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

Participation in Tech-Prep Programs

Most consortia had not yet begun to identify and count Tech-Prep participants in school year 1992-93. Only 36 percent could report on participation for that year--just over half of the consortia that reported they had defined what constitutes participation. Three factors so far limit participation reporting. New consortia may still be planning and determining objectives, target population, and program elements. Some consortia coordinators may not have the capacity to collect data on student participation; they may have difficulty assembling participation information from member districts, either because of inadequate data collection resources or lack of cooperation. Finally, consortia in which Tech-Prep components are made broadly available to all students and where students participate to different degrees may have greater difficulty identifying who is a Tech-Prep student than consortia where students make a clear choice of Tech-Prep as a program path.

Patterns of local capacity to report on participation appear to reflect implementation progress. Older consortia are more likely to be able to identify Tech-Prep students; 45 percent of consortia that received their first Title IIIE grant in FY 1992 were able to report Tech-Prep enrollments, compared to only 9 percent of the FY 1993 grantees. Reporting capacity is also uneven within consortia; although 36 percent of consortia nationwide could report on participation, they could do so for only 17 percent of their member districts. This pattern suggests that some consortia are in a pilot phase, concentrating implementation efforts in a few schools or districts, or that some districts have simply progressed more rapidly.

Participation reporting capacity also varies across states. In five states, more than 75 percent of consortia could identify Tech-Prep students; in three of these five, there is a single, statewide consortium. In contrast, none of the consortia in ten other states could report the number of students participating during school year 1992-93. In most states, 25 to 75 percent of consortia were able to measure participation. State policies and implementation practices affect reporting capacity. Ohio, for example, has encouraged consortia to implement programs carefully and fully before counting participants, and none of the 13 Ohio consortia reported participation numbers for the fall 1993 survey. In California, few Title IIIE grants were awarded for FY 1992, so most consortia were still in the planning stages; only one consortium had formulated and applied a definition of participation by the time of the fall 1993 survey. Oregon has mandated a simple statewide definition of participation based on enrollment in any articulated vocational course; this strategy probably explains in part why more than half of the consortia in Oregon were able to report the number of Tech-Prep participants.

Identified Tech-Prep students are still a small proportion--less than 5 percent--of the secondary school population in consortium districts. A total of 172,882 students participated in Tech-Prep programs during the 1992-1993 school year. (Although the federal legislation focused on promoting Tech-Prep beginning in grade 11, reported Tech-Prep participation is spread quite evenly across grades 9-12.) This total was reported by the 250 consortia that were able to identify and count Tech-Prep participants during that year. In these consortia, Tech-Prep students represented 4.7 percent of all secondary students in their districts. Some consortia that did not report on participation may simply have been unable to assemble the requested data. However, the 4.7 percent must still be regarded as an upper bound estimate of the national proportion of all secondary students in consortia districts who were involved in Tech-Prep, since consortia that did not report on participation probably had students involved in Tech-Prep at lower rates. A conservative estimate of participation can be based on the assumption that consortia that did not report on participation had not yet begun to identify and count Tech-Prep students; under this assumption, Tech-Prep students would represent somewhat less than two percent of all secondary students in districts that are part of Tech-Prep consortia.

Tech-Prep students are distributed unevenly across the nation--concentrated in the South and in suburban areas. The Southern census region accounted for 62 percent of all reported Tech-Prep students in school year 1992-93, but only 46 percent of all consortia and 35 percent of all secondary students in the United States. The Northeast accounted for about 7 percent of reported Tech-Prep participants, and the Midwest and West for about 16 percent each. Suburban consortia reported 68 percent of all Tech-Prep students, while accounting for 46 percent of all consortia. Urban consortia represent 12 percent of all consortia but reported 7 percent of the total number of participants. Rural consortia accounted for about 25 percent of Tech-Prep students, but 42 percent of all consortia.

Urban areas may be underserved by Tech-Prep. Although urban school districts are very likely to be included in Tech-Prep consortia, urban consortia so far report relatively fewer Tech-Prep students than suburban and rural consortia. Among consortia that reported on participation, those located primarily in urban areas reported that only one percent of high school students participated in Tech-Prep, compared with about six percent and 11 percent in suburban and rural areas, respectively.

The racial/ethnic composition of the Tech-Prep student population differs somewhat from that of the overall student population in their school districts. Tech-Prep students are more likely to be white, and less likely to be members of a minority group. This difference is largely due to the relatively low rate at which students are reported to be participating in Tech-Prep in large urban areas that have large minority student populations.
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[Defining Tech-Prep]

[The School and Workplace Content of Tech-Prep Programs]