions in each consortium is the sum of the reported number of community, junior, and technical colleges; four-year colleges or universities; postsecondary proprietary instructions; and postsecondary apprenticeship programs that were identified as consortium members.
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