- Email: [email protected]
National Assessment of Vocational Education
Economics
of Education
Review,
0272-7757189 $3.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Press plc
Vol. 8, NO.4, pp. 383-392.1989
Printed in Great Britain.
National Assessment Testimony
of Vocational Education
before the House Education and Labour Committee March 7, 1989* by JOHN
LANA U.S. Department
MURASKIN,
G.
Director and DAVID
WIRT,
ROBERT
MEYER
GOODWIN
of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20202, U.S.A.
YOU very much for giving us the opportunity to present the findings and recommendations of the National Assessment of Vocational Education (NAVE). As you know, the National Assessment was requested by the Congress in the Perkins Act. For the past 21/2 years, the NAVE has been conducting studies of participation in and the outcomes of vocational education at secondary and postsecondary levels. It has also been examining the implementation of the Perkins Act at federal, state, and local levels. From these studies we have concluded that while the Act’s goals of increasing both “special population” access to high-quality vocational education and overall program improvement are important, there have been serious problems in implementing those goals. Equally important, however, our broad studies of vocational participation and have led us to conclude that the access and improvement needs of secondary and postsecondary vocational education are different and demand different solutions. In this testimony, I will (a) examine, briefly, the role of the Perkins Act in targeting resources and addressing the goals of the legislation; (b) outline our most important findings about participation in and the outcomes of secondary and postsecondary voational education; and (c) lay out a proposal for federal policy in each sector that we believe will focus federal support on a few important goals, stimulate reform in vocational practice, build the THANK
capacity of states to provide leadership, establish accountability through performance measures, and enable vocational education to serve effectively those students most at risk. Our discussion of findings and recommendations, while intentionally brief, will be expanded in our final report and subsequent technical reports. In the approach to reform described, the federal government will be called upon to play a major role. It will assist the states in developing appropriate and fair measures of program success. It will also undertake and evaluate demonstration programs (in areas such as applied learning and secondary-postsecondary program coordination), help states design performance standards and reward systems, and provide technical assistance as they implement new programs and performance measures. I.
POLICY
IMPLEMENTATION PERKINS ACT
THE
The Perkins Act has noble goals to expand access to quality vocational education for at risk populations and improve the quality of programs generally, but the regulatory and implementation process has done little to translate those goals into effective programs and services. In some cases, interpretation has undercut congressional intent and weakened important safeguards. In other cases, implementation has taken place but has failed to accomplish
*This testimony reflects the views of the National Assessment of Vocational represent the views of the Department of Education. [Manuscript received 15 March 1989; revision accepted for publication 20 April
383
UNDER
Education. 1989.1
It does
not necessarily
384 the
Economics
Act’s
examples
goals.
In two
of regulatory
of the
most
of Education
significant
problems:
Certain regulatory interpretations have weakened important statutory provisions. For example, although the Perkins Act guarantees handicapped and disadvantaged students equal access to “the full range” of vocational programs and services, through regulation this guarantee has been limited to activities supported with federal funds. In another example, the statutory prohibition on supplanting state and local with federal funds has been rendered ineffective through the lack of any regulatory interpretation. States have been allowed to use funds distribution methods that result in widely varying allotments among different educational levels and classes of institutions. Congress specified that setaside funds for handicapped and disadvantaged students should be distributed among grantees according to a federally-specified formula based on the grantee’s economic disadvantage and the numbers of such special population students served. States have been allowed to decide for themselves, however. to apportion such funds between the secondary and postsecondary levels and between local education agencies (LEAS) and area vocational schools before applying the statutory intrastate distribution formulas. Other problems arise from differences in the ways in which funds are distributed to postsecondary institutions and LEAS. as well as targeted to students. On average, about 60% of federal resources flow to secondary and about 40% to postsecondary education, but there are widely different secondaryipostsecondary ratios among the states. Those ratios appear to be the result of historical political agreements rather than drawn from state priorities for such concerns as serving “at risk” students or bringing about vocational reform. Among our major findings: When a set of institutions is administered directly by a state office responsible for Perkins administration, funds tend to jlow disproportionately to that set of institutions. In the most common example, when a State Education Agency is directly responsible for the administration of area vocational schools (secondary and/or postsecondary) federal funds tend to flow to that set of institutions at rates considerably higher than their percentages of overall vocational enrollments. Nationally, separate area vocational school districts receive a disproportionate share of the federal funds that flow to secondary vocational education. These districts receive about 30% of the funds that flow to
Review
secondary education. All area vocational schools (of which separate districts are only a part) account, however, for only about 9% of the vocational credits earned at the secondary level. Further, high schools whose students have the lowest socio-economic status are least likely to be linked to area vocational facilities. The intrastate formula for the handicapped and disadvantaged setasides introduced by the Perkins Act did not change the amount of funds for school districts with high poverty rates. Between 1981 and 1986, regular school districts with the highest poverty rates received roughly the same shares of resources. They received slightly more of the funds than they would have received on a purely per capita basis, but considerably less than if poverty were the sole criteria for the distribution of Perkins funds. Presented with insufficient federal guidance, states and localities do little to “target” federal resources to students with greatest needs. The statute definitions of “disadvantaged” and ‘*vocational” student are too broad and elastic to delimit a target group in any meaningful sense. Federal regulations provide no guidance as to service priorities (e.g. concentrating funds or serving those in greatest need first). States occasionally introduce minimum grants or require pooling of handicapped and disadvantaged setasides but do little to set priorities for which students should be served. Districts and institutions have no systematic means for deciding (and often cannot even provide an accurate count of) which, among the many students meeting the Act’s definitions, should be or are served. Most grants to school districts are too small to carry out any substantial activity. Grants to area school districts and postsecondary institutions are larger. The median award to a school district is $7,900. About 63% receive grants, but most very small districts do not. Three-quarters of all school district awards are $25,000 or less. The median award to an area school
district is $91.300 and the median postsecondary institution is $92.400.
award
to a
Finally, although many local administrators and practitioners are dedicated to assisting at-risk students and improving vocational offerings, our conclusions about the appropriateness of the uses of federal
funds
are
quite
mixed.
The Perkins Act appears to have played a role in increasing the amount of assessment offered to handicapped and disadvantaged students. School districts that received funds under these setasides were more likely than those that did not to receive funds to offer vocational assessments to all or most handicapped and disadvantaged students.
National Assessment of Vocational Education There remain problems, however, in linking services supported under the Act to improvement in the access of students IO high qualify vocational offerings. For example, assessments do little to determine or upgrade the vocational programs in which secondary students enroll. Furthermore, there are even problems in linking Perkins-aided academic remediation to vocational instruction. There is also reason to believe that funds are used for activities that are ongoing and expensive, i.e. those already incurring excess costs. Without a strong nonsupplanting provision, Perkins funds may be attributed to these activities without really increasing the amount of service. The adult setaside appears to be used for the general support of adult vocational offerings of school districts, area schools and postsecondary institutions. It is often impossible for local personnel to identify the services that were provided with federal funds. Most grants designed to promote sex equity are too small IO carry out any but the most marginal activities. The median grant to a school district is $3,600 and three quarters of awards are $9,400 or less. Area schools report median grants of $8,120, also quite low. Although there is a strong relationship between receiving federal funds and mounting any activities aimed at promoting sex equity in vocational education, local officials report small, marginal activities. At the secondary and postsecondary levels, the Perkins program improvement funds are used primarily as general aid to purchase equipment. While some such purchases are related to the introduction of a new or innovative program, many are routine replacement and updating. Some grantees view program improvement funds as “federal equipment money” and have little understanding of the broad goal of program improvement. Federal rules that allow all equipment considered improvement undoubtedly this use. To
solve
provisions services,
the and
funds
problems safeguards, substitution,
purchases to be contribute to
of enforcement
of
targeting,
peripheral
and
the
like
under
legal the
would require: (1) an effective nonsupplanting provision in law or regulation, (2) a linkage between additional services for special populations and upgraded offerings or better access, (3) minimum grants and fewer recipients, (4) student targeting provisions that required services to be provided to those with the greatest need, and (5) limiting the amount of federal funds for equipment and the conditions under which such purchases could be made. We note that Congress has not been inclined to impose more rigorous requirements in existing
legal
framework
385
the past, in part because the federal funds are a small percentage of total vocational outlays. Unless some action is taken, however, the current strategies will not have their intended effects. In the next section we propose alternative ways to achieve the goals of federal legislation while building the willingness and capacity of states and localities to carry out those goals now and in the future. II. REFORM
OF SECONDARY VOCATIONAL EDUCATION: FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
First I will summarize briefly our principal findings concerning participation in and the outcomes of secondary vocational education. As you will see, our research findings indicate the need for a massive upgrading in the quality of secondary vocational education, comparable in scope to the recent and ongoing reforms of academic education. So far, the reform movement in education has largely bypassed vocational education. Nonetheless, our research has identified areas in which vocational education shows great promise, both in terms of its capacity to contribute substantially to economic development and to the development and augmentation of fundamental academic skills. Based on this new evidence, we suggest that the reform of secondary vocational education should be based on a small number of focused objectives, which I will describe. To carry out those objectives, I will outline a possible federal strategy designed to stimulate reform in secondary vocational education that: builds state capacity to upgrade and monitor vocational education ensures that adequate support will be provided to at-risk students so that they can succeed in the best, most challenging vocational programs expands the role of the federal government as a leader and support mechanism for upgrading vocational education. A. Research Findings The NAVE conducted an extensive analysis of nationally representative samples of high school transcripts for the classes of 1982 and 1987. These data provide rich, new insights into the structure of vocational education. Turning first to the class of 1982, we find that:
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Vocational education is a much larger share of the secondary school curriculum than had been realized prior to our research. Ninety-seven percent of all 1982 high school graduates enrolled in at least some vocational education in grades 9-12. Moreover, vocational education accounted for more than a quarter of all course work taken during the last 2 years of high school compared to 8.5% for mathematics and 18% for English courses. Given the large proportion of vocational education in the curriculum, the potential benefits of improving it are obvious. Enrollments in vocational education among noncollege-bound youth are particularly large. In 1982, non-college-bound youth took about 37% of their 11th and 12th grade course work in vocational education, compared to only 5% in mathematics. Thus, efforts to upgrade secondary vocational education are particularly important for this segment of the population and, by extension, at-risk youth. Almost half of all vocational credits are taken by college-bound students; another quarter of credits are taken by students planning to obtain postsecondary vocationalltechnical training. For the class of 1982, only a quarter of all enrollments are taken by students who plan to work full time after leaving high school. Thus, the extent to which secondary and postsecondary vocational education are complementary and mutually coherent is very important. Non-college-bound students-the largest consumers of vocational education - took only 0.4 credits less in the “new basics” for each additional credit taken in vocational education. In the debate over the relative merits of secondary academic and vocational education it has been assumed that there is a direct tradeoff between enrollments in vocational and academic courses. In the 1982 data we found that students “financed” their additional vocational course work, in large part by taking additional course work overall. rather than skimping on math, science, English, social studies, history, or foreign language.
Our next set of findings concern changes in course-taking patterns between 1982 and 1987, a period that has seen increases in state and local graduation requirements.
Total contact hours in vocational education delivered by schools fell substantiallv, however, because the total number of students graduating from high school dropped considerably between 1982 and 1987. The total credit hours of vocational education taught in school declined by 9.7%, due to a 6.8% decline in the student population.
Therefore, total enrollments in vocational education fell between 1982 and 1987, but primarily for demographic reasons and not because of the academic reform movement. Vocational education may be affected by academic reform in the future, however, since increased graduation requirements had not yet gone into effect in many school districts for the class of 1987. We have also found that the quality of vocational education available to students in poor schools is significantly lower than that available to students in more affluent communities. Students in schools in the lowest quartile, as measured by average family income, student academic ability, and socio-economit status, are half as likely to have access to an area vocational center as other students. They are also in schools with less than half the total number of vocational courses and less than half the number of advanced vocational courses. At the same time, these students take much more vocational education on average than students in other schools (5.50 credits as compared with 3.24 credits in the top quartile) and fewer academic credits (11.34 credits as compared with 15.63 credits). Our final set of findings addresses the outcomes of secondary vocational education. Our findings about the contribution of vocational education to youth earnings pertain to students who work after they leave high school and do not obtain postsecondary training. We find that:
Graduates of the high school class of 1987 took a total of nearly two more credits on average than graduates in the class of 1982. Nearly all of this increase was in academic credits, which increased by about 12.2% from 14.46% to 16.22%.
Students who complete a coherent sequence of vocational course work and obtain good jobs earn considerably more than comparable youth with less vocational training. A good job is one that demands a significant core of vocational and academic competencies. Moreover, the positive effects of vocational training are particularly strong for women.
Students who graduated in I987 took nearly the same average amount of vocational education as students who graduated in 1982. There was a very small decline from an average of 4.38 credits in 1982 to 4.24 credits in 1987, or 3.1%.
However, considerably fewer than half of all students obtain good jobs that are related to their vocational training. The students who do not get good jobs fail to reap the strong potential benefits of secondary vocational education.
National Assessment of Vocational Education Most secondary vocational courses are now ‘pitched” at an instructional level that provides no reinforcement or further development of basic mathematics skills. This is particularly unfortunate since non-collegebound youth, particularly at-risk youth, take very few math courses during the last two years of high schools. It is also unfortunate because the best jobs in our economy often demand proficiency in mathematics as well as in communications and problem solving. Despite the poor performance of most vocational education in raising academic skills, our research strongly suggests that it is possible to upgrade the academic rigor of secondary vocational education so that it could make a significant contribution to academic skill development. Our optimism is based on the following findings:
For lower-ability students, related vocational courses
a select group of math-
currently contributes a substantial amount to the development of mathematics skills. However, these courses represent only about 18% of the vocational curriculum. A group of math-intensive vocational courses such as business math and vocational math produce gains in math achievement that rival traditional mathematics courses. Moreover, these courses are productive for
students with high as well as low ability. These results strongly suggest the potential of expanding the mathematics content of these and other vocational courses. In our field research we visited a number of schools that are attempting to integrate vocational and academic education. These schools are in the process of developing programs of “applied learning” where the academic content of vocational education is being expanded and the content of both academic and vocational courses are taught in alignment - where academic and vocational learning reinforce each other. Bridging the gap that exists in education between academic and vocational teachers has been found to be one of the most important factors contributing to the success of these efforts. Staff development, time, and some extra resources are also required. Too few of these innovative efforts have been rigorously evaluated, however, to come to any firm conclusions about their educational effects. B. Specific Objectives Vocational Education The research findings
for Reform
of Secondary
summarized
above
suggest
387
to us the need both to upgrade secondary vocational education and to guarantee access to high quality vocational education for at-risk students. We believe that these twin goals, which motivate the Perkins Act as well, should be pursued through the following objectives. 1. Upgrade the skill level of vocational courses, including specific job skills and transferable academic skills such as mathematics, communications, and problem solving. 2. Integrate high school academic and vocational curricula so that: (a) students come to vocational programs well equipped with fundamental academic skills and (b) vocational courses provide an applied context based on broad and specific job training that reinforces and enhances academic skills and motivates students to excel in both academic and vocational courses. 3. Accelerate the education of at-risk students by providing these students with the extra assistance to succeed in the demanding and highly rewarding vocational courses. 4.
Aggressively improve the students in finding good jobs.
assistance
provided
to
5. Act to improve the linkages between secondary and postsecondary training so that the training is highly complementary for the majority of students who obtain training at both levels.
C. The Federal Role To pursue these specific objectives successfully, vocational education will need the full support of parents, schools, state education officials, state legislatures, governors, employers, and the federal government. As in the case of the academic reform movement, upgrading vocational education must stand on the efforts of states and localities. The federal government, however, can be instrumental in spurring and aiding this reform. We propose a possible federal role that includes the following three components. 1. Work with the states to develop vocational reform plans for upgrading their secondary vocational education systems. The elements of the state plans would reflect the specific reform objectives just discussed. The plans would be developed by the states with the assistance of an expanded federal office. Our proposal relies heavily on states as the primary agents in reforming secondary vocational education. States are clearly the ultimate authority for public education. As we have learned from our implementation research and that of others, without a shared state and federal commit-
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ment to reforming vocational education, the federal resources are likely to have little real impact. 2. Help establish and support an extensive system of performance measures, which will permit states to monitor the pace of improvement in vocational education, much as they are now monitoring improvement in academic instruction. Our review of ongoing state reforms in education indicates that reliable measures of school performance are instrumental in fueling the public demand for serious program improvement. 3. Concentrate the remaining federal resources on implementing state plans for reforming secondary vocational education in a limited number of sites in all states. These sites would be selected by the states to include localities with the largest concentration of at-risk students and with the lowest quality vocational programs. The need for large-scale upgrading of secondary vocational education is clearly the most pressing in those school districts. We expect that these sites would demonstrate the potential of vigorous reform efforts, as set out in state vocational reform plans. 4. Implement a strong non-supplanting provision that applies to the sites that receive federal support. In large part, the success of our proposal depends on the quality of state vocational reform plans developed by states with the support of the federal government. Reliable performance measures will serve as both an incentive for developing serious reform plans and as a yardstick for measuring the progress of these reform initiatives. Based on the specific reform objectives discussed earlier, we believe that state vocational reform plans should include the following types of activities: (1) Upgrade the content of vocational courses to emphasize more advanced broad and specific job skills and transferrable academic skills. (2) Align and integrate high school academic and vocational education. This could include developing new applied learning courses that integrate instruction in academic and vocational skills and requiring students in well-defined vocational programs to achieve mastery of both specific job-skills and core academic skills. As mentioned earlier, our research suggests that secondary vocational education has the potential to make an important contribution to the development of students’ academic skills. (3) Increase the placement of high school students in jobs that fully tap the skills acquired in high school. Such activities could include creation or
enlargement of job placement centers in high schools, increased contacts between vocational teachers and employers, and organizational arrangements with local employers. where part of the responsibility for linking high school students with good jobs should lie. (4) Increase the continuity of vocational training between secondary and postsecondary institutions by working with representatives from postsecondary education. Such plans could include financial incentives to nearby secondary and postsecondary institutions to establish well-defined sequences of training that cut across institutional boundaries. (5j Ensure that at-risk students, particularly dropout-prone students, handicapped students, limited-English proficient students, and women enrolled in nontraditional programs, obtain the assistance necessary to gain access to and succeed in high-grade vocational education. Such assistance could include providing supplementary tutoring to students with basic skill deficiencies. (6) Design and collect, with the assistance of the federal office, performance measures intended to assess the success of the specific program initiatives just mentioned. These should include measures of individual performance: academic skills, occupational competencies, program completion and quality, job characteristics such as wages. occupation, and industry; as well as school-level measures such as access and performance of at-risk students. III. REFORM OF POSTSECONDARY VOCATIONAL EDUCATION: FINDINGS RECOMMENDATIONS
AND
Postsecondary vocational training is a growing enterprise that is central to the educational mission of institutions that award less than baccalaureate degrees. There are a total of 4.2 million “vocational” students at community colleges, twoyear technical colleges, public vocational technical schools, and proprietary schools. Three-quarters of all the students at these institutions major in vocational subjects, and over the past two decades the percentage of postsecondary students enrolled in vocational education has grown substantially. Most vocational training is provided at community colleges (70%). Although community colleges may have begun with the goal of preparing students for continued academic education in four-year insti-
National Assessment of Vocational Education tutions, this goal was never fully realized; over the year community colleges have become major providers of postsecondary vocational training. Thus, vocational training is now really the educational norm in less-than-baccalaureate postsecondary institutions. The
major
vocational long
problem
education
enough
facing
postsecondary
is that many students
to receive
in-depth
do not stay
training.
Our evidence indicates that the economic benefits of vocational training are greatest for students who complete a multi-course program of vocational course work. These students obtain better paying jobs that utilize their training. Unfortunately, a very large number of students enrolled in vocational programs earn very few credits, and almost half the students who enter these institutions leave without completing a degree or certificate. This problem exists for all types of students, at all types of institutions. It is, however, most serious among minorities, economically disadvantaged students, and the growing number of high school “vocational education students” who pursue additional postsecondary training. We believe that the purpose of federal vocational policy should be to provide incentives for postsecondary institutions to address this problem. A. Research Findings Noncompletion rates at less-than-baccalaureate postsecondary institutions are high. Data from the High School and Beyond Survey show that 90% of the high school class of 1980 who enrolled in community colleges, technical institutes and proprietary schools expected to earn a degree or certificate but within 4 years 40% of them left school without a credential. Those who remained for longer periods were still more likely to drop out than complete their course work. The problem of non-completion has increased over time and resulted in fewer students receiving advanced level vocational training. Dropouts from postsecondary less-than-baccalaureate institutions increased 27% between the high school classes 1972 and 1980, and the number of two-year degrees awarded declined by 17%. There was virtually no change in the percentage of students receiving certificates that require much shorter training. While some students receive an in-depth program of study, there are large numbers of students whose training is quife meager. One-third of all postsecondary vocational students take less than 12 credits in
389
vocational subjects, and 50% of the students earn less than 24 vocational credits. The problem of non-completion and limited truining exists among all groups of students, but it is significantly worse for minorities and disadvantaged students. At community colleges, black students earn 30% fewer credits than white students and fail to earn a degree or certificate at a rate 20% higher. Of black students who enter community colleges, 51% leave before completing their program. Hispanic students average 16% fewer total credits than white students, although they earn degrees at about the same rate. Dropout rates are significantly higher for the most economically disadvantaged students. and they earn fewer credits, both total and vocational. Similar differences in noncompletion exist at public technical colleges and proprietary schools. Among
all high school students who enter postseconvocational education, the largest growth of enrollments has been among student.s who took substantial amounts of vocational education in high school. Between the high school classes of 1972 and 1980, the enrollments of high school vocational education students in postsecondary vocational programs increased by 22%. However, 54% of them (who enrolled in community colleges) left without earning a degree or certificate. There is both considerable need and opportunity to assist these students in making a successful transition from secondary to postsecondary vocational education.
dary
As in the case of secondary vocational training, postsecondary training benefits students by enabling those with skills to obtain good jobs that use their training. Overall, about 50% of all vocational course work taken is related to subsequent employment. This rate varies substantially, however, between students who complete vocational programs and those who do not. At community colleges, students who earn degrees or certificates use 30% more of their vocational training than noncompleters. At public technical colleges, the value of earning a degree is even greater; those earning a degree or certificate get jobs that use 45% more of their vocational course work than do noncompleters. These findings re-enforce the importance of encouraging institutions to help students complete their programs of study, and to place students in jobs related to their training. It should be emphasized that noncompletion is an institution-wide problem that applies to students who concentrate in both vocational and academic fields. However, because less-than-baccalaureate institutions are largely, if not predominantly, vocational in the education they provide, it is appropriate that federal vocational education policy address this matter.
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B. Federal Objectives for Reform of Postsecondary Vocational Education In assessing the possible roles of federal policy in improving postsecondary training, it is important to observe that Perkins Act funds are very limited. They account for about 5.7% of total revenues for vocational training at community and technical colleges. There are other federal policies as well, such as Pell Grants and student loans, to address such critical issues as the access of disadvantaged students to postsecondary education. Federal student aid programs provide $4 billion dollars to postsecondary vocational students. Thus, it is important that federal vocational education policy focuses on a limited and extremely serious problem helping students to complete an in-depth and coherent program of vocational study and to obtain jobs that make full use of that training. Moreover, federal vocational funding is too small to finance all the programs needed to address this problem. Rather, it can provide a stimulus for change. We propose that federal policy should provide incentives for postsecondary institutions to undertake the kinds of changes in program content and job placement that will produce measurable improvements in the problem areas just described. This policy should have three basic objectives: to-improve rates of program completion and placement in training-related jobs to provide special assistance to “at risk” populations for whom the problem of non-completion is most serious to improve the transition from secondary to postsecondary vocational education in a way that results in a more coherent and in-depth training program for students. We recommend that states use the funds they direct to postsecondary vocational education to develop a system of performance-based incentives keyed to occupational competencies, program completion, and job placement. This system would replace the current emphasis in the Perkin’s Act on process and inputs with financial incentives that are oriented to student outcomes. By measuring how well or poorly the system performs, and allocating resources based on outcomes, performance incentives will (a) make institutions accountable for results in a way that currently does not exist; (b) affect all postsecondary institutions in the state, not just those that receive federal grants, and (c) leverage state and local funds for activities to improve student outcomes.
We emphasize that each state should develop its own performance-based system reflecting its goals andpriorities. These systems are not easy to develop and should be phased in over a three-year period. The federal role should to be develop basic guidelines that states can follow, provide states with detailed examples of alternative approaches that might be considered, monitor the development and implementation of performance based systems, and evaluate the results of this policy. We recommend that a performance-based system be developed in two phases. The first phase would put in place a system of performance monitoring similar in concept to that recommended for secondary school vocational education. The second phase goes beyond the measurement of student outcomes, however, to require that states link the allocation of their federal resources to how well institutions perform on various types of student outcomes. First phase - Performance Monitoring - Program improvement requires reliable information about how well vocational training achieves its objectives. Initially, each state would set up a system of performance measures by which to monitor program completions, placements, and earnings. This system should measure the performance of students in public as well as private vocational training institutions. To measure job placement and earnings, states should be encouraged to use existing state wage record data supplemented by limited employer surveys. The results of these performance measures should be made publicly available in the form of reports to the governors, state legislators, educators, and prospective students.
Second phase - Financial Incentives- Second,
states would develop a system of performance incentives for distributing federal funds to institutions based on their success on various measures of occupational competency, program completion, placement. and earnings. Since the federal student aid program already provides substantial financial incentives for private institutions, federal vocational education funds should be limited to public postsecondary institutions.
To guard against the risk that institutions will not serve those students most in need, any state formula should be required to provide special financial incentives to serve special populations. Student aid and state reimbursement formulas already contain incentives to enroll these students. Federal vocational policy must also provide strong financial rewards for institutions to improve the outcomes of training for “at risk” students. State developed
National Assessment of Vocational Education formulas should be required to provide substantial additional weight (perhaps 50%) for students whose need is great, and who, under the current Act, are a priority. These students include academically disadvantaged students, economically disadvantaged students (including single parents), the handicapped, women and men students in non-traditional programs, and students returning to the workforce after a substantial absence. Since funds are tied directly to performance, it is particularly important that states adopt consistent definitions for each weighted category of students (disadvantaged, handicapped, etc.). An additional financial incentive should be provided to encourage institutions to develop complementary and coherent programs linking secondary and postsecondary vocational education. Institutions could respond with “tech prep”, 2 + 2, 1 + 1, or other alternatives for varying amounts of secondary work. Under this and postsecondary course arrangement, additional weight in state funding formulas could also be given for the number of postsecondary completions by high school vocational students, or for the number of graduates from these special programs. IV. FEDERAL
LEADERSHIP REFORM
IN VOCATIONAL
The plan that we have outlined requires an expanded federal office of vocational education. Although the main responsibility for initiating improvement and implementing change in the plan lies with the states, the plan requires strong leadership at the federal level. Several specific federal activities would be needed. First, the federal office of vocational education would need to work directly with key leaders at the state level to build a broad base of public support for the reform and improvement of vocational education. Commitment and assistance would be needed from state education officials, state legislatures, governors, teacher and administrator representatives and the public. Without such broad support, the plan would likely fail. State plans that offer clear objectives for educating students and connecting them with good jobs in their communities should make it possible to build that support. Second, the federal office would also need the authority to approve or reject state proposals when aspects of the plan are insufficient to accomplish the
391
goals. Quite frankly, the federal government may have to say “no” when a plan for the use of federal resources that does not appear to be focused on serving those most in need or does not present realistic or effective strategies for accomplishing real improvement. Under such circumstances, the federal government would be expected to lend assistance and provide expertise in improving the state’s proposal. Third, the strategy proposed requires the development of expertise at the federal level in the design and implementation of systems for measuring the performance of vocational education and reporting the results to a wide variety of people concerned about policy and the public. Several states have already established performance standards and measures for their educational systems as a whole, and the techniques they have developed can provide the base upon which vocational measures can be designed. Two of the main sources of accountability built into the strategies we have proposed are the public reports on vocational education that states will produce, and the information required for performance-based funding at the postsecondary level. The federal staff of the office of vocational education will need both the technical expertise and the knowledge of vocational education to be of real assistance to the states and to know whether the information from the states can be relied upon. Fourth, the strategy requires expanding capacity at the federal level for identifying effective policies and practices in vocational education, and assisting the states in implementing these policies and practices. As mentioned earlier, we identified in our field research a wide variety of promising new approaches designed to integrate academic and vocational instruction, improve the links between vocational education and the world of work, and accelerate the vocational education and academic achievements of at-risk students. To draw from and expand on the success of these activities would require cultivating a sense of ownership among the states in the knowledge-building activity. Rigorous experimentation with strategies of applied learning, with alternative approaches to serving disadvantaged students, and with methods of connecting students with the labor markets, could greatly expand the amount of reliable information for both policy and practice that is available now in vocational education. The results from serious experimental evaluation, coupled with state-level
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Economics of Education Review
development concentrated on a few priorities, will provide a solid foundation for the systematic improvement of vocational education. The strategy we have outlined for vocational education builds upon the conclusions we have reached from research on Perkins Act implementation and the status of vocational education, as well as consultation with a wide range of vocational
administrators, practitioners, and policy-makers. The plan we have proposed is meant to be pragmatic but forward-looking and, if I dare say, “visionary” for vocational education. The challenge is to work toward a better future for vocational education through building on its strengths and increasing its links to the rest of education at both the secondary and postsecondary levels.
of Education
Review,
0272-7757189 $3.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Press plc
Vol. 8, NO.4, pp. 383-392.1989
Printed in Great Britain.
National Assessment Testimony
of Vocational Education
before the House Education and Labour Committee March 7, 1989* by JOHN
LANA U.S. Department
MURASKIN,
G.
Director and DAVID
WIRT,
ROBERT
MEYER
GOODWIN
of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20202, U.S.A.
YOU very much for giving us the opportunity to present the findings and recommendations of the National Assessment of Vocational Education (NAVE). As you know, the National Assessment was requested by the Congress in the Perkins Act. For the past 21/2 years, the NAVE has been conducting studies of participation in and the outcomes of vocational education at secondary and postsecondary levels. It has also been examining the implementation of the Perkins Act at federal, state, and local levels. From these studies we have concluded that while the Act’s goals of increasing both “special population” access to high-quality vocational education and overall program improvement are important, there have been serious problems in implementing those goals. Equally important, however, our broad studies of vocational participation and have led us to conclude that the access and improvement needs of secondary and postsecondary vocational education are different and demand different solutions. In this testimony, I will (a) examine, briefly, the role of the Perkins Act in targeting resources and addressing the goals of the legislation; (b) outline our most important findings about participation in and the outcomes of secondary and postsecondary voational education; and (c) lay out a proposal for federal policy in each sector that we believe will focus federal support on a few important goals, stimulate reform in vocational practice, build the THANK
capacity of states to provide leadership, establish accountability through performance measures, and enable vocational education to serve effectively those students most at risk. Our discussion of findings and recommendations, while intentionally brief, will be expanded in our final report and subsequent technical reports. In the approach to reform described, the federal government will be called upon to play a major role. It will assist the states in developing appropriate and fair measures of program success. It will also undertake and evaluate demonstration programs (in areas such as applied learning and secondary-postsecondary program coordination), help states design performance standards and reward systems, and provide technical assistance as they implement new programs and performance measures. I.
POLICY
IMPLEMENTATION PERKINS ACT
THE
The Perkins Act has noble goals to expand access to quality vocational education for at risk populations and improve the quality of programs generally, but the regulatory and implementation process has done little to translate those goals into effective programs and services. In some cases, interpretation has undercut congressional intent and weakened important safeguards. In other cases, implementation has taken place but has failed to accomplish
*This testimony reflects the views of the National Assessment of Vocational represent the views of the Department of Education. [Manuscript received 15 March 1989; revision accepted for publication 20 April
383
UNDER
Education. 1989.1
It does
not necessarily
384 the
Economics
Act’s
examples
goals.
In two
of regulatory
of the
most
of Education
significant
problems:
Certain regulatory interpretations have weakened important statutory provisions. For example, although the Perkins Act guarantees handicapped and disadvantaged students equal access to “the full range” of vocational programs and services, through regulation this guarantee has been limited to activities supported with federal funds. In another example, the statutory prohibition on supplanting state and local with federal funds has been rendered ineffective through the lack of any regulatory interpretation. States have been allowed to use funds distribution methods that result in widely varying allotments among different educational levels and classes of institutions. Congress specified that setaside funds for handicapped and disadvantaged students should be distributed among grantees according to a federally-specified formula based on the grantee’s economic disadvantage and the numbers of such special population students served. States have been allowed to decide for themselves, however. to apportion such funds between the secondary and postsecondary levels and between local education agencies (LEAS) and area vocational schools before applying the statutory intrastate distribution formulas. Other problems arise from differences in the ways in which funds are distributed to postsecondary institutions and LEAS. as well as targeted to students. On average, about 60% of federal resources flow to secondary and about 40% to postsecondary education, but there are widely different secondaryipostsecondary ratios among the states. Those ratios appear to be the result of historical political agreements rather than drawn from state priorities for such concerns as serving “at risk” students or bringing about vocational reform. Among our major findings: When a set of institutions is administered directly by a state office responsible for Perkins administration, funds tend to jlow disproportionately to that set of institutions. In the most common example, when a State Education Agency is directly responsible for the administration of area vocational schools (secondary and/or postsecondary) federal funds tend to flow to that set of institutions at rates considerably higher than their percentages of overall vocational enrollments. Nationally, separate area vocational school districts receive a disproportionate share of the federal funds that flow to secondary vocational education. These districts receive about 30% of the funds that flow to
Review
secondary education. All area vocational schools (of which separate districts are only a part) account, however, for only about 9% of the vocational credits earned at the secondary level. Further, high schools whose students have the lowest socio-economic status are least likely to be linked to area vocational facilities. The intrastate formula for the handicapped and disadvantaged setasides introduced by the Perkins Act did not change the amount of funds for school districts with high poverty rates. Between 1981 and 1986, regular school districts with the highest poverty rates received roughly the same shares of resources. They received slightly more of the funds than they would have received on a purely per capita basis, but considerably less than if poverty were the sole criteria for the distribution of Perkins funds. Presented with insufficient federal guidance, states and localities do little to “target” federal resources to students with greatest needs. The statute definitions of “disadvantaged” and ‘*vocational” student are too broad and elastic to delimit a target group in any meaningful sense. Federal regulations provide no guidance as to service priorities (e.g. concentrating funds or serving those in greatest need first). States occasionally introduce minimum grants or require pooling of handicapped and disadvantaged setasides but do little to set priorities for which students should be served. Districts and institutions have no systematic means for deciding (and often cannot even provide an accurate count of) which, among the many students meeting the Act’s definitions, should be or are served. Most grants to school districts are too small to carry out any substantial activity. Grants to area school districts and postsecondary institutions are larger. The median award to a school district is $7,900. About 63% receive grants, but most very small districts do not. Three-quarters of all school district awards are $25,000 or less. The median award to an area school
district is $91.300 and the median postsecondary institution is $92.400.
award
to a
Finally, although many local administrators and practitioners are dedicated to assisting at-risk students and improving vocational offerings, our conclusions about the appropriateness of the uses of federal
funds
are
quite
mixed.
The Perkins Act appears to have played a role in increasing the amount of assessment offered to handicapped and disadvantaged students. School districts that received funds under these setasides were more likely than those that did not to receive funds to offer vocational assessments to all or most handicapped and disadvantaged students.
National Assessment of Vocational Education There remain problems, however, in linking services supported under the Act to improvement in the access of students IO high qualify vocational offerings. For example, assessments do little to determine or upgrade the vocational programs in which secondary students enroll. Furthermore, there are even problems in linking Perkins-aided academic remediation to vocational instruction. There is also reason to believe that funds are used for activities that are ongoing and expensive, i.e. those already incurring excess costs. Without a strong nonsupplanting provision, Perkins funds may be attributed to these activities without really increasing the amount of service. The adult setaside appears to be used for the general support of adult vocational offerings of school districts, area schools and postsecondary institutions. It is often impossible for local personnel to identify the services that were provided with federal funds. Most grants designed to promote sex equity are too small IO carry out any but the most marginal activities. The median grant to a school district is $3,600 and three quarters of awards are $9,400 or less. Area schools report median grants of $8,120, also quite low. Although there is a strong relationship between receiving federal funds and mounting any activities aimed at promoting sex equity in vocational education, local officials report small, marginal activities. At the secondary and postsecondary levels, the Perkins program improvement funds are used primarily as general aid to purchase equipment. While some such purchases are related to the introduction of a new or innovative program, many are routine replacement and updating. Some grantees view program improvement funds as “federal equipment money” and have little understanding of the broad goal of program improvement. Federal rules that allow all equipment considered improvement undoubtedly this use. To
solve
provisions services,
the and
funds
problems safeguards, substitution,
purchases to be contribute to
of enforcement
of
targeting,
peripheral
and
the
like
under
legal the
would require: (1) an effective nonsupplanting provision in law or regulation, (2) a linkage between additional services for special populations and upgraded offerings or better access, (3) minimum grants and fewer recipients, (4) student targeting provisions that required services to be provided to those with the greatest need, and (5) limiting the amount of federal funds for equipment and the conditions under which such purchases could be made. We note that Congress has not been inclined to impose more rigorous requirements in existing
legal
framework
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the past, in part because the federal funds are a small percentage of total vocational outlays. Unless some action is taken, however, the current strategies will not have their intended effects. In the next section we propose alternative ways to achieve the goals of federal legislation while building the willingness and capacity of states and localities to carry out those goals now and in the future. II. REFORM
OF SECONDARY VOCATIONAL EDUCATION: FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
First I will summarize briefly our principal findings concerning participation in and the outcomes of secondary vocational education. As you will see, our research findings indicate the need for a massive upgrading in the quality of secondary vocational education, comparable in scope to the recent and ongoing reforms of academic education. So far, the reform movement in education has largely bypassed vocational education. Nonetheless, our research has identified areas in which vocational education shows great promise, both in terms of its capacity to contribute substantially to economic development and to the development and augmentation of fundamental academic skills. Based on this new evidence, we suggest that the reform of secondary vocational education should be based on a small number of focused objectives, which I will describe. To carry out those objectives, I will outline a possible federal strategy designed to stimulate reform in secondary vocational education that: builds state capacity to upgrade and monitor vocational education ensures that adequate support will be provided to at-risk students so that they can succeed in the best, most challenging vocational programs expands the role of the federal government as a leader and support mechanism for upgrading vocational education. A. Research Findings The NAVE conducted an extensive analysis of nationally representative samples of high school transcripts for the classes of 1982 and 1987. These data provide rich, new insights into the structure of vocational education. Turning first to the class of 1982, we find that:
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Vocational education is a much larger share of the secondary school curriculum than had been realized prior to our research. Ninety-seven percent of all 1982 high school graduates enrolled in at least some vocational education in grades 9-12. Moreover, vocational education accounted for more than a quarter of all course work taken during the last 2 years of high school compared to 8.5% for mathematics and 18% for English courses. Given the large proportion of vocational education in the curriculum, the potential benefits of improving it are obvious. Enrollments in vocational education among noncollege-bound youth are particularly large. In 1982, non-college-bound youth took about 37% of their 11th and 12th grade course work in vocational education, compared to only 5% in mathematics. Thus, efforts to upgrade secondary vocational education are particularly important for this segment of the population and, by extension, at-risk youth. Almost half of all vocational credits are taken by college-bound students; another quarter of credits are taken by students planning to obtain postsecondary vocationalltechnical training. For the class of 1982, only a quarter of all enrollments are taken by students who plan to work full time after leaving high school. Thus, the extent to which secondary and postsecondary vocational education are complementary and mutually coherent is very important. Non-college-bound students-the largest consumers of vocational education - took only 0.4 credits less in the “new basics” for each additional credit taken in vocational education. In the debate over the relative merits of secondary academic and vocational education it has been assumed that there is a direct tradeoff between enrollments in vocational and academic courses. In the 1982 data we found that students “financed” their additional vocational course work, in large part by taking additional course work overall. rather than skimping on math, science, English, social studies, history, or foreign language.
Our next set of findings concern changes in course-taking patterns between 1982 and 1987, a period that has seen increases in state and local graduation requirements.
Total contact hours in vocational education delivered by schools fell substantiallv, however, because the total number of students graduating from high school dropped considerably between 1982 and 1987. The total credit hours of vocational education taught in school declined by 9.7%, due to a 6.8% decline in the student population.
Therefore, total enrollments in vocational education fell between 1982 and 1987, but primarily for demographic reasons and not because of the academic reform movement. Vocational education may be affected by academic reform in the future, however, since increased graduation requirements had not yet gone into effect in many school districts for the class of 1987. We have also found that the quality of vocational education available to students in poor schools is significantly lower than that available to students in more affluent communities. Students in schools in the lowest quartile, as measured by average family income, student academic ability, and socio-economit status, are half as likely to have access to an area vocational center as other students. They are also in schools with less than half the total number of vocational courses and less than half the number of advanced vocational courses. At the same time, these students take much more vocational education on average than students in other schools (5.50 credits as compared with 3.24 credits in the top quartile) and fewer academic credits (11.34 credits as compared with 15.63 credits). Our final set of findings addresses the outcomes of secondary vocational education. Our findings about the contribution of vocational education to youth earnings pertain to students who work after they leave high school and do not obtain postsecondary training. We find that:
Graduates of the high school class of 1987 took a total of nearly two more credits on average than graduates in the class of 1982. Nearly all of this increase was in academic credits, which increased by about 12.2% from 14.46% to 16.22%.
Students who complete a coherent sequence of vocational course work and obtain good jobs earn considerably more than comparable youth with less vocational training. A good job is one that demands a significant core of vocational and academic competencies. Moreover, the positive effects of vocational training are particularly strong for women.
Students who graduated in I987 took nearly the same average amount of vocational education as students who graduated in 1982. There was a very small decline from an average of 4.38 credits in 1982 to 4.24 credits in 1987, or 3.1%.
However, considerably fewer than half of all students obtain good jobs that are related to their vocational training. The students who do not get good jobs fail to reap the strong potential benefits of secondary vocational education.
National Assessment of Vocational Education Most secondary vocational courses are now ‘pitched” at an instructional level that provides no reinforcement or further development of basic mathematics skills. This is particularly unfortunate since non-collegebound youth, particularly at-risk youth, take very few math courses during the last two years of high schools. It is also unfortunate because the best jobs in our economy often demand proficiency in mathematics as well as in communications and problem solving. Despite the poor performance of most vocational education in raising academic skills, our research strongly suggests that it is possible to upgrade the academic rigor of secondary vocational education so that it could make a significant contribution to academic skill development. Our optimism is based on the following findings:
For lower-ability students, related vocational courses
a select group of math-
currently contributes a substantial amount to the development of mathematics skills. However, these courses represent only about 18% of the vocational curriculum. A group of math-intensive vocational courses such as business math and vocational math produce gains in math achievement that rival traditional mathematics courses. Moreover, these courses are productive for
students with high as well as low ability. These results strongly suggest the potential of expanding the mathematics content of these and other vocational courses. In our field research we visited a number of schools that are attempting to integrate vocational and academic education. These schools are in the process of developing programs of “applied learning” where the academic content of vocational education is being expanded and the content of both academic and vocational courses are taught in alignment - where academic and vocational learning reinforce each other. Bridging the gap that exists in education between academic and vocational teachers has been found to be one of the most important factors contributing to the success of these efforts. Staff development, time, and some extra resources are also required. Too few of these innovative efforts have been rigorously evaluated, however, to come to any firm conclusions about their educational effects. B. Specific Objectives Vocational Education The research findings
for Reform
of Secondary
summarized
above
suggest
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to us the need both to upgrade secondary vocational education and to guarantee access to high quality vocational education for at-risk students. We believe that these twin goals, which motivate the Perkins Act as well, should be pursued through the following objectives. 1. Upgrade the skill level of vocational courses, including specific job skills and transferable academic skills such as mathematics, communications, and problem solving. 2. Integrate high school academic and vocational curricula so that: (a) students come to vocational programs well equipped with fundamental academic skills and (b) vocational courses provide an applied context based on broad and specific job training that reinforces and enhances academic skills and motivates students to excel in both academic and vocational courses. 3. Accelerate the education of at-risk students by providing these students with the extra assistance to succeed in the demanding and highly rewarding vocational courses. 4.
Aggressively improve the students in finding good jobs.
assistance
provided
to
5. Act to improve the linkages between secondary and postsecondary training so that the training is highly complementary for the majority of students who obtain training at both levels.
C. The Federal Role To pursue these specific objectives successfully, vocational education will need the full support of parents, schools, state education officials, state legislatures, governors, employers, and the federal government. As in the case of the academic reform movement, upgrading vocational education must stand on the efforts of states and localities. The federal government, however, can be instrumental in spurring and aiding this reform. We propose a possible federal role that includes the following three components. 1. Work with the states to develop vocational reform plans for upgrading their secondary vocational education systems. The elements of the state plans would reflect the specific reform objectives just discussed. The plans would be developed by the states with the assistance of an expanded federal office. Our proposal relies heavily on states as the primary agents in reforming secondary vocational education. States are clearly the ultimate authority for public education. As we have learned from our implementation research and that of others, without a shared state and federal commit-
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ment to reforming vocational education, the federal resources are likely to have little real impact. 2. Help establish and support an extensive system of performance measures, which will permit states to monitor the pace of improvement in vocational education, much as they are now monitoring improvement in academic instruction. Our review of ongoing state reforms in education indicates that reliable measures of school performance are instrumental in fueling the public demand for serious program improvement. 3. Concentrate the remaining federal resources on implementing state plans for reforming secondary vocational education in a limited number of sites in all states. These sites would be selected by the states to include localities with the largest concentration of at-risk students and with the lowest quality vocational programs. The need for large-scale upgrading of secondary vocational education is clearly the most pressing in those school districts. We expect that these sites would demonstrate the potential of vigorous reform efforts, as set out in state vocational reform plans. 4. Implement a strong non-supplanting provision that applies to the sites that receive federal support. In large part, the success of our proposal depends on the quality of state vocational reform plans developed by states with the support of the federal government. Reliable performance measures will serve as both an incentive for developing serious reform plans and as a yardstick for measuring the progress of these reform initiatives. Based on the specific reform objectives discussed earlier, we believe that state vocational reform plans should include the following types of activities: (1) Upgrade the content of vocational courses to emphasize more advanced broad and specific job skills and transferrable academic skills. (2) Align and integrate high school academic and vocational education. This could include developing new applied learning courses that integrate instruction in academic and vocational skills and requiring students in well-defined vocational programs to achieve mastery of both specific job-skills and core academic skills. As mentioned earlier, our research suggests that secondary vocational education has the potential to make an important contribution to the development of students’ academic skills. (3) Increase the placement of high school students in jobs that fully tap the skills acquired in high school. Such activities could include creation or
enlargement of job placement centers in high schools, increased contacts between vocational teachers and employers, and organizational arrangements with local employers. where part of the responsibility for linking high school students with good jobs should lie. (4) Increase the continuity of vocational training between secondary and postsecondary institutions by working with representatives from postsecondary education. Such plans could include financial incentives to nearby secondary and postsecondary institutions to establish well-defined sequences of training that cut across institutional boundaries. (5j Ensure that at-risk students, particularly dropout-prone students, handicapped students, limited-English proficient students, and women enrolled in nontraditional programs, obtain the assistance necessary to gain access to and succeed in high-grade vocational education. Such assistance could include providing supplementary tutoring to students with basic skill deficiencies. (6) Design and collect, with the assistance of the federal office, performance measures intended to assess the success of the specific program initiatives just mentioned. These should include measures of individual performance: academic skills, occupational competencies, program completion and quality, job characteristics such as wages. occupation, and industry; as well as school-level measures such as access and performance of at-risk students. III. REFORM OF POSTSECONDARY VOCATIONAL EDUCATION: FINDINGS RECOMMENDATIONS
AND
Postsecondary vocational training is a growing enterprise that is central to the educational mission of institutions that award less than baccalaureate degrees. There are a total of 4.2 million “vocational” students at community colleges, twoyear technical colleges, public vocational technical schools, and proprietary schools. Three-quarters of all the students at these institutions major in vocational subjects, and over the past two decades the percentage of postsecondary students enrolled in vocational education has grown substantially. Most vocational training is provided at community colleges (70%). Although community colleges may have begun with the goal of preparing students for continued academic education in four-year insti-
National Assessment of Vocational Education tutions, this goal was never fully realized; over the year community colleges have become major providers of postsecondary vocational training. Thus, vocational training is now really the educational norm in less-than-baccalaureate postsecondary institutions. The
major
vocational long
problem
education
enough
facing
postsecondary
is that many students
to receive
in-depth
do not stay
training.
Our evidence indicates that the economic benefits of vocational training are greatest for students who complete a multi-course program of vocational course work. These students obtain better paying jobs that utilize their training. Unfortunately, a very large number of students enrolled in vocational programs earn very few credits, and almost half the students who enter these institutions leave without completing a degree or certificate. This problem exists for all types of students, at all types of institutions. It is, however, most serious among minorities, economically disadvantaged students, and the growing number of high school “vocational education students” who pursue additional postsecondary training. We believe that the purpose of federal vocational policy should be to provide incentives for postsecondary institutions to address this problem. A. Research Findings Noncompletion rates at less-than-baccalaureate postsecondary institutions are high. Data from the High School and Beyond Survey show that 90% of the high school class of 1980 who enrolled in community colleges, technical institutes and proprietary schools expected to earn a degree or certificate but within 4 years 40% of them left school without a credential. Those who remained for longer periods were still more likely to drop out than complete their course work. The problem of non-completion has increased over time and resulted in fewer students receiving advanced level vocational training. Dropouts from postsecondary less-than-baccalaureate institutions increased 27% between the high school classes 1972 and 1980, and the number of two-year degrees awarded declined by 17%. There was virtually no change in the percentage of students receiving certificates that require much shorter training. While some students receive an in-depth program of study, there are large numbers of students whose training is quife meager. One-third of all postsecondary vocational students take less than 12 credits in
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vocational subjects, and 50% of the students earn less than 24 vocational credits. The problem of non-completion and limited truining exists among all groups of students, but it is significantly worse for minorities and disadvantaged students. At community colleges, black students earn 30% fewer credits than white students and fail to earn a degree or certificate at a rate 20% higher. Of black students who enter community colleges, 51% leave before completing their program. Hispanic students average 16% fewer total credits than white students, although they earn degrees at about the same rate. Dropout rates are significantly higher for the most economically disadvantaged students. and they earn fewer credits, both total and vocational. Similar differences in noncompletion exist at public technical colleges and proprietary schools. Among
all high school students who enter postseconvocational education, the largest growth of enrollments has been among student.s who took substantial amounts of vocational education in high school. Between the high school classes of 1972 and 1980, the enrollments of high school vocational education students in postsecondary vocational programs increased by 22%. However, 54% of them (who enrolled in community colleges) left without earning a degree or certificate. There is both considerable need and opportunity to assist these students in making a successful transition from secondary to postsecondary vocational education.
dary
As in the case of secondary vocational training, postsecondary training benefits students by enabling those with skills to obtain good jobs that use their training. Overall, about 50% of all vocational course work taken is related to subsequent employment. This rate varies substantially, however, between students who complete vocational programs and those who do not. At community colleges, students who earn degrees or certificates use 30% more of their vocational training than noncompleters. At public technical colleges, the value of earning a degree is even greater; those earning a degree or certificate get jobs that use 45% more of their vocational course work than do noncompleters. These findings re-enforce the importance of encouraging institutions to help students complete their programs of study, and to place students in jobs related to their training. It should be emphasized that noncompletion is an institution-wide problem that applies to students who concentrate in both vocational and academic fields. However, because less-than-baccalaureate institutions are largely, if not predominantly, vocational in the education they provide, it is appropriate that federal vocational education policy address this matter.
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B. Federal Objectives for Reform of Postsecondary Vocational Education In assessing the possible roles of federal policy in improving postsecondary training, it is important to observe that Perkins Act funds are very limited. They account for about 5.7% of total revenues for vocational training at community and technical colleges. There are other federal policies as well, such as Pell Grants and student loans, to address such critical issues as the access of disadvantaged students to postsecondary education. Federal student aid programs provide $4 billion dollars to postsecondary vocational students. Thus, it is important that federal vocational education policy focuses on a limited and extremely serious problem helping students to complete an in-depth and coherent program of vocational study and to obtain jobs that make full use of that training. Moreover, federal vocational funding is too small to finance all the programs needed to address this problem. Rather, it can provide a stimulus for change. We propose that federal policy should provide incentives for postsecondary institutions to undertake the kinds of changes in program content and job placement that will produce measurable improvements in the problem areas just described. This policy should have three basic objectives: to-improve rates of program completion and placement in training-related jobs to provide special assistance to “at risk” populations for whom the problem of non-completion is most serious to improve the transition from secondary to postsecondary vocational education in a way that results in a more coherent and in-depth training program for students. We recommend that states use the funds they direct to postsecondary vocational education to develop a system of performance-based incentives keyed to occupational competencies, program completion, and job placement. This system would replace the current emphasis in the Perkin’s Act on process and inputs with financial incentives that are oriented to student outcomes. By measuring how well or poorly the system performs, and allocating resources based on outcomes, performance incentives will (a) make institutions accountable for results in a way that currently does not exist; (b) affect all postsecondary institutions in the state, not just those that receive federal grants, and (c) leverage state and local funds for activities to improve student outcomes.
We emphasize that each state should develop its own performance-based system reflecting its goals andpriorities. These systems are not easy to develop and should be phased in over a three-year period. The federal role should to be develop basic guidelines that states can follow, provide states with detailed examples of alternative approaches that might be considered, monitor the development and implementation of performance based systems, and evaluate the results of this policy. We recommend that a performance-based system be developed in two phases. The first phase would put in place a system of performance monitoring similar in concept to that recommended for secondary school vocational education. The second phase goes beyond the measurement of student outcomes, however, to require that states link the allocation of their federal resources to how well institutions perform on various types of student outcomes. First phase - Performance Monitoring - Program improvement requires reliable information about how well vocational training achieves its objectives. Initially, each state would set up a system of performance measures by which to monitor program completions, placements, and earnings. This system should measure the performance of students in public as well as private vocational training institutions. To measure job placement and earnings, states should be encouraged to use existing state wage record data supplemented by limited employer surveys. The results of these performance measures should be made publicly available in the form of reports to the governors, state legislators, educators, and prospective students.
Second phase - Financial Incentives- Second,
states would develop a system of performance incentives for distributing federal funds to institutions based on their success on various measures of occupational competency, program completion, placement. and earnings. Since the federal student aid program already provides substantial financial incentives for private institutions, federal vocational education funds should be limited to public postsecondary institutions.
To guard against the risk that institutions will not serve those students most in need, any state formula should be required to provide special financial incentives to serve special populations. Student aid and state reimbursement formulas already contain incentives to enroll these students. Federal vocational policy must also provide strong financial rewards for institutions to improve the outcomes of training for “at risk” students. State developed
National Assessment of Vocational Education formulas should be required to provide substantial additional weight (perhaps 50%) for students whose need is great, and who, under the current Act, are a priority. These students include academically disadvantaged students, economically disadvantaged students (including single parents), the handicapped, women and men students in non-traditional programs, and students returning to the workforce after a substantial absence. Since funds are tied directly to performance, it is particularly important that states adopt consistent definitions for each weighted category of students (disadvantaged, handicapped, etc.). An additional financial incentive should be provided to encourage institutions to develop complementary and coherent programs linking secondary and postsecondary vocational education. Institutions could respond with “tech prep”, 2 + 2, 1 + 1, or other alternatives for varying amounts of secondary work. Under this and postsecondary course arrangement, additional weight in state funding formulas could also be given for the number of postsecondary completions by high school vocational students, or for the number of graduates from these special programs. IV. FEDERAL
LEADERSHIP REFORM
IN VOCATIONAL
The plan that we have outlined requires an expanded federal office of vocational education. Although the main responsibility for initiating improvement and implementing change in the plan lies with the states, the plan requires strong leadership at the federal level. Several specific federal activities would be needed. First, the federal office of vocational education would need to work directly with key leaders at the state level to build a broad base of public support for the reform and improvement of vocational education. Commitment and assistance would be needed from state education officials, state legislatures, governors, teacher and administrator representatives and the public. Without such broad support, the plan would likely fail. State plans that offer clear objectives for educating students and connecting them with good jobs in their communities should make it possible to build that support. Second, the federal office would also need the authority to approve or reject state proposals when aspects of the plan are insufficient to accomplish the
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goals. Quite frankly, the federal government may have to say “no” when a plan for the use of federal resources that does not appear to be focused on serving those most in need or does not present realistic or effective strategies for accomplishing real improvement. Under such circumstances, the federal government would be expected to lend assistance and provide expertise in improving the state’s proposal. Third, the strategy proposed requires the development of expertise at the federal level in the design and implementation of systems for measuring the performance of vocational education and reporting the results to a wide variety of people concerned about policy and the public. Several states have already established performance standards and measures for their educational systems as a whole, and the techniques they have developed can provide the base upon which vocational measures can be designed. Two of the main sources of accountability built into the strategies we have proposed are the public reports on vocational education that states will produce, and the information required for performance-based funding at the postsecondary level. The federal staff of the office of vocational education will need both the technical expertise and the knowledge of vocational education to be of real assistance to the states and to know whether the information from the states can be relied upon. Fourth, the strategy requires expanding capacity at the federal level for identifying effective policies and practices in vocational education, and assisting the states in implementing these policies and practices. As mentioned earlier, we identified in our field research a wide variety of promising new approaches designed to integrate academic and vocational instruction, improve the links between vocational education and the world of work, and accelerate the vocational education and academic achievements of at-risk students. To draw from and expand on the success of these activities would require cultivating a sense of ownership among the states in the knowledge-building activity. Rigorous experimentation with strategies of applied learning, with alternative approaches to serving disadvantaged students, and with methods of connecting students with the labor markets, could greatly expand the amount of reliable information for both policy and practice that is available now in vocational education. The results from serious experimental evaluation, coupled with state-level
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development concentrated on a few priorities, will provide a solid foundation for the systematic improvement of vocational education. The strategy we have outlined for vocational education builds upon the conclusions we have reached from research on Perkins Act implementation and the status of vocational education, as well as consultation with a wide range of vocational
administrators, practitioners, and policy-makers. The plan we have proposed is meant to be pragmatic but forward-looking and, if I dare say, “visionary” for vocational education. The challenge is to work toward a better future for vocational education through building on its strengths and increasing its links to the rest of education at both the secondary and postsecondary levels.