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

Under Title IIIE of the Perkins Act, federal funds are distributed to states, which then award grants for planning and implementation to consortia of local secondary educational agencies and postsecondary institutions to plan and operate Tech-Prep programs. The U.S. Congress appropriated $63.4 million to support development of Tech-Prep programs in fiscal year (FY) 1992, an additional $90 million for use in FY 1993, and $103.7 million for use in FY 1994.

The Perkins Act also requires an evaluation of Tech-Prep. In October 1992, the U.S. Department of Education contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR) to conduct a national Evaluation of the Tech-Prep Education Program. The evaluation has two objectives. First, it is designed to describe the development of Tech-Prep nationwide--the number of programs, their characteristics, the institutions involved and populations served, and planning and implementation activities. Its second objective is to identify effective practices among a limited number of local programs and measure the progress of Tech-Prep students at those selected sites. The five-year evaluation has three data collection components--a survey of state-level Tech-Prep coordinators in the fall of 1993 and 1996, a four-year annual survey of local Tech-Prep consortia beginning in the fall of 1993, and in-depth studies of ten selected local programs over the same four years.

This report draws primarily on the first surveys of state and local coordinators.² It also relies to some extent for interpretation of survey data on insights from the first round of visits to in-depth study sites. The report describes nine aspects of Tech-Prep program development--the state role in promoting Tech-Prep; the local setting of Tech-Prep programs; the organization, leadership, and resources of local consortia; definitions of Tech-Prep at the local level; the extent of reported student participation in Tech-Prep; the school and workplace content of local programs; approaches to staff development and program promotion; reported student outcomes; and local efforts to evaluate Tech-Prep.

The survey data provide a rich description of the progress of Tech-Prep implementation, but the following salient findings should be highlighted:

1. Tech-Prep consortia already have the potential to affect a high proportion of American high school students. More than 800 consortia were funded by Title IIIE for FY 1993, and they included 5,328 school districts. These "Tech-Prep districts" represent almost half of all school districts in the United States, and they include more than 60 percent of all secondary students.

2. So far only a very small fraction of students in consortium districts are actually counted as participating in Tech-Prep. More than 172,000 students were reported as participating in Tech-Prep in school year 1992-93. They represent an estimated 2-5 percent of all secondary students in consortium districts. This rate will likely grow as more consortia progress from the planning to the implementation stage.

3. Tech-Prep programs may take several years to incorporate all planned features, and many features are only gradually introduced into local consortia. For example, consortia that received funding earliest are more likely to have defined a required core program of Tech-Prep activities, begun using career clusters as a way to guide student course taking and making workplace experiences available, developed new curricula, and defined what it means to participate in Tech-Prep. Even when such features are developed, they may appear at first in only some of the school districts in a consortium. For example, definitions of what constitutes Tech-Prep participation and the capacity to report on participation develop gradually; although 36 percent of consortia could report some information about student participation, the data they reported pertained to only 17 percent of consortium districts.

4. Tech-Prep changes are so far more evident at the secondary than the postsecondary level. Postsecondary partners often play key leadership roles in Tech-Prep, but changes in postsecondary programs are less clear. Far fewer postsecondary than secondary schools are introducing new applied academic or occupational/technical curricula. Articulation agreements are often reported to involve revision of postsecondary courses, but evidence from the in-depth study sites suggests that articulation affects secondary courses much more often than postsecondary curriculum offerings, at least in the early program years. Promotion of cooperation between secondary and postsecondary partners continues to be identified as a primary staff development issue.

5. Reporting on Tech-Prep students is so far quite limited. In fall 1993 only about a third of consortia could report numbers of students considered in Tech-Prep in the previous year; far fewer could report on high school graduation and postsecondary activities of Tech-Prep students. Several factors explain this. Some consortia are still in the planning stage. Many have not yet defined how they would identify a "Tech-Prep student," much less enrolled students who fit the definition. Some consortia have defined participation but lack the resources or leverage to collect the data from consortium members. Finally, some consortia have defined their Tech-Prep programs in ways that make it difficult to define who is a Tech-Prep student and to count participants.

6. Urban areas may be underserved by Tech-Prep. Although urban consortia have the potential to serve many students, so far they have low rates of reported participation in Tech-Prep. In urban consortia that can report on participation, only 1 percent of high school students participate in Tech-Prep, compared with about 6 percent and 11 percent in suburban and rural Tech-Prep consortia, respectively.

7. Tech-Prep has laid some of the groundwork for transformation to school-to-work systems. Tech-Prep has, in accord with the Title IIIE legislation, focused most heavily on school components. Consortia are implementing school-based features of school-to-work systems--choice of a career major, use of career clusters, linking of secondary and postsecondary education, articulation agreements, integration of academic and occupational learning, and various forms of career awareness and career exploration activities. Tech-Prep consortia have emphasized employment more as an outcome than as part of the program experience, and have paid relatively little attention to structured work-based learning. However, interest in work-based learning as a Tech-Prep component has grown, in part as a result of expected federal support under the recent School-to-Work Opportunities Act. More than 150 of the 702 consortia that responded to the survey said they require some kind of workplace experience for Tech-Prep students, and about another 200 consortia make them available. Most workplace opportunities are low-intensity experiences such as workplace visits, but some are more intensive activities such as paid youth apprenticeship or cooperative education placements.

² All 812 Tech-Prep consortia that received Title IIIE funds for school year 1992-93 were included in the local survey sample, and 86 percent responded. The state survey included all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. All but one state coordinator responded.
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[Acknowledgments]

[The State Role in Promoting Tech-Prep]