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

The State Role in Promoting Tech-Prep

The sole state agency plays the major role in Tech-Prep development. Most sole state agencies take primary responsibility for most aspects of Tech-Prep administration. For example, in 41 states, this agency takes the lead in soliciting consortium grant applications, reviewing applications, and awarding grants. However, in some states (California, Georgia, Hawaii, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin), an agency other than the sole state agency appears to be leading or sharing lead responsibility for state-level Tech-Prep efforts. In five states, the sole state agency has no role or plays only a supporting role in soliciting and reviewing grant applications or awarding funds, instead delegating these responsibilities to another agency. Most states, however, involve multiple agencies in Tech-Prep.

State departments of education play the primary role in administering Tech-Prep in most (33) states. In six states, an agency responsible for postsecondary education, such as the state technical college system or board for community and technical colleges, was designated as the sole state agency. In the remaining 13 states this agency was a board, division, or commission of vocational, technical, and/or adult education.

States retain modest amounts of Title IIIE funds to cover state-level Tech-Prep administration and support. Although states are required to make grants to local consortia, they can retain some Title IIIE funds for use at the state level for administration, technical assistance, and other functions. In 30 states the sole state agency retained some funds in FY 1993 for its own use or for distribution to other state agencies--in 24 of these states, less than 10 percent of the total amount available. Two states retained more than 25 percent of the Title IIIE funds available.

Some states apply their own funds or other federal funds to support Tech-Prep development. Twelve states designated an average of $1,440,043 in state funds for Tech-Prep, and seven of them used state funds to make grants to additional local consortia or to supplement consortium grants supported by Title IIIE funds. Six states allocated funds specifically for Tech-Prep from other Perkins Act funding or non-Perkins federal programs.

Patterns of grants to local consortia suggest that Tech-Prep is expanding. Most states award grants specifically for planning, implementation, and/or demonstration. Although many consortia received funding for planning activities in FY 1993, almost the same number of planning grants were awarded in FY 1994 as in FY 1993. Since most planning grants are awarded for one year, FY 1994 planning grant awards most likely are to new consortia, rather than to those that had already received grants in previous years.

Many states are providing guidance to local consortia on Tech-Prep implementation, but only about a third have attempted to achieve statewide consistency in defining which students are considered to be Tech-Prep participants. By fall 1993, 18 states had formally adopted definitions of the goals and features of Tech-Prep, and another 27 states were working on draft definitions. States typically prescribe to local consortia the important elements of Tech-Prep; for example, about 30-35 states prescribe the target population for Tech-Prep, approaches to articulation agreements, curriculum development objectives, and how business should be involved. Almost all states provide a variety of forms of technical assistance to local consortia. However, only 18 states have a definition of what constitutes participation in Tech-Prep and require consortia to use it when reporting on Tech-Prep enrollment.

Most states monitor and collect information on Tech-Prep implementation, but few states actually have statewide databases to track participation and outcomes for Tech-Prep students. Fifty-one states had established requirements for consortia to report their progress, and most of these required consortia to report on specific topics, such as use of grant funds, staff development activity, changes in the program plan, consortium membership, and planning activities. Fewer states require consortia to report on student participation and outcomes; 34 reported that they require consortia to report the number of Tech-Prep students, and 28 require some kind of outcome data--most commonly secondary-school program completion (23 states), postsecondary program enrollment (23), postsecondary program completion (20) and students' academic skills (17). Despite these state reporting requirements, relatively few local consortia could provide counts of Tech-Prep participants and their outcomes for the national Tech-Prep survey in fall 1993. It is not surprising, therefore, that at this point only nine states reported that they were already implementing a statewide computerized database on Tech-Prep students, and that only six states reported they were testing such a database.
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[Executive Summary]

[The Setting for Local Tech-Prep Programs]