<DOC> [109th Congress House Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:98782.wais] H.R. 366, THE VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE ACT ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM of the COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ February 15, 2005 __________ Serial No. 109-1 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/ house or Committee address: http://edworkforce.house.gov ______ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 98-782 WASHINGTON : 2005 _____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512ÿ091800 Fax: (202) 512ÿ092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402ÿ090001 COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin, Vice George Miller, California Chairman Dale E. Kildee, Michigan Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, Major R. Owens, New York California Donald M. Payne, New Jersey Michael N. Castle, Delaware Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey Sam Johnson, Texas Robert C. Scott, Virginia Mark E. Souder, Indiana Lynn C. Woolsey, California Charlie Norwood, Georgia Ruben Hinojosa, Texas Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan Carolyn McCarthy, New York Judy Biggert, Illinois John F. Tierney, Massachusetts Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania Ron Kind, Wisconsin Patrick J. Tiberi, Ohio Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Ric Keller, Florida David Wu, Oregon Tom Osborne, Nebraska Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Joe Wilson, South Carolina Susan A. Davis, California Jon C. Porter, Nevada Betty McCollum, Minnesota John Kline, Minnesota Danny K. Davis, Illinois Marilyn N. Musgrave, Colorado Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Bob Inglis, South Carolina Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Cathy McMorris, Washington Tim Ryan, Ohio Kenny Marchant, Texas Timothy H. Bishop, New York Tom Price, Georgia John Barrow, Georgia Luis G. Fortuno, Puerto Rico Bobby Jindal, Louisiana Charles W. Boustany, Jr., Louisiana Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Thelma D. Drake, Virginia John R. ``Randy'' Kuhl, Jr., New York Paula Nowakowski, Staff Director John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director ------ SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware, Chairman Tom Osborne, Nebraska, Vice Lynn C. Woolsey, California Chairman Danny K. Davis, Illinois Mark E. Souder, Indiana Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey Judy Biggert, Illinois Robert C. Scott, Virginia Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania Ruben Hinojosa, Texas Ric Keller, Florida Ron Kind, Wisconsin Joe Wilson, South Carolina Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Marilyn N. Musgrave, Colorado Susan A. Davis, California Bobby Jindal, Louisiana George Miller, California, ex John R. ``Randy'' Kuhl, Jr., New officio York John A. Boehner, Ohio, ex officio ------ C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on February 15, 2005................................ 1 Statement of Members: Castle, Hon. Michael N., Chairman, Subcommittee on Education Reform, Committee on Education and the Workforce........... 1 Prepared statement of.................................... 3 Woolsey, Hon. Lynn C., Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Education Reform, Committee on Education and the Workforce. 4 Prepared statement of.................................... 5 Statement of Witnesses: Ainsworth, Dr. Patrick, Assistant Superintendent and Director, Secondary, Postsecondary and Adult Leadership Division, California Department of Education, Sacramento, CA......................................................... 15 Prepared statement of.................................... 17 Atkinson, Dr. Lewis L., III, Associate Secretary of Education, Adult Education & Workforce Development, Delaware Department of Education, Dover, DE................ 7 Prepared statement of.................................... 9 Kister, Dr. Joanna, Educational Consultant, Columbus, OH..... 11 Prepared statement of.................................... 12 Moore, Russ, Chief Executive Officer, Central Educational Center, Newnan, GA......................................... 22 Prepared statement of.................................... 24 Appendix A............................................... 46 Appendix B............................................... 50 Appendix C............................................... 61 Simons, Emily, Vocational and Technical Education Student, Eastern Technical School, Baltimore, MD.................... 19 Prepared statement of.................................... 21 H.R. 366, THE VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE ACT ---------- Tuesday, February 15, 2005 U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Education Reform Committee on Education and the Workforce Washington, DC ---------- The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:10 p.m., in room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Castle [Chairman of the Subcommittee] Presiding. Present: Representatives Castle, Osborne, Biggert, Woolsey, Andrews, Scott, Hinojosa and Davis of California. Staff Present: Jennifer Daniels, Communications Staff Assistant; Amanda Farris, Professional Staff Member; Kevin Frank, Professional Staff Member; Jessica Gross, Legislative Assistant; Joshua Holly, Director of Media Affairs; Sally Lovejoy, Director of Education and Human Resources Policy; Alexa Marrero, Press Secretary; Krisann Pearce, Deputy Director of Education and Human Resources Policy; Whitney Rhoades, Professional Staff Member; Deborah L. Emerson Samantar, Committee Clerk/Intern Coordinator; Jo-Marie St. Martin, General Counsel; Brad Thomas, Legislative Assistant; Denise Forte, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Lloyd Horwich, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Ricardo Martinez, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Joe Novotny, Minority Legislative Assistant/Education; and Mark Zuckerman, Minority General Counsel. Chairman Castle. Good afternoon, everybody. The quorum being present, the Subcommittee on Education Reform and the Committee on Education and the Workforce will come to order. STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL N. CASTLE, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE We are meeting today to hear testimony on H.R. 366, the Vocational and Technical Education for the Future Act. Under Committee Rule 12(b) opening statements are limited to the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the Subcommittee; therefore, further members who have statements, they may be included in the hearing record. For that I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record remain open 14 days to allow members' statements and other extraneous material referenced during the hearing to be submitted in the official hearing record. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you for joining us here today to hear testimony on H.R. 366, the Vocational and Technical Education For the Future Act which I introduced a few weeks ago. This is our first hearing this year on this bill to authorize the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act this Congress. We held three hearings on vocational and technical education during the 108th Congress--this is the 109th Congress, for those who don't know it--and have enjoyed learning about and discussing the Perkins program. H.R. 366 is largely based on the provisions in H.R. 4496, the Perkins reauthorization bill that I introduced last Congress, and which was reported out of Subcommittee and Committee by voice vote. We continue to support the reforms contained in both bills, and we look forward to getting feedback from the education and Perkins communities on the major provisions in the legislation today. The Perkins Act aims to prepare youth and adults for the future by building their academic and technical skills in preparation for postsecondary education and/or employment. The bill we are examining today enhances Perkins by ensuring both secondary and postsecondary students receiving assistance through the program are acquiring rigorous academic and technical skills and will have the opportunity to transition into further education and/or successful employment. H.R. 366 strengthens accountability by requiring that locals establish adjusted levels of performance to complement the State-adjusted levels of performance already in current law. The State agency will evaluate annually whether the local recipient is making substantial progress in achieving the local-adjusted levels of performance. Our goal is not to penalize those local areas facing difficulty in achieving high quality outcomes for their students, but to create a structure that includes technical assistance, opportunities for program improvement, and sanctions only as a last resort. H.R. 366 also folds the separate Tech Prep program activities and funding into the larger State grant. Under the bill, States will be expected to spend the same amount of money on Tech Prep activities as they did under the former stand- alone program. Through this reauthorization we want to ensure that all State programs incorporate important lessons learned from the former separate grant program, and strengthen the ties between secondary and postsecondary education. Consortia that would receive funding under the State grant for Tech Prep activities must be effective programs that ensure the transfer of credits from secondary to postsecondary education and provide nonduplicative, academic and vocational and technical education. The bill also requires States to establish model sequences of courses to emphasize further student academic and vocational and technical achievement. Sequences of courses will incorporate a nonduplicative progression of both secondary and postsecondary elements which would include both academic and vocational and technical content. Local recipients at both the secondary and postsecondary level would adopt at least one model sequence of courses as developed by the State. I believe this also will help drive program improvements by ensuring that States clarify the progression of academic and vocational and technical courses needed for the postsecondary education and training or employment of a student's choice. As a result of the changes in the bill, I believe that H.R. 366 would help States, community colleges and other postsecondary education institutions and local educational agencies better utilize funds for vocational and technical education programs, increase accountability, emphasize student achievement, and strengthen opportunities for coordination. We welcome the testimony of our witnesses as we seek to ensure that the reauthorization of the Perkins Act achieves these goals. Our panel today represents State and local educators and a student who will share with us the experiences in operating and participating in vocational and technical education programs. We thank you for joining us today, and appreciate your insights. And I will now yield to Congresswoman Woolsey for any opening statements she may have. [The prepared statement of Chairman Castle follows:] Statement of Hon. Michael N. Castle, Chairman, Subcommittee on Education Reform, Committee on Education and the Workforce Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today to hear testimony on H.R. 366, the Vocational and Technical Education for the Future Act, which I introduced a few weeks ago. This is our first hearing on this bill to reauthorize the Carl. D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act this Congress. We held three hearings on vocational and technical education during the 108th Congress and have enjoyed learning about and discussing the Perkins program. H.R 366 is largely based on the provisions in H.R. 4496, the Perkins reauthorization bill that I introduced last Congress, and which was reported out of Subcommittee and Committee by voice vote. We continue to support the reforms contained in both bills and we look forward to getting feedback from the education and Perkins communities on the major provisions in the legislation today. The Perkins Act aims to prepare youth and adults for the future by building their academic and technical skills in preparation for postsecondary education and/or employment. The bill we are examining today enhances Perkins by ensuring both secondary and postsecondary students receiving assistance through the program are acquiring rigorous academic and technical skills and will have the opportunity to transition into further education and/or successful employment. H.R. 366 strengthens accountability by requiring that locals establish adjusted levels of performance to complement the state adjusted levels of performance already in current law. The state agency will evaluate annually whether the local recipient is making substantial progress in achieving the local adjusted levels of performance. Our goal is not to penalize those local areas facing difficulty in achieving high quality outcomes for their students, but to create a structure that includes technical assistance, opportunities for program improvement, and sanctions only as a last resort. H.R. 366 also folds the separate Tech-Prep program activities and funding into the larger state grant. Under the bill, states still will be expected to spend the same amount of money on tech-prep activities as they did under the former stand-alone program. Through this reauthorization, we want to ensure that all state programs incorporate important lessons learned from the former separate grant program and strengthen the ties between secondary and postsecondary education. Consortia that would receive funding under the state grant for tech- prep activities must be effective programs that ensure the transfer of credits from secondary to postsecondary education and provide non- duplicative, academic and vocational and technical education. The bill also requires states to establish model sequences of courses to emphasize further student academic and vocational and technical achievement. Sequences of courses will incorporate a non- duplicative progression of both secondary and postsecondary elements, which would include both academic and vocational and technical content. Local recipients at both the secondary and postsecondary level would adopt at least one model sequence of courses as developed by the state. I believe this also will help drive program improvements by ensuring that states clarify the progression of academic and vocational and technical courses needed for the postsecondary education and training or employment of a student's choice. As a result of the changes in the bill, I believe that H.R. 366 would help states, community colleges and other postsecondary education institutions, and local educational agencies better utilize funds for vocational and technical education programs, increase accountability, emphasize student achievement, and strengthen opportunities for coordination. We welcome the testimony of our witnesses as we seek to ensure that the reauthorization of the Perkins Act achieves these goals. Our panel today represents state and local educators and a student who will share with us their experiences in operating and participating in vocational and technical education programs. We thank you for joining us today and appreciate your insights. I will now yield to Congresswoman Woolsey for any opening statement she may have. ______ STATEMENT OF HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly appreciate your holding this hearing on H.R. 366, because it demonstrates our ongoing commitment to the bipartisan process that enabled our Subcommittee and Full Committee last year to approve this bill by voice vote. And as an aside to our witnesses, do not think because these chairs are not full that other members are not interested in your testimony. This is a travel day. We do not start voting until 6:30 tonight. People will be coming in as their planes land and they get to Washington. I am especially pleased that we are picking up from where we left off last year, particularly since the President's recent proposal is to eliminate the Perkins program. We need to address that because I believe it would make what we have done to date moot, and we have to step up to that issue. And as we heard from our witnesses, Mr. Chairman, last year, and we will hear today, vocational and technical education works; it works for students who want to go immediately from high school to college, and it works for students who plan first to go into the workforce. Of course, that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. I think one of the strengths of H.R. 366 is that it continues the integration of academics into Perkins programs without losing the traditional focus on vocation, because some students may need to learn math to get a job, and others may need to learn it because they are going on to college, but all students need to learn math. Although H.R. 366 does not restore pre-1998 set-asides for special populations and nontraditional fields, I am pleased that as a result of last year's negotiations, it makes participation in nontraditional fields a core performance indicator for secondary schools, and also requires local programs to help prepare special populations for high-skill occupations that will lead to self-sufficiency. While I still have some concerns with the bill, for example, that it reduces funds for State administration, I appreciate your efforts, Mr. Chairman, to address the concerns of all the members of this Subcommittee; but I must say I noticed that in their written testimony, the witness from your state of Delaware, Mr. Chairman, and the witness from Ohio, the home State of our Full Committee Chairman, both oppose reducing State administrative funds. I hope that is a good sign, and I hope that we can reach agreement on that issue this year as well. In any event, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, we have got a great panel, and continuing to work with you to make this the best bill we can. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [The prepared statement of Ms. Woolsey follows:] Statement of Hon. Lynn C. Woolsey, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Education Reform, Committee on Education and the Workforce Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your holding this hearing on H.R. 366. It demonstrates our ongoing commitment to the bipartisan process that enabled our Subcommittee and full Committee to approve this bill by voice vote last year. I am especially pleased that we are picking up from where we left off last year, given the President's recent proposal to eliminate the Perkins program, which would make all our work to date moot. As we heard from witnesses last year and will hear today, vocational and technical education works. It works for students who want to go immediately from high school to college and it works for students who plan first to go into the workforce. Of course, that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. I think one of the strengths of H.R. 366 is that it continues the integration of academics into Perkins programs without losing the traditional focus on vocations. Because, some students may need to learn math to get a job and others may need to learn it because they are going on to college, but they all need to learn math. Although H.R. 366 does not restore pre-1998 set-asides for special populations and non-traditional fields, I am pleased that as a result of last year's negotiations, it makes participation in non-traditional fields a core performance indicator for secondary schools and also requires local programs to help prepare special populations for high skill occupations that will lead to self-sufficiency. While I still have some concerns with the bill, for example, that it reduces funds for state administration, I appreciate your efforts to address the concerns of all the members of this Subcommittee. In fact, I noticed that in their written testimony, the witness from your state of Delaware, Mr. Chairman, and the witness from Ohio, the home state of our full Committee Chairman, opposed reducing state administrative funds. I hope that is a good sign and that we can reach agreement on that issue, as well. In any event, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and to continuing to work with you on H.R. 366 as we begin the 109th Congress. Thank you. ______ Chairman Castle. Well, thank you, Ms. Woolsey. I guess based on that Dr. Atkinson will not be testifying today, you are disinvited from this hearing. We appreciate your pointing that out, before he said anything, in the opening of the Committee. We do have a distinguished panel of witnesses, and Dr. Atkinson is a friend, and he is the Associate Secretary for Adult Education and Workforce Development with the Department of Education. His responsibilities include oversight of State- approved vocational and technical education programs, as well as supervision of prison education, associated compensation for professional development, score climbing and discipline, and alternative schools. Prior to this position Dr. Atkinson served in the Delaware Department of Education as the State director of vocational and technical education, and as an educational associate responsible for curriculum in the Office of Vocational Programs. Prior to joining the department, Dr. Atkinson served in numerous positions over the course of 15 years at the Delaware Technical Community College's Terry campus. The second witness will be Dr. Joanna Kister. Dr. Kister is a consultant for education and workforce development issues, focusing on vocational and technical education policy, curriculum, instruction and assessment, high school improvement, and career and themed academies. She has authored a number of reports dealing with different aspects of vocational and technical education, and working with numerous State departments of education, businesses and national and international associations, all projects related to vocational and technical education. Dr. Kister is an adjunct faculty member at The Ohio State University and was formerly the State director for the Office of Career and Technical Education in the Ohio Department of Education. And I understand you would like to introduce the next witness; is that correct, Ms. Woolsey? Ms. Woolsey. If I may. Chairman Castle. You certainly may. Ms. Woolsey. Thank you. I am pleased to introduce Dr. Patrick Ainsworth, who is the assistant superintendent and director of the Secondary, Postsecondary and Adult Leadership Division of the California Department of Education. Dr. Ainsworth oversees secondary education, alternative education, adult education, college and postsecondary relations, career and technical education, school to career, workforce preparation programs and educational equity, and that is in a State that has over 35 million people, the size of a country. I do not know how you do it, Dr. Ainsworth. Prior to joining the California Department of Education, he worked for the Riverside County Office of Education where he served as the administrator of a countywide consortium devoted to educating and training disadvantaged and at-risk youth. During his long career Dr. Ainsworth also has been a teacher, a counselor and a principal. So, given his experience and dedication at all levels of education, I think we are fortunate to have Dr. Ainsworth here with us today to discuss H.R. 366. Thank you. Chairman Castle. Thank you, Ms. Woolsey. And welcome to Dr. Ainsworth as well. Our next witness will be Ms. Emily Simons. Ms. Simons is currently a senior at Eastern Technical School in Baltimore County, Maryland. She is enrolled in the allied health program at Eastern, and is interested in pursuing a career in the medical field. In addition to her regular academic courses, Emily is taking a sequence of courses in the allied health program that have earned her community college credit and are preparing her to pursue the allied health field at the postsecondary level. Emily, we welcome you, too. And our final witness today will be Mr. Russ Moore. Mr. Moore is a CEO of the Central Educational Center, or CEC, in Newnan, Georgia. The CEC is a publicly funded charter school serving students in grades 9 through 12, and has been recognized by the Department of Education and numerous industry and professional associations for its excellence in combining academics with vocational and technical education. Prior to serving in this role, Mr. Moore held several marketing and communications positions in business and education. Welcome, Mr. Moore. Before the witnesses begin to testify, I would like to remind the members that we will be asking questions after the entire panel has testified. In addition, Committee Rule 2 imposes a 5-minute limit on all questions, that includes questions and answers, and also 5 minutes as far as the witnesses are concerned. You will have a green light for 4, a yellow for 1, and then it goes red; and after that a whole lot of fireworks go off, and all kinds of problems happen. We will try to hear you out as thoroughly as we can because we really appreciate you being here; some of you have traveled a long ways. And believe me, this is very helpful to all of us. I will just expand a little bit on what Ms. Woolsey said. We will have members coming in and out, but just remember all the staff takes all this and parses it all very carefully, so your testimony is seen by a lot of eyes before it is all said and done. So, not to put too much pressure on you, but we just thought we would let you know that. And with that, we will start with Dr. Atkinson. STATEMENT OF LEWIS L. ATKINSON, III, ASSOCIATE SECRETARY OF EDUCATION, ADULT EDUCATION & WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT, DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, DOVER, DE Dr. Atkinson. Good afternoon. Thank you, Chairman Castle, Congresswoman Woolsey, and members of the Subcommittee, for the opportunity to testify regarding H.R. 366, the Vocational and Technical Education for the Future Act, and to share the perspectives and needs of the State of Delaware. I am especially honored to appear before you, Chairman Castle, as you continue to distinguish yourself by your leadership and public service. We are fortunate to have you working to secure better opportunities and Federal policy for the residents of Delaware and our Nation. The legislation before this Committee is vital to Delaware. The funding is critical to our State, for it is transformational funding, funding that we use to lead innovation and ensure currency of programs. It is the funding we use to provide professional development to our teachers, purchase modern equipment for classrooms and laboratories, and support our career and technical organizations. I believe that H.R. 366 includes many policy advancements that will support our work in Delaware. The goals of emphasizing academic and technical achievement, improved accountability, promoting model sequences of courses and aligning existing Federal investments are strong legislative concepts that will do much to ensure technical education is meeting the needs of today's economy and workplace. This afternoon I will focus my comments on accountability and the funding for State administration. Accountability. The transformation of Delaware's career and technical educational system began during Chairman Castle's tenure as Delaware's Governor. And the central component to Delaware's ongoing improvement of career and technical education is the use of data to drive program decisions, including what professional development should be offered, how we spend our State resources, and what programs we will approve for funding. Our existing high school reform initiatives rely heavily on data and accountability as a management tool, and if we know anything in Delaware, we know that accountability- driven reform works. The provisions in H.R. 366 will help make these data come alive; it will ensure that the Perkins accountability requirements are more than just reports to complete. However, requiring negotiation of performance measures with local recipients will be a significant increase in the administrative responsibilities of the State, but it is worth the effort. When local recipients go through the process of setting performance goals, they have to seriously review the story the data tells, what areas require attention, what interventions are necessary to improve performance. This process is critical to establishing a culture of high expectations and performance and will focus attention and resources on student success. Now let me address State administration funds. In Delaware we receive the minimum allocation of $250,000 in State administration funds. This provision has not changed since 1990, and it is not recommended to change in H.R. 366. Since 1990, inflation has reduced the buying power of this $250,000 by 43 percent. This means that the $250,000 of State administration that we had at our disposal in 1990--or excuse me, in 2004 terms, really has a buying power of only $142,500. H.R. 366 requires that State administration funds be used to develop the State plan, review local plans, monitor and evaluate program effectiveness, assure compliance with all applicable Federal laws and provide technical assistance. These current requirements alone easily consume the full State administration funds. Considering H.R. 366's more aggressive accountability requirements, including the mandatory provision of technical assistance to local programs not meeting performance expectations, this level of funding is simply insufficient to carry out our responsibilities. My colleagues across the country and I are concerned about H.R. 366's proposed reduction of State administration funds from 5 percent to 2 percent, or $250,000, whichever is greater. I urge you to restore the State administration funds to 5 percent for larger States, and raise the minimum for State administration for small States to at least $500,000. This action will ensure that States can be good stewards of Federal funds, while also providing high-quality technical assistance that is mandated in H.R. 366. In conclusion, again, thank you for this opportunity. I sincerely appreciate Congress' efforts to reauthorize the Perkins legislation, thus maintaining the critical Federal investment in technical and career education. I am happy to answer any questions you may have, elaborate on my portion of the testimony, and offer my support in completing the work on H.R. 366. Thank you. Chairman Castle. Thank you, Dr. Atkinson. We appreciate it, and we will come back to you, obviously, for questions when we are done hearing from everybody. [The prepared statement of Dr. Atkinson follows:] Statement of Dr. Lewis L. Atkinson, Associate Secretary of Education, Delaware Department of Education Good afternoon. Thank you Chairman Castle, Congresswoman Woolsey and members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to testify regarding H.R. 366, the Vocational and Technical Education for the Future Act, and to share the perspectives and needs of the state of Delaware. I am especially honored to appear before you Chairman Castle, as you continue to distinguish yourself by your leadership and public service. We are fortunate to have you working to secure better opportunities and federal policy for the residents of Delaware and our nation. In my role as Assistant Secretary of Education at the Delaware Department of Education, I manage the Adult Education and Workforce Development Branch of the Department. This branch manages and funds career technical programs at the secondary level, adult education programs in our community centers and adult prisons that range from basic literacy to the completion of the James H. Groves Adult High School, the Delaware Center for Educational Technology, and the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association. In career technical education in Delaware, we serve nearly 17,000 secondary students concentrating in career technical education through secondary programs in all of our middle and high schools. Further, we support post secondary programs at the four Delaware Technical and Community Colleges and in the adult programs at our three comprehensive vocational technical high schools districts. Support for spirit and intent of H.R. 366 The legislation before this committee is vital to Delaware. We receive approximately $4.8 million dollars each year, slightly above the minimum allocation of Perkins funding. This funding is critical to our state, as it is transformational funding--funding that we use to lead innovation and ensure currency of programs. It is the funding we use to provide professional development to our teachers, purchase modern equipment for classrooms and laboratories, and support our career technical student organizations. This investment helps create opportunities for youth and adults and helps to ensure that we are meeting our employer's needs so that our economy is vibrant. I believe H.R. 366 includes many policy advancements that will support our work in Delaware. The goals of emphasizing academic and technical achievement, improved accountability, promoting model sequences of courses and aligning existing federal investments are strong legislative concepts that will do much to ensure that career technical education is meeting the needs of today's economy and workforce and is prepared and able to adapt to future demands. Evolution of Delaware's CTE system--It works! Across the state of Delaware, our system of career technical education has undergone a transformation that was supported in part by Perkins funding. As we know, students vote with their feet and through the 1980's we experienced a decade of declining enrollments in career and technical education, especially in our vocational technical school districts. Not only were enrollments declining, but student assessment performance was low, and our career technical programs were out of step with the needs of business and industry. Through our partnership with High Schools That Work and aggressive local and state leadership, our career technical programs underwent a serious review and major changes were made. In a painful but necessary process, some programs were shut down and others completely rebuilt. A wonderful example of this transformation is Sussex Technical High School, whose former principal, Ms. Walls-Culotta, appeared before this committee at your first hearing on the reauthorization of Perkins. Part of Sussex Tech's success, and the success of career technical education across our state, is the development of challenging programs of study that integrate and blend academic and career technical instruction, as well the delivery of career technical education organized around what you refer to in H.R. 366 as model sequences of courses. Model sequences of courses are the future framework of quality career technical education. They establish shared responsibility for student success between academic and career technical education. Model sequences of courses ensure a sequencing of course work that promotes advanced or dual credit, as well as the important connection to the needs of employers and the workforce. The inclusion of this provision in H.R. 366 will expedite the transition and transformation of programs across the country so that we have more successes like Sussex Tech. Focus on accountability Another essential component to Delaware's ongoing transformation is the use of data to drive program decisions, including what professional development should be offered, how we spend our state resources and what programs we will approve for funding. Our existing high school reform initiatives rely heavily on data and accountability as a management tool. We know accountability-driven reform works. Across our state, test scores for career and technical students in our comprehensive vocational technical high schools on the Delaware Student Testing Program are equal or better than all students in Reading and Math. The drop out rate for career technical students is half of that of all high school students. The provisions in H.R. 366 will help make the data come alive, as it will ensure that the Perkins accountability requirements are more than just reports to complete. Requiring negotiation of performance measures with local recipients will be a significant increase in the administrative responsibilities of the state, but it is worth the effort. When local recipients go through the process of setting performance goals, they have to seriously review what story the data tells now, what areas require attention and what interventions are necessary to improve performance. This process is critical to establishing a culture of high expectations and performance and will focus attention and resources on student success. H.R. 366 will help build a bridge between the accountability provisions to the local and state plans, as well as the mandatory and permissive uses of funds. This connection is important and will help strengthen the relationship between states and locals, making us partners in ensuring success rather than pen pals sharing reports and regulations. It will also ensure that we are able to be more nimble and responsive in determining what works and what doesn't work and redirecting efforts and resources to meet identified needs. Small State Minimum In Delaware, we receive minimal allocation of $250,000 in state administration funds. This provision has not changed since 1990 and is not recommended to change in H.R. 366. Since 1990, inflation has reduced the buying power of this $250,000 by 43%. This means that the $250,000 state administration dollars really only had the value of $142,500 in 2004. <SUP>1</SUP> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator, http:// 146.142.4.24/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- H.R. 366 requires that state administration funds be used to: <bullet> Develop the state plan; <bullet> Review local plans; <bullet> Monitor and evaluate program effectiveness; <bullet> Assure compliance with all applicable Federal laws; and <bullet> Provide technical assistance. These current requirements alone easily consume the full state administration funds. Considering H.R. 366's more aggressive accountability requirements, including the mandatory provision of technical assistance to local programs not meeting performance expectations, this level of funding is simply insufficient to carry out our responsibilities in an effective, efficient and thorough manner. My colleagues across the country and I are concerned about H.R. 366's proposed reduction of state administration funds from 5% to 2% or $250,000, whichever is greater. <SUP>2</SUP> I urge you to restore the state administration funds to 5% for the larger states and raise the minimum for state administration for small states to at least $500,000. This action will ensure that states can be good stewards of the federal funds, while also providing the high-quality technical assistance mandated in H.R. 366. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \2\ H.R. 366 proposed to reduce state administration from 5% to 2% but retains the provision that the minimum amount of state administration funding a state may receive is $250,000. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion Thank you for this opportunity. I sincerely appreciate the Congress' efforts to reauthorize the Perkins legislation, thus maintaining the crucial federal investment in career technical education. I am happy to answer any questions you may have, elaborate on any portion of my testimony and offer my support in completing work on H.R. 366 expeditiously. ______ Chairman Castle. Dr. Kister. STATEMENT OF DR. JOANNA KISTER, EDUCATIONAL CONSULTANT, COLUMBUS, OH Dr. Kister. Good afternoon, Chairman Castle, Congresswoman Woolsey, and members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on H.R. 366. I have worked in all levels of education in almost every State. Currently I am providing technical assistance to local districts to improve high schools and career technical programs. I work with teachers to incorporate the belief that all students can learn, and it is my job to see that they do. I firmly believe that H.R. 366 is sound Federal policy, and I will speak to three progressive components in the bill, increased accountability, simplification of funding streams, model sequences of courses, and will stress the criticality of the State role to support local program quality. I do technical assistance business for High Schools at Work, the Nation's largest high school improvement initiative, that includes a focus on rigorous career technical studies. We analyze performance of subgroups and make recommendations through a process we call closing the gaps. As I worked in the past year in schools in New York, California, Texas, Ohio, Arkansas, no matter how big or small the State, data is a powerful motivator and driver for change, but we need good data. I encourage you to consider establishing an assessment fund that would support the creation of technical assessments, aligned to the model sequences of courses. I served on the National Assessment of Vocational Education, the NAVE panel, and technical assessments is a very strong recommendation from that report. Technical assessments would inform employers, postsecondary institutions, and would provide an accountability and a program improvement measure for career tech programs. I am supportive of the integration of the successful features of the Basic State Grant and Tech Prep programs, as proposed. As I work in schools, I have seen Tech Prep in some cases become a silo within career tech. In some States it has not been well defined; in other States it has become a sorting and tracking mechanism that creates an elite program at the expense of career technical education. When I interviewed students in one school, they actually identified themselves-- they almost labeled themselves as, I am career tech, I am college Tech Prep. In some cases Tech Prep students have different academic requirements for graduation; they are taken on tours of college campuses and given class time to complete college applications, while that is not true for non-Tech Prep students. Federal policy should support the elimination of barriers to postsecondary education and not create them; we should not be about predicting the stopping-off points for students. Tech Prep funding was established as seed money to spark change. In Ohio and across the Nation, this funding was used to encourage collaboration between secondary and postsecondary education, and that has probably been its most visible success, particularly in the form of articulation agreements. Yet, NAVE found that relatively few Tech Prep students take advantage of the articulated credit they receive. The goals of Tech Prep are still important today, aligning secondary and postsecondary instruction and preparing students for postsecondary education; but those goals should be shared by the entire career technical community, not just a segment. While I am supportive of the proposed restructuring of the funding streams, I am concerned, and we are concerned, that there is not a loss of funding. Perkins funds have not kept pace with inflation or demand. I understand that funding is not the jurisdiction of this Committee, but in light of the current conservative fiscal environment and the President's recent budget, anything this Committee can do to ensure that the Federal investment in career technical education is, at a minimum, maintained, but, more preferably, increased, would be appreciated. As I work across the country, I am seeing programs such as biotechnology, the teaching professions, Project Lead the Way, pre-engineering, logistics, interactive media that blend the lines between academic and technical instruction. We need support to continue to develop model sequences of courses and cutting-edge programs. There is one area that I would like to recommend change: to restore the 5 percent of funds set aside for State administration. When I was State director, my comments would have been perceived as self-serving, but now I am working with local schools, and I can tell you that they want, they need, they seek support from States. A local school in one State in which I worked that has significantly reduced State staff said, ``When I call, there is no one there.'' In a field that changes as rapidly as career tech, teachers seek help with program design, standards, curriculum, assessment, professional development. The success of High Schools that Work in 32 States is attributed to its use of State leadership. More important than the technical assistance role that States play is leadership for change. Most States are in front of local districts on leadership for the very initiatives that you stress in this bill. As I travel the country, I can state unequivocally where there is strong State leadership, quality programs exist in greater numbers, test scores are higher, and student options are greater. Cutting the States' administrative funds by 60 percent is not only counterproductive, but undermines the positive changes in the legislation. Thank you. Chairman Castle. Thank you, Dr. Kister. [The prepared statement of Dr. Kister follows:] Statement of Dr. Joanna Kister, Educational Consultant, Columbus, OH Good afternoon Chairman Castle, Congresswoman Woolsey, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to share my perspective on career technical education (CTE), and to specifically comment on H.R. 366--The Vocational and Technical Education for the Future Act. My remarks today are guided by over 30 years of working in the field of career technical education and my experiences as: Ohio's State Director for Career Technical Education, a member of the Independent Advisory Panel for the most recent National Assessment of Vocational Education, a classroom teacher, university faculty and most recently as an educational consultant. My current work focuses on providing technical assistance and leadership to schools in pursuit of closing their achievement gaps and improving the quality of their career technical programs. The goal of my work is help transform these schools into high performing educational entities that prepare students for success in both work and post secondary education. Supporting the goals of H.R. 366 Based on my work at the state and local levels, I firmly believe that H.R. 366 is sound federal policy that will benefit and advance career technical education. H.R.366 will increase options for students and ensure that the United States is able to meet the needs of its employers and economy. I support H.R. 366's goals to more fully develop academic, technical, and employability skills of students; the promotion of rigorous course-taking; and increased linkages between secondary and post secondary education. My remarks focus on and express my support for what I believe are the most progressive components of the bill: increased accountability, the simplification of funding streams, the establishment of model sequences of courses, and an expanded state role to support local program quality. Accountability requirements My work in local schools has reinforced my strong belief that good data is an integral part of a high performing school system. Many schools are doing what they believe is right and is working. Their eyes are opened when first look at performance data. And when they see the gaps in student performance in the disaggregated data, the reality sets in. I have worked in schools in Ohio, Arkansas, California, New York or Texas; no matter how big or small the state or school is, no matter how urban or rural the setting, the data is a powerful motivator and driver of change. The accountability provisions in H.R. 366 will arm local programs with information necessary to make sound data-driven decisions. This data will identify areas of strength and weakness, thus allowing a continuous improvement plan based on fact rather than emotion or perception. These provisions will have lasting and deep impact in improving career technical education programs. Technical assessments The first step to making good data-driven decisions is to have the data. The second step is to have good data. One of the biggest challenges in career technical education is measuring technical competency. The breadth of careers makes it difficult to synthesize the critical knowledge of all professions into a single test, as we do in academics. Curriculum aligned with assessment and professional development is the equation to quality career technical education. Today, we do not have one of these critical components--quality, consistent and comprehensive technical assessments for all major industry areas. We also do not have a consistent way to measure technical competency, within or among states, nor can we effectively measure the contribution that career technical education has in supporting academic attainment. The development of quality technical assessments is a key to measuring our progress toward closing our nation's skills gap. I encourage you to consider establishing an assessment fund in H.R. 366 that would support the creation of technical assessments aligned to the model sequences of courses. Simplification of Funding Streams I am supportive of the integration of the successful features of the Basic State Grant and Tech Prep programs, as proposed in H.R. 366, into a more efficient, streamlined funding structure. As I work in schools across the country, I have seen Tech Prep become a silo within career technical education. It establishes the boundaries of the elite, defining those career technical students who are ``the ones'' going to college. In some cases, Tech Prep is even called College Tech Prep. These students have different academic requirements for graduation than regular career technical education students. In working with one school in Ohio, I found that Tech Prep students were taken on tours of college campuses and given guidance and class time to complete college applications, while non-Tech Prep career technical students were not given that opportunity. Federal policy should support the elimination of barriers to post secondary education, not create them. The changing labor market dictates that if we are to prepare all students for future success, they must be prepared for both post secondary education and the workforce. In the past, the paths to preparation for post secondary education and work were different. The American Diploma Project recently found that in fact these paths have converged and that college and work readiness are one in the same. H.R. 366 will support states' progress is ensuring student success for both work and college. Tech Prep funding was established as seed money to spark change. In Ohio and across the nation, this funding was used to encourage conversation and collaboration between secondary and post secondary education, with the goal of increased student participation and success in college. Conversation among systems was initiated through Tech Prep funding and is probably its most visible success. This conversation is reflected in the form of articulation agreements. Unfortunately, articulation agreements vary widely in their value and utilization. The National Assessment of Vocational Education found that relatively few Tech Prep students take advantage of the Tech Prep articulated credit they receive. <SUP>1</SUP> Tech Prep also has failed in its goal to get more students to college. Again, according to the National Assessment of Vocational Education, Tech Prep students attend college at roughly the same rates as other career technical education students. <SUP>2</SUP> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ Silverberg, M. Warner, E., Fong, M., & Goodwin, D. 2004. National Assessment of Vocational Education: Final Report to Congress. Washington D.C: United States Department of Education, Office of the Undersecretary of Education, Policy and Program Studies Service. Page 185. \2\ Ibid, page 194. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- While there are certainly Tech Prep successes can point to, its impact on systemic change has been limited. We should learn from our experiences and not perpetuate mediocre policy. The concepts that Tech Prep attempted to address are still important today--aligning secondary and post secondary instruction and preparing more students for successful post secondary education. These goals should be shared by the entire career technical education community and not just one segment. H.R. 366's integration of funding streams will not dilute the focus on or support for these goals, but instead will promote the alignment of the federal investment to a common vision of success for all. While I am supportive of the proposed restructuring of the funding streams within Perkins, I am concerned that there is not a loss of funding. Perkins funds have not kept pace with inflation or demand. I understand funding is not the jurisdiction of this Committee, but in light of the current conservative fiscal environment, the President's recent budget proposal and the pressures to reduce domestic spending, anything this Committee can do to ensure that the federal investment in career technical education is, at a minimum, maintained but more preferably increased, would be appreciated. Model Sequences of Courses H.R. 366 will help improve and advance career technical education programs through implementation of model sequences of courses. As a framework for instruction, model sequences of courses can improve transitions between secondary and post secondary education by aligning coursework and reducing remediation. They will support the more comprehensive integration of academic and career technical studies and help broaden career awareness. Model sequences of courses can help educators establish consistent expectations for student performance and connect classroom experiences to student goals. The application and relevance of academic knowledge becomes apparent through model sequences of courses, and students become more engaged learners. Finally, model sequences of courses can reinforce the historic federal role of driving innovation, program improvement and quality in career technical education. As I have worked with schools across the country, the transition from narrow-job specific vocational programs to programs that reflect the modern workplace is occurring. These new programs like biotechnology, teaching professions, and logistics blend the lines between academic and technical instruction. These new programs prepare students with a broader, more durable and portable set of skills and knowledge. These programs often provide dual credit, thus supporting an effective transition between secondary and post secondary education. While there are many programs across the country that already meet these high expectations, all of career technical education should be embracing these goals. The requirements for model sequences of courses will help to expedite the transformation of more career technical education programs and thus will ensure that we are truly preparing all students for successful futures. The Importance of the State Role in Local Program Quality There is one area in H.R. 366 that I would like to recommend a change--the amount of funds set aside for state administration. When I was State Director, my remarks on this issue would have been no surprise, as the restoration of state administration funding to 5% would have been perceived as self-preservation. However, my recent work with local programs confirms the valuable role that states have in driving innovation, ensuring quality programs, supporting local program improvement and the absolute necessity to fund these activities adequately. Local career technical administrators view their state agency as their partners in ensuring quality programs. They rely on the state for the provision of many supports that they could not afford otherwise. For example, states ensure an efficiency in scale through the development and implementation of curriculum, new programs, assessments, technical assistance, professional development, etc. Quality in each of these areas would suffer if local programs had to develop and pay for these services independently, thus further promoting disparities in quality within states (urban, rural, and suburban and well as areas of wealth and poverty). H.R. 366 provides states with more opportunities to exercise leadership to ensure the quality of career technical education programs. States are instructional leaders, as well as lead the charge to more systemically connect career technical education with workforce development, economic development and education reform. As I travel the country, where there is strong state leadership, quality programs exist in greater numbers, test scores are higher and student options are greater. H.R. 366 requires states to provide technical assistance to low performing schools. This is an important state role. My work with schools has proven the power of technical assistance. It ignites the reform process by spotlighting the weaknesses and providing the support to remedy these challenges. Technical assistance works. However, if you require states to provide technical assistance with a 60% reduction in administrative funds, you create an unattainable mandate. Worse yet, you hold out false hope to schools who need support. If the Congress is serious about closing achievement gaps, cutting the states administrative funds by 60% - the funds that will be used to provide technical assistance - is not only counterproductive, but seriously undermines the positive changes H.R. 366 proposes to strengthen accountability provisions. Conclusion In conclusion, I applaud your leadership to develop legislation that supports a separate federal investment in career technical education. H.R. 366 builds on current successes, while also encouraging innovation in career technical education. Thank you again for the opportunity to be with you. I am happy to respond to any questions you might have and look forward to working with you to complete work on this important piece of legislation. Thank you. ______ Chairman Castle. Dr. Ainsworth. STATEMENT OF DR. PATRICK AINSWORTH, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT AND DIRECTOR, SECONDARY, POSTSECONDARY AND ADULT LEADERSHIP DIVISION, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, SACRAMENTO, CA Dr. Ainsworth. Well, good afternoon. And thank you, Chairman Castle, Congresswoman Woolsey, members of the Committee, for asking me here to share some perspectives from California, and to support H.R. 366. I would also like to thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the Committee, for your expressions recently of keeping this as a separate Federal investment. It is very important to all us of. Perkins is a crucial resource to California, promoting innovation in education, and supporting our State's economic development. California's Perkins funds serve more than 3 million students and 663 local and State education agencies and 109 community colleges. At the secondary level, Perkins has been the main vehicle for increasing the academic content and technical rigor of career tech ed courses and has supported statewide efforts to restructure high schools to improve student achievement. Now, at the postsecondary level Perkins has facilitated instructional innovation and development of programs in high- demand and emerging technologies. I am going to concentrate my comments in four specific areas; first, this issue of integrating academics and technical instruction. Perkins, of course, has had that as an emphasis for some time, and I am proud to say that we have made considerable progress in this area. Over 8,000 high school courses and career tech ed courses are qualified for academic graduation credit, and 3,300 career tech ed courses meet the entrance criteria for entrance into the University of California. In 2002, the California Legislature required the development of Career Tech Ed Model Curriculum Standards mirroring the intent of Perkins. These standards defined the technical skills students enrolled in these programs should achieve and are specifically designed to support, reinforce and provide opportunities for integrating academic skills. We do not envision all career tech ed courses morphing into academic courses; rather, the vision is for schools to offer high-level career technical education courses that provide students a context for learning academics, and inspire them to stay in the high school and continue their learning. H.R. 366's model sequence of courses promotes the work we are doing, and we are in total agreement with that concept. State administration is area number 2. As you can imagine, and it has been articulately said by the previous 2 testifiers, that we just think that this proposed reduction in administration will derail the policy intent expressed in H.R. 366. Cutting 60 percent of the administrative funding will result in significant loss of direct support to California schools and students. As you have heard, this adds much in the way of accountability and monitoring responsibilities for the State. We calculate that this would add another 5- to 6,000 separate negotiations that we will have to make with our locals, which will certainly be on top of everything else that is required in the bill. This reduction, we believe, is illogical and impractical. State administration must remain at 5 percent. We also believe that we need help in the large States with maintenance of effort. We would like to see a flexibility added in the maintenance of effort area in most of the large States that experience across-the-board State funding reductions which puts those States in jeopardy for losing the entire Perkins grant. We think that this is a crucial educational reform strategy, and we do not want to lose it because of a simple technical issue in the bill. Now, on diversity. I would like to talk--say that our State has a long-held tradition of deliberately serving special populations; in fact, in California's Perkins-funded programs, approximately 80 percent of all career tech ed students are defined in one or more special populations categorically. We annually set aside allotments from Perkins leadership funds for programs providing staff development and technical assistance related to special populations. In addition, our local planning process encourages local districts to use these funds to support the special populations. We believe that it is just very important that we keep this focus in the Perkins legislation, which would promote student's pursuing nontraditional careers, and we believe it is an important economic self-sufficiency and wise economic strategy. Tech Prep. We would again mirror the comments of the previous 2 in saying it is an important strategy in California, with 80 consortia, 109 community colleges, and 1,063 high schools engaged in this process. This is where collaboration occurs in California, and we really believe that whatever happens in this bill, we believe those principles underlying the Tech Prep concept need to be preserved and mainstreamed within the whole of the Perkins Act. So in conclusion, I appreciate this opportunity to testify before your Committee, and I look forward to providing any additional information you may need, and answer any questions. Thank you. Chairman Castle. Thank you, Dr. Ainsworth. We appreciate that. [The prepared statement of Dr. Ainsworth follows:] Statement of Dr. Patrick Ainsworth, Assistant Superintendent and Director of the Secondary, Postsecondary, and Adult Leadership Division, California Department of Education, Sacramento, CA Thank you Chairman Castle, Congresswoman Woolsey and members of the committee for the opportunity to offer testimony regarding H.R. 366, the Vocational and Technical Education for the Future Act, and to share the perspectives and needs of California. I am Patrick Ainsworth, Assistant Superintendent and Director of the Secondary, Postsecondary, and Adult Leadership Division, of the California Department of Education. Among my responsibilities, I am also designated as the State Director for Career Technical Education. California receives approximately $140 million annually from the Perkins Act, serving 3,245,443 total students in 663 local and state educational agencies, and 109 community colleges. Chairman Castle and members of the committee, we also appreciate your recent comments supporting a continued, separate federal investment in career technical education. Perkins funding has been an important resource for improving career technical education. At the secondary level, Perkins funding has been a main vehicle for increasing the academic content and technical rigor of career technical education courses and has supported statewide efforts to restructure high schools to improve student achievement. At the postsecondary level, Perkins has facilitated instructional innovation and development of programs in high demand and emerging technologies. Perkins has proven to be an indispensable resource for improving career technical programs and supporting the economic development of our state. We believe that it is essential to retain Perkins' focus on improving career technical program performance and student outcomes and recommend that funding not be reduced, but increased over the next six years to foster higher student outcomes and increased economic development. My comments focus on four specific areas: (1) integrating academics and technical instruction, (2) preserving state administrative funds, (3) meeting the needs of a diverse population, and (4) Tech Prep. Integrating Academics and Technical Instruction In the information and knowledge-based economy, it simply must be recognized that a strong academic foundation is necessary for all students emerging from high school. The skills necessary for entering postsecondary education are virtually the same skills necessary for success in the modern workplace. For example, students entering construction-related apprenticeship programs must have algebra, geometry and trigonometry skills, which are also requirements for entry into California's university systems. Career technical education, as with all segments of the educational system, must support student academic achievement. California has made considerable progress in fostering academic integration. Over 8,225 high school career technical education courses are qualified for academic graduation credit, and 3,336 career technical education courses met the entrance criteria for admission to the University of California. California has established over 290 career academies that by design require academic integration. In addition, numerous small learning communities, thematic, and charter high schools, have formed in recent years that are organized around the concept of integrating career technical education and academics to increase the rigor and relevance of instruction. In 2002, the California Legislature required the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction to develop Career Technical Education Model Curriculum Standards. California's career technical education standards define the technical skills students enrolled in career technical education programs should achieve. The standards are specifically designed to support, reinforce, and provide opportunities for integrating academic skills. The standards do not envision all career technical education courses morphing into academic courses; rather, the vision is for schools to offer high-level career technical education courses that provide students a context for learning academics and the inspiration for continued learning. We believe that the legislation should promote academic integration, but not displace the primary role of career technical education to develop students' technical skills. H.R. 366's proposed model sequences of courses will promote more effective integration, as well as, improve the articulation between secondary and postsecondary education. The new legislation should support career technical education teachers whose courses are qualified for academic graduation credit or university entrance requirements. Agricultural Science, Engineering, and Health Professions teachers often have the equivalent knowledge and degrees of academic teachers, yet are typically considered unqualified under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Highly Qualified Teacher provisions. Through 2005, existing CTE teachers are being evaluated and qualified to deliver academic instruction under the High Objective Uniform State Standard of Evaluation (HOUSSE) provisions of NCLB. We recommend that the new legislation allow new career technical education teachers, many coming from business and industry, to take advantage of the NCLB HOUSSE provisions on an on-going basis. This approach would be similar to the provision in the recently passed Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). State Administration The proposed reduction in state administration from 5% to 2% will derail the policy intent expressed in H.R. 366. Cutting 60% of the funding will result in a significant loss of direct support to California's schools and students. H.R. 366 proposes an expanded state role in accountability and related technical assistance, including negotiating outcomes, monitoring local improvement plans, and holding additional hearings for low performing districts. We are supportive of these policy recommendations as they reflect a maturation of the accountability system, however, these activities are very staff intensive. For example, the proposed negotiation of performance measures with each local recipient equates to approximately 5,400 separate negotiations every two years. We will be hampered in our ability to effectively carry out these new responsibilities if state administration funds are reduced. If this cut is enacted, California will only have enough capacity to distribute funds, collect data, and produce the required federal reports. This reduction is illogical and impractical. State administration funding must remain at five percent. Where we need help administratively is in adding flexibility within Perkins for meeting the annual Maintenance of Effort (MOE) requirements. Most of the large states have experienced across the board state funding reductions, which puts states in jeopardy for losing the entire Perkins grant. We request that Perkins be brought in line with the flexible maintenance of effort provisions within No Child Left Behind, the Individuals with Disabilities Act, and the Adult and Family Education Literacy Act, to allow a ten percent variation. Diverse Populations California has an incredible diversity of ethnicities, languages, and economic levels among its people. One in four children are limited English proficient and almost half of California's working families fell below the Federal Poverty Level in 2002. According to a report to be released this week by Women Work!, California's single mother population has increased by 90% in the last decade, escalating the need for women to access quality career technical education programs that lead to high wage occupations.\1\ Within California's Perkins funded programs, approximately eighty percent of all career technical students are identified within one or more special populations categories. It is clear that Perkins is a vital resource in helping to serve these often disadvantaged populations within our secondary, adult, and community college systems. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ Chutes and Ladders: The Search for Solid Ground for Women in the Workforce, Women Work! February, 2005 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- California has a long held tradition of deliberately serving special populations. We annually set aside an allotment from our Perkins leadership funds for programs providing staff development and technical assistance related to special populations. In addition, our local planning process encourages locals to use funds to support the success of special population students. As partners with the community colleges, we have established the California Joint Special Populations Advisory Committee to guide these efforts. In particular, we strongly support the efforts to increase the numbers of students enrolled in nontraditional occupations. Promoting students in pursuit of nontraditional careers is an important economic self-sufficiency strategy for the students of California, and a wise economic development strategy. Many employers in California have corporate diversity policies and goals that have led them to develop strong partnerships with local Career Technical Education programs to support the success of nontraditional students pursuing careers in their industry. They know that having access to a larger workforce pool is good business and we know it is good education. Additionally, investing state and federal career technical education funds in the educational attainment of single parents benefits families and local communities. Assisting low-income women to obtain job skills through career and technical education has a significant impact not only on their own well-being, but also on that of their children and other family members. Children whose mothers go back to school have higher aspirations, take education more seriously and work harder in school. And, when low-income mothers secure employment offering higher wages and better benefits as a result of their education, child poverty levels decrease. From that point of view, it is important to keep the current minimum special populations investments and the data elements contained within the current Perkins Act, and to provide state and local agencies with incentives to increase the investments that boost student outcomes within the special populations groups. Tech Prep California has established 80 Tech Prep consortia encompassing the 109 community colleges, 1063 high schools, 73 Regional Occupational Centers and Programs, and 352 adult education schools. Tech Prep has helped foster collaboration among agencies with the goal of increased student transitions to postsecondary education. Currently 338,429 secondary and postsecondary students participate in Tech Prep and 678 career pathways, institutionalizing course sequencing and 2+2 articulation, have been established within the statewide consortia. This system building approach provides students with career guidance, training, and transition assistance to help them reach their career goals. Interestingly, the articulation model is spreading beyond career technical education into academic subjects. We believe the principles underlying the Tech Prep concept need to be preserved and mainstreamed within the whole of the Perkins Act. Course sequencing within and among the education systems allows students to make the transition necessary for success. Conclusion I sincerely appreciate this opportunity to testify before your committee. We stand ready to assist you in crafting reasonable legislative language that increases accountability, provides for local and state flexibility, and helps bolster our nation's economy into the future. ______ Chairman Castle. And, Ms. Simons, it is your turn. STATEMENT OF EMILY SIMONS, VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION STUDENT, EASTERN TECHNICAL SCHOOL, BALTIMORE, MD Ms. Simons. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Woolsey, and members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to share my positive experiences with career technical education in my high school program, and to express support for continued Federal support for such programs across the country. I am a senior in the allied health program at Eastern Technical High School in Baltimore County. Many Baltimore County high schools are organized as magnet schools, allowing students the choice of which school to attend, depending on their area of interest. You may ask, why choose to attend a technical school? Many people have a perception of career technical education that is for those students that are not interested in college or those who are not academically inclined, or even that it eliminates the options. These perceptions are wrong. I hope that by sharing my comments today will help change these perceptions and let others know how important career technical education programs are, and that they create opportunities and options, not limit them. I chose to attend Eastern because of my interest in the medical field. I knew that if I attended Eastern, what I was learning would give me a leg up on the career I wanted to pursue, and that the school would be fun because I was actually learning something that interested me. I actually enjoy getting up each day and going to school. My dreams of working with children or children in rehabilitation have been confirmed, and I am eager to begin my collegiate studies in health sciences. My allied health program is similar to what H.R. 366 calls a model sequence of courses. It is an organized set of classes that progressively connect and build upon one another. I understand the interrelatedness of academic and technical classes, and how what I am learning will be applied in the real world. For example, my English coursework helped me with medical terminology. Given all the Latin medical terms we have to learn, my grasp of prefixes and suffixes helped me dissect words. Knowledge of the human body, which I learned in my 9th- grade anatomy and physiology class, along with other things that I learned and skills that I developed in my allied health courses, helped me obtain my CPR certification in the 11th grade. This certification is a valuable and necessary credential for anyone in the health profession. The allied health program has also helped with my study habits. I study not only to pass a test, but because there is information I would have to have readily accessible to treat patients. I understand the application of math because I know just how many and how important mental calculations are that professionals in the medical field have to make every day. These are decisions that people's lives depend on. One class in the allied health sequence of courses was even taught by a professor from a nearby community college. The professor came to Eastern to teach the course, which will be recognized for a credit at the postsecondary level. I will definitely have an advantage over the other students because I will not need to take this course in college, and it will save my family tuition. When I finish my allied health program and graduate, I will have completed a career technical program of study, one of the pathways a high school student can take to obtain a Maryland high school diploma. In addition, I will have successfully completed the required course to meet the university system of Maryland entrance requirements. And for the past 2 years, all of my classes have been Advanced Placement, which will be helpful in my college selection and admission. I have already been admitted to James Madison University and to Towson University, and am waiting to hear about the University of Maryland, College Park. I know I am fortunate to have the opportunities I have had at Eastern. I am better prepared for postsecondary education in the world of work, and as such, my studies and my career technical education program will have a lasting impact on my future. I have options and the confidence that I will be successful. While I am not an astute legislative analyst, what I understand of H.R. 366 is that it is a good policy that will dramatically increase the availability of high-quality career technical programs like the one I am in. The model sequences of courses concept is a good one, as it embodies all the elements of a quality career technical education program, again, just like the one I am in. This concept model sequences of courses will give more students access to quality career technical education, and quality career technical education will help prepare more students for success in college, careers and life. I have always thought the Federal Government's role is to enact policy that creates opportunities and eliminates barriers to success. In education, the Federal Government's role has been to ensure equal access to quality education. This piece of legislation achieves these laudable goals. In closing, I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of career technical education. The opportunities I have been provided through the career technical education program at Eastern have definitely given me greater options for my future career. The opportunities for students in career technical education provided by Perkins can really make a difference in a young person's life. Specifically, model sequences of courses better prepare students for further learning and careers. Thank you for your continued support of career technical education. Chairman Castle. Thank you, Ms. Simons. That was excellent testimony. We appreciate you being here. You did a good job. [The prepared statement of Ms. Simons follows:] Statement of Emily Simons, Vocational and Technical Education Student, Eastern Technical School, Baltimore, MD Good afternoon Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Woolsey, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to share my positive experiences with career technical education in my high school program and to express support for continued federal support for such programs across the country. I am a senior in the Allied Health program at Eastern Technical High School in Baltimore County Maryland. Baltimore County's high schools are organized as magnet schools, allowing students the choice of which school to attend depending on their area of interest. You may ask, why choose to attend a technical school? Many people have a perception of career technical education--that it is for those students not interested in college or those who are not academically inclined or even that it eliminates options. These perceptions are wrong. I hope that sharing my comments today will help change these perceptions and let others know how important career technical education programs are and that they create opportunities and options, not limit them. I chose to attend Eastern because of my interest in the medical field. I knew that if I attended Eastern, what I was learning would give me a leg up on the career I wanted to pursue and that school would be fun because I was learning something that interested me. I actually enjoy getting up each day and going to school! My dreams of working with children or children in rehabilitation have been confirmed and maybe one day I'll even become a doctor or a physician's assistant. My Allied Health program is similar to what H.R. 366 calls a model sequence of courses. It is an organized set of classes that progressively connect and build on one another. I understand the inter- relatedness of academic and technical classes and how what I am learning will be applied in the real world. For example, my English coursework helped me with medical terminology. Given all the Latin medical terms we have to learn, my grasp of prefixes and suffixes helped me dissect words. Knowledge of the human body, which I learned in my 10th grade Anatomy and Physiology class, along with things I learned and skills I developed in my Allied Health courses, helped me attain my CPR certification in the 11th grade. This certification is a valuable and necessary credential for anyone in the health professions. The Allied Health program has also helped with my study habits. I study not only to pass a test, but because there is information I have to have readily accessible to help my patients. I understand the application of math because I know just how many and how important mental calculations are that professionals in the medical field have to make every day--these are decisions that people's lives depend on. One class in the Allied Health sequence of courses was even taught by a professor from the nearby community college. The professor came to Eastern to teach the course, which will be recognized for credit at the post secondary level. I will definitely have an advantage over other students because I won't need to take this course in college and it will save my family tuition. When I finish my Allied Health program and graduate, I will have completed a career technical program of study, one of the pathways a high school student can take to obtain a Maryland high school diploma. In addition, I have will have successfully completed the required courses to meet the University System of Maryland entrance requirements. And for the past two years, all of my classes have been Advanced Placement, which will be helpful in my college selection and admission. I have already been admitted to James Madison University and to Towson University and am waiting to hear about the University of Maryland in College Park. I know I am fortunate to have the opportunities I have had at Eastern. I am better prepared for post secondary education and the world of work and as such, my studies and my career technical education program will have a lasting impact on my future. I have options and the confidence that I will be successful. While I am not an astute legislative analyst, what I understand of H.R. 366 is that it is good policy that will dramatically increase the availability of high quality career technical programs, like the one I am in. The model sequences of courses concept is a good one, as it embodies all the elements of a quality career technical education program--again just like the one I am in. This concept, model sequences of courses, will give more students access to quality career technical education; and quality career technical education will help prepare more students for success in college, careers and life. I have always thought the federal government's role is to enact policy that creates opportunities and eliminates barriers to success. In education, the federal government's role has been to ensure equal access to quality education. This piece of legislation achieves these laudable goals. In closing, I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of career technical education. The opportunities I have been provided through the career technical program at Eastern have definitely given me greater options for my future career. The opportunities for students in career technical education provided by Perkins can really make a difference in a young person's life. Specifically, model sequences of courses better prepare students for further learning and careers. Thank you for your continued support of career technical education. ______ Chairman Castle. I will now call on Mr. Moore. Perhaps Mr. Osborne can assume the Chair for a moment; I have to do a radio talk show and defend myself against all these attacks on things that we are doing. Mr. Moore, you are recognized for 5 minutes. STATEMENT OF RUSS MOORE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CENTRAL EDUCATIONAL CENTER, NEWNAN, GA Mr. Moore. Thank you, Chairman Castle, Ranking Member Woolsey, and members of the Committee. Thank you for providing me the honor of testifying. My name is Russ Moore, and I am the CEO of Central Educational Center, a charter school in Newnan, Coweta County, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. My remarks will focus on the accountability provisions of H.R. 366, increased academic and technical rigor, and increased coordination between secondary and postsecondary education, all of which I believe our school is a model for. CEC and Coweta County are small; yet not unlike a mouse that roared, we have had an idea so tremendous, so powerfully different that the fruit of our 9 years of labor has brought CEC to your attention. Of critical importance to that model is the existence of vocational education, which I call career technical education, or CTE. The administration has caused quite a discussion, to put it mildly, with its recent call for the elimination of Federal funding for vocational education, which the Program Assessment Rating Tool has rated ineffective for the last three budget proposals. As a businessman I identify with the desire to show results for tax dollars spent; however, in my experience CTE, properly supported, administered and taught, is the most effective tool in our country's arsenal to help our children learn and to help our workforce compete in the global economy. Central Educational Center uses CTE and other programs, and is in a position to serve as a model, and a need for models is proposed in H.R. 366. We know that 60 percent of the new jobs in the 21st century require postsecondary education currently held by only one-third of America's workforce. This fact presents a real challenge to the Nation. My school was created around the beliefs, supported by data, that CTE is core to achieving academic and economic improvement. Further, CEC's founders were sure that the best way to increase the numbers of trained workers is to make sure they are trained at the postsecondary level earlier, preferably while in high school, through partnership programs with businesses and colleges. CEC's mission may be unique among public schools. It is simply to ensure a viable 21st century workforce. We opened in 2000 after 4 years of study and design by a publicly appointed steering committee. That committee performed a needs assessment of local business and industry and designed our school in response to the data. The committee recommended that a seamless educational solution be provided to break down silos between academics and CTE, between high school and college, and between education and business. West Central Technical College has been an enthusiastic partner from the beginning, as has the Newnan- Coweta Chamber of Commerce and the Coweta County School System. The committee recommended the school be a charter school, since that seemed to be the only legal and practical way to blend these entities into a single school with adequate flexibility and accountability. Today CEC has served nearly 5,000 team members, which is what we call students, who are pursuing high school diplomas and GEDs, technical college certificates of credit and associate degrees, continuing education, and customized corporate training. CEC is committed to continuous improvement. We use--and now that we are replicating, we teach--the design process described in Dr. Joe Harless' book, The Eden Conspiracy: Educating for Accomplished Citizenship. Today the results from our school are dramatic and significant. Last year the International Center for Leadership in Education and other educational organizations recognized CEC as a national model high school for our academic rigor and relevance. CEC can improve academic performance. Our team members passed Georgia's five academic graduation tests at the first sitting as often or more often than their peers who do not attend CEC. In addition, CEC's economically disadvantaged team members have a first-time pass rate better than their peers by between 4 percent and 19 percent on the same 5 tests. The 19 percent was on the science test. At the time these results were generated, CEC did not offer core academic science classes. Our team members and their peers all took academic science classes at their base schools. But the CEC team members passed the science test at much higher levels. What was the difference? Well, there are many, and not just in science. CEC members take CTE and academic classes that impart academic content in an applied way. This is why in surveys students tell us they appreciate the relevance of their classes at CEC to their career paths. CEC offers dual enrollment with the technical college so high school students may earn simultaneous credit toward a high school diploma and college certificates and/or associate degree credit. The University of Georgia found that at least 98 percent of high school students who dual-enroll also graduate from high school, 98 percent. Further, 100 percent of those graduates either find a job for which they are trained or go on to additional postsecondary education within 6 months, 100 percent. We call that No Child Left Behind. One local accountability aspect of CEC's program is our work ethic assessment policy. Every team member at CEC earns two grades in every class, a work ethic grade and a course grade. CEC follows the progress of our alumni through research performed by Florida State University. Those studies and other data indicate that CEC is preparing students equally well for the workplace or additional college. And I would be remiss if I did not also mention that businesses partner with CEC. Our Work-Based Learning Program has 185 business partners who provide job shadowing, internships and apprenticeships to high school students. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and thank you especially for your support of CTE for our students. [The prepared statement of Mr. Moore follows:] Statement of Russ Moore, Chief Executive Officer, Central Educational Center, Newnan, GA Chairman Castle, Ranking Member Woolsey, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the honor of testifying before you today on ``H.R. 366, the Vocational and Technical Education for the Future Act.'' My name is Russ Moore, and I am the CEO of Central Educational Center, a charter school in Newnan, Coweta County, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. It occurred to me as I was reviewing the witness list that, with the obvious exception of Emily, I am probably the only witness today who has never had budget authority of more than $5 million or supervision of more than 100 people, and yet I am talking to a committee that will vote on a program that costs our country between $1 billion and $1.3 billion annually. I run a facility that some would characterize as just a small high school in a small county in between the massive urban center of Atlanta and the slumbering lowlands of Georgia's rural Piedmont. The truth is that Central Educational Center and Coweta County are small; yet, not unlike a mouse that roared, we have had an idea so tremendous, so powerfully different--and we worked so hard for nine years now to make it real--that the fruit of our labor has brought CEC to your attention. We are grateful for your time and interest in our model. Of critical importance to that model is the existence of Vocational Education, which I call ``Career and Technical Education'' or ``CTE.'' The administration has caused quite a discussion, to put it mildly, with its recent call for the elimination of federal funding for ``Vocational Education,'' which the Program Assessment Rating Tool has rated ``Ineffective'' for the last three budget proposals. As a businessman, I identify with the desire to show results for tax dollars spent, and I sympathize with the position to cut or reduce funding to poorly performing programs. However, in my experience, CTE--properly supported, administered and taught--is the most effective and necessary tool in our country's arsenal to help our children learn and to help our workforce compete in the global economy. Along those lines, Central Educational Center is doing many things with its CTE and other programs and is in a position to serve as a model--and a need for models is proposed in H.R. 366. A call for increased emphasis on academics is emphasized in H.R. 366, with its provision for ``rigorous and challenging'' academic and technical education and ``model sequences of courses'' to further enhance coordination between secondary and post-secondary education. H.R. 366 clearly relates academic enhancement as being part of an ongoing effort to improve CTE. This Committee has called for greater state and local accountability and flexibility, but with this new accountability comes greater expense. I am in favor of increasing the administrative portion of state grant funds back to five percent. I believe this increased funding will help states better communicate program options, which the bill correctly identifies as being lacking. The publication, ``Educating America: The President's Initiatives for High School, Higher Education, and Job Training'' states, ``Sixty percent of the new jobs of the 21st century require postsecondary education held by one-third of America's workforce.'' This fact presents a real challenge to CTE teachers and administrative supervisors nationally. My school was created around the belief, supported by data, that CTE is core to achieving academic and economic improvement. Further, CEC's founders were sure that the best way to increase the numbers of trained workers is to make sure they are trained at the post-secondary level earlier, preferably while in high school, through partnership programs with businesses and colleges. They felt that since data clearly shows that the majority of jobs in our economy require training beyond high school but still less than a full four-year degree, providing that training by the age of 18 through CTE, dual-enrollment with the technical college and work-based learning with local business partners would be an ideal solution. I started with CEC as a business volunteer in 2001, then served as a member of its board of directors, and now I am CEO. Consistently, I have seen with my own eyes, and will document for you, that students in CEC's primarily CTE program find the curriculum to be relevant, and even though it is more rigorous than other options they could take, they voluntarily enroll at CEC because they like our program of study better. Our students make better grades at CEC, and they have better results on statewide, standardized academic tests than their peers who don't attend CEC. As for who may attend CEC, the answer is anyone in the Coweta County School System who registers to take core academic or elective CTE courses there. The academics are also offered at one of three ``base'' high schools, but the CTE classes, by and large, are only offered centrally at CEC. For a more complete discussion of how CEC was started, I refer you to Appendix A. CEC's mission may be unique among public schools. It is simply, ``to ensure a viable 21st century workforce.'' We opened in 2000 after four years of study and design by a public steering committee authorized by our school superintendent and school board. That committee worked for three years under the leadership of its chair, Dr. Joe Harless, and together they performed a needs assessment of local business and industry and proposed a school in response to the data. The data showed that our public schools were providing inadequate preparation in academics and work ethic ``soft skills.'' The data also ranked local professions most in need of skilled workers. The committee recommended that a seamless educational solution be provided to break down ``silos'' between academics and CTE, between high school and college, and between education and business. The local technical college (West Central Technical College) was an enthusiastic partner from the beginning, as was the Newnan-Coweta Chamber of Commerce and the Coweta County School System. The final decision reached by the committee was to make the school a charter school, since that seemed to be the only legal and practical way to blend the entities into a single school with adequate flexibility and accountability. Since receiving the charter in 1999 and opening in 2000, CEC has served nearly 5,000 ``team members'' (students) who are pursuing high school diplomas, technical college certificates of credit, credit toward technical college associate degrees, GEDs, continuing education, or customized corporate training. CEC is committed to continuous improvement. We use (and now that we're replicating, we teach) the design process described in Dr. Harless' book, The Eden Conspiracy: Educating for Accomplished Citizenship (1998), which can be described by the acronym ``ADDIE'' which stands for ``Analyze, Design, Development, Implement, and Evaluate.'' A key component of that process is that it begins by defining the ``end'' desired (in our case, employable high school or college completers) and designing backwards to determine what content is to be taught and how it is to be taught. Today, the results from this school are dramatic and significant, so much so that the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE), creators and co-sponsors of the Model Schools Conference, recognized CEC last year as a national model high school for our adherence to rigor and relevance and ``Quadrant D'' instruction (See Appendix B). This conference and dissemination of the model school studies are partially funded by The Gates Foundation. Now into our fifth year of instruction, CEC can make a fairly astonishing statement: Our team members, many of whom are on track for tech-prep diplomas (as opposed to college prep) pass Georgia's five academic graduation tests at the first sitting as often or more often their peers who do not attend CEC. In addition, CEC's economically disadvantaged team members (defined by free/reduced lunch status) have a first-time pass rate better their peers by between 4% and 22% on the same five tests. A 21% differential was realized on the science test, the passing of which our governor and state school superintendent have just made into a centerpiece of the state's new education reform initiative. At the time these results were generated (2003), CEC did not offer core academic science classes in biology, chemistry or physics. CEC's team members and their peers both took academic science classes at their ``base schools,'' but only the CEC team members excelled in passing the science test. What was the difference? The CEC team members also took CTE classes like health occupations, welding, machine tool technology, computer aided drafting, environmental science, horticulture, electronics, and broadcast video--all of which impart academic content related to science in an applied way, which research shows tends to ``stick'' better with students--something we call ``transfer.'' The first-time pass rates on Georgia's High School Graduation Tests of CEC's team members are below: [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8782.001 The performance of CEC's team members on these tests is local proof that CTE curricula can enhance academic performance. In surveys, students also tell us they appreciate the relevance of their classes at CEC to their career paths. Another possible impact on academic scores is the fact that CEC's ``directors'' (teachers) actively seek ways to teach using applied academics over general--another characteristic of CTE education. CEC offers dual-enrollment with the technical college, so high school students who are at least 16 years old may earn simultaneous credit toward a high school diploma and college certificates and/or associate degree credit. High school students also benefit from Tech Prep articulation agreements with the college. The University of Georgia found that at least 98% of high school students who dual-enroll also graduate from high school. Further, 100% of those graduates either find a job for which they are trained and/or go on to additional post- secondary education within four months (See Appendix C). CEC may be unique among high schools in that we follow the progress of our ``cohorts'' (graduating classes). Florida State University has published research papers tracking the first two cohorts, and a third will be published soon (See Appendices D and E). Those studies and other data indicate that CEC's curricula and culture are preparing students equally well for the workplace or additional college. I encourage schools and school systems to take advantage of H.R. 366's provision for local accountability to add some kind of follow up to their local performance plans. Another local accountability aspect of CEC's program is our ``work ethic assessment'' policy (See Appendix F). Every team member at CEC earns two grades in every class: a course grade and a work ethic grade. The work ethic grade is based on a rubric of the following ten characteristics provided by the technical college. CEC Work Ethic Rubric (Characteristics): <bullet> Attendance <bullet> Character <bullet> Teamwork <bullet> Appearance <bullet> Attitude <bullet> Productivity <bullet> Organizational skills <bullet> Communication <bullet> Cooperation <bullet> Respect A climate of academic rigor is enhanced by linking attendance to final course grades, per our work ethic assessment policy. Absences above five per term count two points off the final grade, and tardies above two per term count off one point each. The higher expectations created by the above policy have a positive impact on academic performance. Following another principle of our precision design, that we should INspect for what we EXpect, CEC's goal is for 80% of all students in all courses to make a B or higher (our ``80/80 rule''). This level is far higher than routine expectations found in the classic ``Bell curve,'' in which a C is average. As a charter school, CEC is, by Georgia law, also a non-profit corporation. Simply, we are a business, and our business is education. We are not in business to make money, but rather to enrich the learning experiences of our students and to be an economic engine of our community. The National Institute for Work and Learning (NIWL) of the Academy for Educational Development (AED)--which testified before this Committee last year--has studied CEC and published a paper entitled ``Reconceptualizing Education as an Engine for Economic Development'' (see Appendix G). In that paper, AED describes one local company that made a decision to stay in our county, expand, and hire 300 additional workers (causing a minimum local impact of $75 million) because of the proximity and access to Central Educational Center and its training and retraining programs. Businesses also partner with CEC in much higher than usual numbers. Currently, we have 185 local business partners in our Work-Based Learning Program, providing job shadowing, internships, and/or apprenticeships to high school students. These team members always earn credit toward their high school diplomas, and some are also paid an hourly wage. To date, 470 team members have benefited from the internships and apprenticeships offered by CEC. Perhaps the most telling data about the relevance of CTE at CEC is the voluntarily reported satisfaction ratings of team members and their parents in different surveys. The 2004 National Study of School Evaluation reported that CEC's team members ranked CEC 4.19 on a scale of 5 for student satisfaction with their high school experience, compared to a 3.36 score identified by high school students who did not attend CEC. That is a 25% differential. I'm sure that you as elected officials would consider a 25% campaign margin to be a significant victory. In addition, Georgia's state school superintendent just released the results of a statewide survey of charter school parents. 70% of the voluntary respondents rated CEC as earning an A or an A+ for performance. 94% rated CEC a B or higher. I mention all these cultural and programmatic aspects of CEC because they are integral to how we teach Career and Technical Education, and without CTE, there would be no CEC. Without CTE, our students would not experience rigorous and relevant learning, or the opportunities that exist for them beyond high school in any number of post-secondary settings or in the workforce. Also of critical importance, H.R. 366 supports the professional development our teachers want and need to maximize the classroom experience for our students. My recommendation and request is that the committee continue to support CTE--properly funded, administered, designed, and taught. Support CTE taught by teachers who are properly trained, with schools that can afford the right equipment and that develop business partnerships. Academic performance, secondary and post-secondary connections, and model sequences of courses will prosper--as will national educational innovation that benefits students and American competitiveness in the global economy. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and thank you especially for your support of CTE for our students. ______ [Attachments to Mr. Moore's statement are located at the end of the hearing.] Mr. Osborne. [Presiding.] Thank you, members of the panel, for the excellent testimony. And I will now yield myself 5 minutes for some questions. And I guess I would like to start with a general question here to start with. I would assume that many people here are very supportive of Perkins or they would not be here. And I would appreciate your comments on what effect you believe elimination of the Perkins grant program would have on our schools and our workforce. And I guess I will start with Dr. Atkinson, and anybody that has a thought, but let's move on down the line here, because naturally this is kind of on the front burner of this idea of whether we are going to maintain the program or not. Dr. Atkinson. Well, just a thought; but if we eliminate Perkins and take those dollars and put those dollars in a different reform effort, a high school reform effort, I think what we lose is this: We lose a balance in high schools that we have now. We have high schools in Delaware, in attempting to come to grips with math scores and reading scores and writing scores, are trying to find ways to give students a double dose of math during the course of the day. And what happens when you do that is you start to lose the context within which we need to do that. I believe that when you start to take Perkins off the table and take career and technical education off the table, what you lose is a context for a lot of students that helps them understand where they use those academic requirements. So I keep telling our teachers that if you want to--if you want that principal to support you in that building, show that there is good language arts in your classroom, there is good math in your classroom, there is good science in your classroom, and what you become is the extra time program during the course of the day, and I think we would lose that. Mr. Osborne. Dr. Kister. Dr. Kister. Thank you. I think that Perkins has provided research and development monies to improve the quality of career technical programs. While they might exist, I think they would not exist in the quality that we have now. We know that there is a strong return on investment for career technical education. We have worked, and I am seeing it happen across the country, to see integrated academics. I think career technical education teaches in ways that students learn best. We are having a great deal of concern about the drop-out problem now. There is strong empirical data that there is a relationship between students who enroll in career technical education and those who graduate. Dr. Ainsworth. I will approach it from a slightly different angle. In California our ed code says that high schools have two purposes; one, to prepare students for high education and training, and to prepare them for careers. It doesn't say either/or; it is and. And from that perspective Perkins has just been an invaluable resource, because when we look at high school achievement, high school achievement is down in California. There is no doubt about it. And as we have been talking with schools and working with them, we see them reforming into smaller learning groups, smaller learning communities, thematic high schools. And when we look at them, they have typically organized around a career-oriented theme. And Perkins has been this resource, kind of this glue in the middle, which has brought together the academics and the career to provide that context and that application, and it has really provided that reform steam that is behind our reform efforts in California. So taking the money from Perkins and putting it into high school reform doesn't help us at all. We would certainly welcome both, but we do not see that hurting Perkins and hurting career technical education is the way to improve high schools at all. Mr. Osborne. Ms. Simons. Ms. Simons. Well, even though I do not know the full logistics of the Perkins program, from a student's perspective I feel like it is beneficial for every student to experience this technical atmosphere. I mean, it gives the students a chance to decide whether they want to pursue what they are studying or not, and it provides it at no cost, it saves their family and themselves from wasting--well, wasting money in college because they are trying to decide what major to study. Mr. Osborne. I think that is a very good point. Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore. Thank you. I think Perkins is critical to the success of career and technical education in our country. I think without CEC there would not be--in our case a CEC--I think our team members would have a much more difficult time being fully able to experience rigorous and relevant learning. I think professional development for our teachers, which is critical to the classroom experience, would be severely limited. And there has been an assumption that I have noticed in statements, recent statements, because of the budget proposal that I am not totally--I am not sure where it comes from, and I am not sure--I am sure I disagree with it. It seems to be an assumption that because of perceived ineffectiveness of CTE, that their answer is to teach more academics in CTE. And my thought to that, as an administrator that runs a school that is mostly centered around those elective programs, I think CTE is a better way to teach academics, not the other way around, and that is my opinion. And that is one reason Perkins is so important. Mr. Osborne. Thank you. Ms. Woolsey. Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Simons, you are great. You might not be a legislative analyst; but neither are any of us, so do not kid yourself. You are the perfect example of what we are talking about today, and every one of the panelists knows this, and so do we. So I am going to ask the other four panelists a question, and the question is if the State administrative funds are cut by 60 percent, what will happen to the program that has made this outstanding young woman able to come here and speak her mind so positively to us today? And you do not need to just talk about her programs, but programs in your own areas. Let's start with you, Dr. Atkinson. Dr. Atkinson. I came to the Department of Education in Delaware in 1990, November 1st. Our staff was a director, eight professionals and support staff. Today we have a director, four professionals and the support staff that goes with that. I believe in doing more with less, but there is only so lean that you can get. And if you want us to interact with the field by e-mail and telephone and superficially, then cut our administration budget. But if you want rich, meaningful discussions with those programs so that we end up with wonderful testimony like we had today, then we need to have the State administration funds to accomplish that. Ms. Woolsey. Thank you. Dr. Kister.I gave the example that schools are telling me, when I call, no one is there. I was doing a technical assessment visit in a local school, and I was asking the teachers, you know, what they had in the way of recent professional development, were they aware that there were new certifications in their area, and they said, well, it used to be that the State provided regular in-services; you know, we had a consultant, and that person isn't there anymore. The other point that I would make is that 2 percent does not even pay for the mandated activities and the oversight that is required, let alone the fact that we believe we should be doing much more in the field of technical assessments. You have to have a technical assessment system and a way to administer that at the State level. That can't happen with 2 percent. Dr. Ainsworth. According to our analysis, if administrative funds are cut 60 percent, that we will end up with a bare-bones administration that only has the capacity to distribute the forms, to electronically collect the data and to produce a required Federal report. And that leaves out all technical assistance, all of the local monitoring, all of the things envisioned in this bill to improve the quality of career technical education across this country. And so we just think it is vital, that 5 percent; we believe that is the right number. Our agency has shrunk in career technical ed from 140 staff to 50. Now, that is a pretty remarkable reduction. And so cutting it again obviously reduces our capacity, so--thank you. Ms. Woolsey. Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore. I agree with the other witnesses. Tech Prep is very important. We are organized by consortia in our State, and I am in the unique position of having our Tech Prep coordinator for the State also be one of my parents. In fact, she moved to our community so that she could have her son attend our school, for which I am very flattered--you may perceive that as a conflict of interest, then, as I answer the question. However, it is very important, for Tech Prep to succeed, that it have adequate funding for two things that I consider to be critical for what we use it for and what to do better, frankly doing, and that is marketing and increased accountability. And the accountability is so critical. And I am very pleased to see that emphasized in the legislation as well. I think seriously doing that at the State level will be hard to do with less money. Ms. Woolsey. Thank you. I am not going to go into another question because we are going to run out of time. Mr. Osborne. Mrs. Biggert. Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thank all of you for your testimony. In a former life I was on a school board in Illinois, and we had a very vivacious voc ed program, but this is quite a while ago, so I am not sure how this has changed. So I am wondering--because I am going out to visit several of these places over our break this month. But the way that it worked was to have several schools that were separate, you know, so that we could have the equipment and all the--the technology and state-of-the-art at that time that was needed to train our high school kids. And so they would have to take off, you know, from the schools, and some were quite a distance. And I am wondering if that is still true, that the way that you function, like in Georgia or in California. And also, you talk about the modeling consequence and trying to--we also have very rigorous academic programs, and I am wondering how students like Ms. Simons can fit all of that into 1 day, to be able to get the tech training as well as the core academics. Maybe, Dr. Atkinson, let me start with that. Dr. Atkinson. In 1990, in Delaware, we went away from that model. One of the things we found was that it was impossible to coordinate the academics with the career technical program, and that our students that were going to those centers back at their home high school were getting the lowest diet, the lowest-level courses and the fewest number of academic courses. So we went to an integrated comprehensive vocational high school. Now that high school is responsible for its own academics, and they can't push it off on anyone else. So that is how we have solved that problem. Mrs. Biggert. What about, then, all the--if you need high- tech equipment, and how hard it is to keep up with that. Dr. Atkinson. That is precisely why we can't let this legislation get away from us. These are the funds that we use to keep those programs current ad expand those programs. Dr. Ainsworth. Now, in California we do just about everything; we have some centers, we have regional programs, and then we have school-based models. We really see that, in the modern economy, that the skills needed to enter postsecondary training and the skills needed in the modern workplace are pretty close together. And we believe that it is important for all students to raise their vocation-- or their academic level. And career technical ed is a great context for doing that, mining it forward. But how we do it, we leave it up to each district. And we have tried it all different ways. We are seeing some really interesting models evolving, as I mentioned before, in the smaller high schools, a redesigned model, rethinking what the modern high school is and bringing it into the 21st century. Mrs. Biggert. So the sequence of classes would really involve both the academic and technical; it wouldn't just be a program that they are working for a career. Dr. Ainsworth. Many people say there isn't enough time in the high school curriculum to do this and to do college prep. At the same time they complain that the senior year is a waste. Now those two things don't reconcile in my book. In fact, if we have time and if we bring in our post secondary ed partners and we work on different ways of organizing time in high school, I believe you can do both. Mrs. Biggert. Ms. Simons, you managed to take AP courses as well as your---- Ms. Simons. Yes, I have. And I know our school has done a very effective job on implementing academic courses as well as your technical training. Our classes are 45 minutes long, it is a seven-period day. My Allied Health program is a two-period class. What Dr. Ainsworth said about senior year being a waste, our school has actually implemented that every student takes 4 years of math, 4 years of science, 4 years of English, whereas the county rules state that you only need 3 years English, three maths and three sciences. Along with all of our other credits, we have to do a year-long senior independent project, which is based on our career major, or our technical program. It is also a graduation requirement for our school, and it is a year-long process, which we have to extend our career-related knowledge into our thesis, designed for application in the community. Mrs. Biggert. So you have kind of like, three class, four, so there would be four periods. Ms. Simons. Of academic classes? Mrs. Biggert. Three periods of academics. Ms. Simons. Would be five classes of academics, because it is a seven-period day with two periods designated for---- Mrs. Biggert. So the other would be P.E.? Ms. Simons. Well, no, you don't have to take physical education. Mrs. Biggert. You don't have to take that. I don't see how you would have time, but thank you. Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore. Thank you for the question. We have done a slightly different model than Dr. Atkinson. Again, it works because we are a smaller system, perhaps, and a system instead of a state. We have a block schedule. We share our students with the base high schools, we have three of those high schools in our county. We therefore do have to get our students to the school and get them back. We at least offer that possibility through public transportation. They also most of them drive, about 85 percent. It works pretty well actually with our schedule. I mention we are on a block schedule, four blocks per day. We do mix academics with career and technical education. We provide some core academic classes, including this year for the first time in recent memory an AP class in chemistry. We also have all the work base learning for the community at our school. We don't have early release any more in our county. We have--we connected electives, so they have taken an elective to learn how to do the job, and then we connect them with the job and for the upper level internships and apprenticeships in those jobs they get paid. Plus we have the benefit of the feedback from the business community about how well they did, and that goes into their grade. Mrs. Biggert. So do you have any trouble with the equipment too? I mean, is it mostly because they are off campus then, would they need that type of training? Mr. Moore. Well, part of the strength of this model is with a centralized program you can save money by only having to buy once the equipment you need for all the students in the district. We have definitely realized savings and therefore the equipment is somewhat more modern. Also, that has helped very much by the interest and involvement of the business community, which, as I mention in my testimony, is participating at the level of 185 businesses. They don't just work with our students, they sometimes provide equipment and funds. Mrs. Biggert. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Castle. [Presiding] Thank you, Mrs. Biggert. Mr. Scott is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Kister, you said something about stopping off points. I assume that means kind of reaching a dead-end in a program. In light of the fact that jobs in the future will be jobs in the information and technology area and in light of the fact that people, young people, would be expected to change jobs five or seven times during their career and in light of the fact that some students just wake up and do more than they thought they could do, can you say a word about the importance of emphasizing basic education in the vocational education program and not having stopping off points where they kind of reach that dead-end? Dr. Kister. Yes, Mr. Scott. My remarks were in relation to in some States that have created a distinction between tech prep and career tech, and it is a distinction at the expense of career tech. I strongly believe that tech prep is the model that we should follow in preparing students for a seamless transition from secondary to post secondary education. The principles of tech prep are right on. The problem is when you define some students as tech prep and other students as not. You are predicting the stopping off points and saying, you know, we are not going to prepare you to go on to post secondary. That was my point. Mr. Scott. And obviously that is not a good idea, relegating them to what is obviously a barrier to getting a college education if they happen to wake up later and find out they want to do that? Dr. Kister. Right. And I should say that not all States perhaps have created that much of a distinction, but the fact that we have to track tech prep students means that there is a distinction that has to be created. Mr. Scott. Thank you. Dr. Ainsworth, can you give us some examples of some of the programs and say how do you decide which programs you are going to have? Ms. Simons obviously figured out that Allied Health was a good area to go into. How do you know that you are not having to set up programs for careers that don't offer a lot of potential and that you are training people for jobs that exist somewhere in the community? Dr. Ainsworth. The way we are set up in California is that those decisions are made locally. Local school districts, regional occupation programs and others are required to have business advisory committees locally. Those business advisory committees are designed to keep those programs fresh to make sure that they are meeting the needs of the local economy. At the State level, our State plan and our State policies really focus investment and incentives on those new and emerging technologies in high demand areas. Our new career tech ed standards are designed in 15 industry sectors that have been studied as the areas that will grow over the next 20 years. So everything we do looks at that point. We do not want to create a whole new group of people that know how to repair Atari machines, you know. Those days are long gone. Those programs don't need to exist. What we need now are people with very flexible skills in information technology and healthcare, those sorts of areas that can move and change with that evolving economy. So that is how we do it. Mr. Scott. Is that process required under law, or you do that but others don't? Dr. Ainsworth. Frankly, I don't know about the others. I know that we do it because it is the right thing to do, and in California that has certainly been the focus of our policy. Within the former Perkins Act, it asks us to look at those sorts of programs that were emerging and met some sort of labor demand. Mr. Scott. Thank you. Dr. Atkinson, I think you mentioned that vocational education students in fact do better than regular education students. Could you say a little bit more about that and why that is so? Dr. Atkinson. Excuse me. The Delaware student testing program is the program that we are using, we use as our benchmark within Delaware, to assure that students are meeting our academic standards. What we have been able to do is to tease out the career and technical students and be able to compare their ability to meet our standards against all other students. In every case that we have teased them out, and that is in reading and in math and in science, they have done as well or better than the general population. When we talk about the general population, that doesn't include these students. They have been pulled out. So we are comparing this separate group of students with these. So it gets back to what we were talking about earlier, and that is these schools own their own academic programs. So that building principle is responsible for the academic rigor of those courses. Once you put the responsibilities there, you are going to get results. Chairman Castle. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Mr. Andrews is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Andrews. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the witnesses for their participation today, and Ms. Simons in particular, you did a great job. I want to associate myself with Ms. Woolsey's comments. I know how hard it is to sit and testify like this. You were flawless and did a great job for your school. If I were the admissions people at the University of Maryland College Park, I think I would get that acceptance letter in the mail pretty quickly. The panel is, I think in many ways, preaching to the choir here. We believe in the Perkins program. We believe in you and in your students and in what you have achieved. But the reality is that we have a burden of proof to meet, or else there is not going to be a Perkins program this time next year. The President has proposed that the program be eliminated and folded into a sort of block grant, part of which would go to this expansion of the No Child Left Behind Act to high schools. The administration's budget document, I am going to read from it, says under the administration's program assessment rating tool, called APART, vocational education was rated ineffective because it has produced little or no evidence of improved outcomes for students despite decades of increasing Federal investment. It is our burden to dispute that assertion. I do not believe it, but I would like any of you on the panel to point us toward a body of evidence that would help us refute it. It is a little bit of a straw man they have set up here, because how can you measure what would have happened without Perkins when we had Perkins for the last several decades. But what--if you had to boil down your response to that argument in a sentence or two, I would like to hear each one of you tell me what that sentence would be. Maybe, Mr. Moore, you could start. Mr. Moore. I would be glad to. Ask me that last little bit one more time if you will, the sentence. Mr. Andrews. If you had to boil down your response to the passage that I read that said that vocational education is ineffective. In effect, it doesn't make any difference whether we spend money on it or not, that the results are not altered. What's the answer? Mr. Moore. Well, clearly the results at my school, and I have the advantage of being over a school and being very focused on the results of that school, which I do focus on like a laser, I can tell you that our results are outstanding, and those results are very directly related to the support that we have received as a community through the Perkins funding. Mr. Andrews. Specifically, what was happening to the student population before you were here in 1999? Mr. Moore. Right. Mr. Andrews. I think when you got started. What has happened since then? Mr. Moore. Great question. SAT scores have gone up. The dropout rate has fallen 42 percent in our community--county. We have blended academics and by offering college instruction at the high school level we have raised the academic bar. And we find, among the test scores, which are traditional measures, and again in my testimony, I referenced graduation test scores that are higher in some cases, significantly higher. Mr. Andrews. What about job placement? Those are all very meaningful. What about job placement? Mr. Moore. That is the measure I like the best, job placement. We are finding that students in our work based learning program are being offered jobs by the people for whom they have worked while they have been in high school. Mr. Andrews. Ms. Simon, or Simons. I am sorry. Ms. Simons. It is Simons. Mr. Andrews. Ms. Simons, I think your presence here is pretty good argument against those assertions, but do you have anything you want to add to that? Ms. Simons. Well, I just want to say that I completely disagree with President Bush's statement. I don't see any validity behind it, and I think if you look around you see the percentage of test scores have increased, and as a student I feel more focused. Mr. Andrews. This is a great country, isn't it? Keep going, I think you are doing great. Ms. Simons. And as a student I feel more focused than compared to other students who don't participate in a career technical program. Mr. Andrews. Great. Ms. Simons. I know what I want to do and I know how to do it. So. Mr. Andrews. Pretty good answer. Dr. Ainsworth. Dr. Ainsworth. Well, first of all, we don't agree with the numbers the President presented, the numbers that were collected before the 1998 act even went into effect. I think you have to take fresh numbers, you have to get recent numbers. You have to measure the effect that has occurred since then. And since 1998, you know, somebody has described changing education like moving a graveyard. It is very difficult to move entire systems. Mr. Andrews. Very unfortunate. Dr. Ainsworth. Yes, you know--can I take that, retract that? Mr. Andrews. Yes, let us do a better one than that. Dr. Ainsworth. But it is very, very difficult. Change occurs over a longer period of time with sustained efforts. We have had that sustained effort, and we are starting to see that benefit. So why, why move out of that? Why not continue that? Mr. Andrews. My time is exhausted, but I would just ask our other two witnesses briefly if they could cite us to a source of evidence or supplement the record in writing with data that would refute that claim. Dr. Kister. Dr. Kister. Yes, I would cite the High School Work Assessment, which is about 54,000. It is a robust data base that shows where there are quality career technical programs there are increased academics on the part of the students. Also, in Arizona, the career technical students actually outperformed the regular students on the Ames test, on their State test. Mr. Andrews. What about job placement? Dr. Kister. I think the States collect data on job placement. It is clearly greater. Also John Bishop's study from Cornell University shows a 20 percent return for investment for labor market. Mr. Andrews. You picked my alma mater, you picked the right school. Dr. Atkinson. Dr. Atkinson. The one-liner would be that we found in Delaware when we tease out dropout data on career and technical students, they drop out at half the rate of the normal population. You have to be in school to learn. Mr. Andrews. I am going to conclude, but I--you know, one of the other things the President said in the State of the Union address quite admirably, he will ask the First Lady to lead an anti-gang initiative. I would argue Perkins is an anti- gang initiative. If you are reducing drop-out rates, you are certainly reducing gang membership and gang violence. Thank you very much to the panel. Chairman Castle. Thank you, Mr. Andrews. Mrs. Davis is recognized for 5 minutes. Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of you and, Ms. Simons, I enjoyed your testimony as well. I wonder if we could follow up on Mr. Andrews' questioning as well. I happened to serve on a school board many years ago, San Diego Unified. Actually at that time we did cut out some of the programs, some of the magnet programs that were much more in that time considered voc ed or less career than programs are today. But I know that they are looking to really increase the number of programs in that area, and they have been very successful in terms of the partnerships with the community, which is another aspect that is very important. But where do you think that Perkins has fallen down in terms of evaluations? Where--in some ways, you know, what is the President focusing on in terms of these numbers? What kinds of numbers, what kinds of evaluations? Would it have made our case a little bit better? The other question would be about disaggregating the data, because my understanding is that the bill would improve on that disaggregation, and part of my question is why weren't we doing that? And what do you think that that would add to the discussion and strengthen our hand in preserving the programs? Dr. Kister. I think that what is really needed is a system of technical assessments. That is the data that we don't have. The NAVE panel highly recommended that for the next round so that we have some benchmarks to know how students are doing. There was another--I wanted to add to my answer on the research. There is a very strong piece of research by Stephen Planck with the National Center for Career Technical Research that shows that the lowest rate of dropping out occurs when students complete three units of career tech for every four units of academic subjects. It was a very rigorous study, which supports at risk--the value of vocational education to at-risk students. Mrs. Davis of California. OK. Dr. Atkinson. It is difficult to answer the question why haven't we done something, you know. If we could go back in time, I think we would do a couple of things. It took us a long time to just get data comparable State to State, just definitions comparable State to State. At one time in my State if you took a course you were in the pot, you were a vocational student and it took us a while to get to the point of where a vocational concentrator was, that they are taking a series of courses that is making sense, that is leading in a direction that the academics can play off of. Unfortunately, it is difficult for us to go back and say why didn't we see that earlier. Now we have what is in front of us, and I think we need to move forward but I think we need to work off of what Dr. Ainsworth said. We need current data. Let us not do this with data that was in the last decade. So we do need to get our act together a little bit better as to how we define and to make our data comparable. Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you. I certainly appreciate that. We always wish that we had the hindsight at the time. But when you are speaking to the data that we need available to us, you know, where is that? Why aren't we tapping into that then, and how can we do a better job with it? I am a little perplexed as to why it is such old data. Dr. Kister. Perhaps I could add to the statement on technical assessments. There are some States that are doing a very good job with a statewide system of technical assessments, but they have funded that themselves from the State. New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia are States that require students to have either an industry certification or pass a nationally recognized employer exam or an exam that has been verified as employer competencies. There are some States that have their own State systems. Ohio, Oklahoma, North Carolina would be examples, but they are not necessarily nationally a benchmark. But it is very expensive, I think, to make that happen. But the other point I would make is that your legislation is suggesting a model sequence of courses, and that that really is meaningless unless you have the assessment piece for that. Dr. Ainsworth. One of the important issues in California is that we have difficulty tracking students from secondary into post secondary education, because of the restrictions in FEPRA, Family Education Privacy Rights Act. Taking data and comparing Social Security numbers with our base wage file over time, we just are not allowed to do that in California. Privacy is just an important issue, especially at the secondary level. That has proven to be a tough one to get around. If this law said you are allowed to do that, that would give us a new source of data that would allow us to track students and find out what their outcomes were without violating their privacy. Mrs. Davis of California. Disaggregating the data so that we know how different groups perform? Dr. Ainsworth. I think we would have a, you know, much more rich data base. We would be able to look across the board and have statistics that disaggregate that and show what these student outcomes are 5 and 10 years after the fact. Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you. Chairman Castle. Thank you, Ms. Davis. I will yield 5 minutes to myself. I missed my turn first time around. I wasn't going to ask this, but I am sort of interested in the technical assessments, because maybe I don't quite know what a technical assessment is I have decided after hearing this discussion. But I assume it is some sort of assessment of technical education. I mean, I know, Dr. Atkinson, in Delaware, for example, we have a lot of credit card companies and some of the schools have aligned themselves with that in terms of their computer training and education. I go to these schools, and I see a whole variety of different things that they are doing. Some of it is rather interesting and innovative and not what I might have expected to see. It is not just putting together engines or whatever it may be in motors and a lot of other stuff. So I understand they--and I am big on standardized testing. I understand NAVE testing in terms of traditional English, math, science, history type thing. But when you get into technical assessments, Dr. Kister, can you do that on a nationwide basis, or can you only do it pertinent to a certain geographic region or part of a State or full State or something of that nature? Can you really develop something that would be truly meaningful? I mean, I like the idea of doing it, but I just see the complexity of doing it. Dr. Kister. I would give examples that almost every State uses the ASE, the automotive test for students, because an automotive technician in Ohio is pretty much the same in California, I think, Dr. Ainsworth. There are a lot of tests, for example. Chairman Castle. Drive a lot of convertibles in California. Dr. Kister. Microsoft Office Specialist, you know, the industry certifications, you know, those are portable from State to State, which is an advantage of that. Chairman Castle. There are some specialized things. My point is there are specialized vocational activities going on out there, more so than an academic, at least from what I see, pertinent to the area. Dr. Kister. Well, I think there are ways you can modularize if there are some differences, because I work in, you know, urban areas, rural areas across the country. So for the most part at the assessment level, I really do believe that you could have a national benchmark assessments that may have some modifications. The National Occupational Competency Testing Institute are the tests that are used in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. They basically supplement where there is not an industry certification. There are some differences. Like in criminal justice there are some State license rules that---- Chairman Castle. You know, not to cut you off, that is my sort of concern too. I mean, you know, you do these differently in different States. You may deliver healthcare differently. You may deliver cafeteria food differently. You may do computer work differently depending on the economics of your State or whatever. That is why--I am not fighting you because I think it is a good idea. I just am not 100 percent confident---- Dr. Kister. The other thing, I believe you are aware of the 16 career clusters that we have been organizing over the past few years, and we have been doing a lot of developmental work on knowledge and skills statements. But we also hope to be able to have assessments at the cluster level, which I think would address your issue. Chairman Castle. Let me move on to something else. I would like to ask, if I could, where you all are on this particular legislation. These kinds of hearings that we are having basically are in preparation for marking up and considering legislation on the floor. So I am very interested in your thoughts on the legislation itself. I don't need to hear about the state of administration too much. I think I have pretty well heard of about that. Although I will say looking at these percentages in certain other areas in recent reauthorizations, Title I is 1 percent reading for State grants; 2 percent State grants for improving teacher quality; 1 percent, Title II education technology; 3 percent, safe and drug free schools. So they are different for different areas. And, you know, chances are you will get some of it restored anyhow. But at some point--but the point I am making is I understand your point with respect to that. The other thing I sort of gleaned from all of this is this whole business of tech prep, which we are sort of merging in here. My sense is that tech prep has some positives, you all said, a couple of you said, the principles of tech prep are good. Didn't exactly say tech prep is off the wall good but the principles of it were good. So my sense of it was that is not something that you think is working perfectly. My question is, is there anything else in 366 that is either in or not in that you think we should be paying some attention to as we go through a markup? What will happen is we will mark it up, I guess in the Subcommittee, then the Full Committee, and then it will go to the floor of the House, same thing will happen in the Senate, as it goes forward as we expect. So we need to get that input sooner rather than later. I am just throwing it out, any suggestions you either didn't want to mention or emphasize first time around. Dr. Atkinson. Well, it is an area we haven't spoken to--and that is in the last reorganization we had a set-aside for corrections, it was a 1 percent set-aside. In Delaware that is $48,000. It is not worth cutting the check. We either have to have flexibility to be able to expand that out or we need a set-aside. We need a set-aside that is meaningful. Now, I know you don't like set-asides. I can understand that. I wouldn't want---- Chairman Castle. But I would like small State minimums. You would understand that. Dr. Atkinson. Small state minimums are good. When you look at the money that we have there, 1 percent, it is almost--it is difficult to do anything meaningful with it. If we are going to have set-asides, let us have set-asides with a little oomph to them would be my suggestion. Chairman Castle. Other comments based on the legislation itself? Anybody have any thoughts or suggestions on that? I assume you are familiar with it and you are pretty supportive of it. There might be little things you would differ with but you are pretty supportive of it. Is that basically correct? By the way, feel free to contact us after the hearing if you need a little more time to review that. Mr. Moore wanted to say something. Mr. Moore. I would say it is very difficult to legislate the interest and involvement of the business community. I think the legislative language that is used in H.R. 366 is appropriate, and I support it wholeheartedly, that clearly would create a situation that businesses would be encouraged to get involved and stay involved. That is one of the things that we have found is just critical to the way our school is run. It is a partnership. It has to be there. The funding that is provided through the Perkins takes care of some problems and some things we need to take care of that make us good enough in a way that the businesses are more interested. It is very helpful. Chairman Castle. Thank you. At this time I am going to turn to--Ms. Woolsey had a further question or two to ask. I think Mr. Scott might want to ask a question or two. We will see if anyone else does and we will wrap it up after this round. Ms. Woolsey. I don't remember which one of you said that this Committee could not spend the money. And, we can't. But the truth of it is we authorize, and if it isn't in our authorization it isn't going to be there. We can authorize the 5 percent, which we ought to. If it doesn't get to be 5 percent in appropriations, then we have to fight them for that, but it won't get there at all if we don't say so. So I wanted to say that. Then I have another question about diversity and special populations. What are you seeing in these good programs? Are we seeing a good mix of male/female, ethnicity, economic backgrounds? What are you seeing? In your school, Emily, how many females are in your program? Is it pretty even? Ms. Simons. Well, in the Allied Health program, there are a lot more girls than there are guys. But there are some guys, I think about five. But that is just--but the students choose before they go into it what they wanted to do. So I don't think it was unfair. I just think that is the way it happened. Ms. Woolsey. Well, that would say, good, they are not eliminating females. But are there other programs that are pretty balanced? That is what I want to know from all of you. Mr. Moore, your program? Chairman Castle. Ms. Woolsey is fighting for male equality. Ms. Woolsey. I actually have a bill called Go Girl to help girls stay more interested in science, math and technology. Mr. Moore, how about your school? Mr. Moore. In my written testimony, if I may refer you to a chart, on page 7, we have broken down, this is statewide graduation tests, these are academic tests, and we are talking about academic tests taken by students who are attending a school that is predominantly--in terms of the pure number of courses taught, predominantly CTE focused. Now, that is not a characterization of what we care about. We care about the blending of academics with CTE. But you can see--and it talks about gender and it talks about race, it talks about economically disadvantaged. That is probably the one I am the most proud of, is the significantly higher performance on these academic tests of economically disadvantaged students. Ms. Woolsey. Good, thank you. Dr. Ainsworth. Dr. Ainsworth. As I look around our State and look at our numbers, certainly the vast majority of our students fall into a special population. The Category 1 study that was completed on a regional occupational centers programs showed that oftentimes those students enrolled in those programs start at a lower level academically, but by the time they graduate end up at a commensurate level with a control group of the general population. We really try and focus on this area. But in the area of nontraditional jobs it is something you have to work at. As I look around the State, if we don't keep the pressure on our programs to really consider nontraditional occupations, suddenly we have no girls in automotive programs and the boys aren't going to some other traditional female programs in nursing and those sorts of things. It is something where we deliberately work on this. We hold statewide staff development. We have joint efforts with our community college system, materials produced. It is some--you get what you invest in. We think it is an important thing to continue our investment in California. Ms. Woolsey. Thank you. Dr. Kister. I would just say that I am going to come back to State role and technical assistance. I think that is the way we maintain that, to monitor and track and keep it on the table. Dr. Atkinson. I would just say our schools are diverse but some of our programs struggle. Construction is an extremely tough sell to many of our women. Some of the very traditional-- what have been traditional female roles have been tough sells to the guys. It is a matter of being eternally vigilant. We have to be in there all the time. That is where State leadership comes in, as Joanna said, and where State administration comes in. Ms. Woolsey. Thank you very much. Chairman Castle. Thank you, Ms. Woolsey. Mr. Hinojosa has returned, and perhaps before Mr. Scott's questions we could go to Mr. Hinojosa's first round of questions. Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask Dr. Lewis Atkinson of Delaware a question. In your testimony you mentioned that the dropout rate for career and technical students is half of that of all high school students. What I have seen is that we have about 30 percent that has been dropping out of high schools and yours must be 15. What are some of the strategies employed at the technical high schools that account for that difference? Dr. Atkinson. I think the major connection there is that a student is connected with something day in and day out that is important to them, and it is a career and technical program. I mean, they have chosen that program. They have chosen to be in that school for that program, and that is the glue that holds their day together. I would argue that all students and all high schools should have some kind of a major. Maybe it is not career and technical, maybe it is fine arts, maybe it is humanities, but there should be some reason, some glue that holds those children to that school every day. Most high schools, you take seven--at Eastern it is a seven-period day, you take seven disparate courses. What is the glue that holds me together here? I just go in and check off a box each period and off I go. So I think what has really helped us in our career and technical areas is that there is a focus every day. Again, I would argue it doesn't have to be a career and technical focus to hold students, to have holding power over students. It could be a humanities focus, but this career and technical program is a focus that has holding power. Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you. My next question is to Dr. Ainsworth, California. Dr. Ainsworth, please tell us a little bit about the work of the Joint Special Populations Advisory Committee. In particular, could you share recommendations that have been implemented for our limited English proficient or migrant student populations? Dr. Ainsworth. Yes, our joint committee has been fairly unique, I think. We formed this in response to the elimination of the set-aside in the previous act because we wanted to keep a focus on this, and we wanted to do it system-wide from 9 through at least the community college. That committee was expected by some to just wither up after a couple of years, but in fact the opposite has happened. It has become kind of a silent force in California. This past week we had a conference with some 400 people there on this issue. In tough budget times, with all of the other things going on in education, it amazed me that many people would come to Sacramento and participate. The focus of that session was on understanding immigrant populations, the needs of immigrant populations, and the kinds of strategies that work with immigrants, both the language strategies as well as the other strategies, the attitudinal issues with the staff. It is growing to understand the cultural issues in these schools. English learners is a big problem in California--big issue--I shouldn't say a problem--it is a great opportunity for California. One in four students are English learners. In fact, we have intervention programs in academics, and in the career technical area, we are looking at what kinds of interventions can we provide there. So vocational ESL is one of those strategies where we are actually taking those skills. We are learning in English, learner specialties and pairing them with vocational and having the students learn their English within that vocational construct. I think that is really an interesting way to hook people into something, gives them a horizon that they can look forward to and gives them a real tangible way to apply their language skills. So we really believe that committee is central in California. We are very proud of it, and we would welcome sharing any more information with you. Mr. Hinojosa. Well, you obviously have a lot of hope that it can work. Dr. Ainsworth. Yes, sir. Mr. Hinojosa. Can you tell me if they have any dual language programs in conjunction with these vocational programs? Dr. Ainsworth. Right off the top of my head, I couldn't answer that. I don't know for sure. I will tell you this, that our recent language tests came out, and there was a substantial gain in our State's performance among English language learners in moving to higher proficiency levels in English, which I think is a concerted effort on behalf of all of the education systems. In terms of dual language programs in the vocational area, I would have to get back to you on that one. Mr. Hinojosa. Last, can you tell me if they are being tested only in English, or do they have testing tools that are also in Spanish? Dr. Ainsworth. Our State test is an English test. It is specifically designed to look at their English skills, so they are tested in English and not in Spanish. Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I return the balance of my time. Chairman Castle. Thank you, Mr. Hinojosa. You had no balance of your time, sir. Mr. Scott is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just had one additional question, in light of the President's proposal. I am not sure any of the witnesses would have an answer to either of them. But if we eliminated the Perkins program for high school students and melded it into the No Child Left Behind, what effect would that have on economically disadvantaged students and what would it do to figuring out what a qualified teacher is? Dr. Ainsworth. You know, there is a lot of pressure in this high stakes accountability world upon school districts to meet the numbers. Certainly that has resulted in the closure of career technical education programs. There is no doubt about it. If you are facing a situation where you have got a high cost program and you have a number of students that aren't proficient in English or testing at a low level, school districts have been forced to make tough choices. Shifting this money over there really intensifies that issue, because right now this money does provide that balance. It does provide us a resource to develop new ways of getting to academic proficiency. Shifting it over essentially says career technical ed has no value in improving academic achievement. In fact, we are finding that it does have quite a bit of value, and you have heard from this panel that it is central to the way we improve schools. So at this point we think we need to do work on both sides of the house and moving it over just doesn't make a bit of sense to us. Dr. Atkinson. And let me follow up on that, if I may, that we just spoke a few minutes ago on holding power and what is it that helps to keep students in school, what is it that helps to reduce the dropout rate. And while at first blush, putting more money into high schools to do remediation in math and science makes a certain amount of sense, because what schools are telling us is we don't have enough funding to do double doses of math and those kinds of things. Well, does it? At first blush it would be interesting to trace and see just what it will do to our dropout rate when what we are doing is putting all of our money into math and all of our money in science and English language arts and no money into a balanced program in a school day and no money into programs that provide a context for those academic areas. I sound like a broken record, but it is a context that for a lot of our students makes math come alive. I don't know how many people have looked to me and said, do you remember your algebra course, and their eyes just get this big. Because it was disconnected. It had no meaning to them. You just simply went through the math. Not being able to connect that math to a context, we lose a great deal when we do that. Dr. Kister. I would like to speak to the economically disadvantaged that you spoke to. A high risk student, according to a national research study fairly recently, a high risk student with no career tech courses was about four times as likely to drop out as a high risk student with three career tech courses. So my first answer to you is they would drop out. A couple other issues would be that if you eliminate career technical education you would eliminate dual credit articulation agreements, therefore making going to college much more difficult. Also, it provides a lot of career development and career expectation opportunities for students. We know that students with a career focus and a career maturity are much more likely to succeed. Ms. Simons. This program provides opportunity for all levels of socioeconomic status. It does not discriminate between your family's income or if your family doesn't have an income. Without this it would discourage the less fortunate from school and ultimately discourage their own explorations because they feel intimidated by the monetary values or monetary figures of post secondary education. Mr. Moore. If I may, I referenced already the academic performance on a standardized test of economically disadvantaged students at our particular school with that CTE focus. Some other data that is so relevant, one of the nicest things we can do is ask our students, and their parents, what they think, what they think about their school and their experience in a CTE-based program. We did that last year with a national assessment, and we found that if you compared the students who attended our program versus their peers who did not the satisfaction level with their high school experience on our side was 25 percent greater. Now, I know you are all running for office. If you won a campaign by 25 percent, you would think you had done very well. The parents' satisfaction is even more impressive. Ninety-four percent of the parents of our students said this school gets an A or a B in my book. We are very pleased to get that kind of feedback. To me it speaks to the relevance of the content of what they are learning. It is more focused on what they want for a career path development. Chairman Castle. Thank you, Mr. Scott. I think we have reached the end of our questioning here. So I will just close for a moment, and if Ms. Woolsey wishes to she is certainly welcome to as well. I certainly thank each and every one of you for being here. I realize it is a little bit of a hardship to get all the testimony prepared and be here. Obviously we appreciate you being here. Most of us never thought of doing something like this. We are at least twice as old as you are, maybe three times as old. You did a wonderful job, as did all the others, as a matter of fact. We are trying to progress with this legislation. So if you do have comments about it--I send that out even to the general audience--we are interested in hearing the comments. We want to make it as good as we can. It will still be perfected through the waters of the House and Senate, but we will try to do the best we can. As early as you can. So that is something we are trying to do, but your testimony is certainly very helpful to us and we will certainly take it into account as we consider this in vocational education in general. Ms. Woolsey. Ms. Woolsey. I echo everything my Chairman said, and I will just save us time by saying that, but thank you very, very much. Chairman Castle. With that we stand adjourned. [Whereupon, at 3:48 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] [Additional material submitted for the record follows:] Attachments Provided by Russ Moore, Chief Executive Officer, Central Educational Center, Newnan, GA, Submitted for the Record Appendix A CEC article--Part 1 June, 2001 by Russ Moore This article is part 1 of a 2-part series about Coweta County's new Central Educational Center. To quote Governor Roy Barnes, ``the world has changed.'' In 1968, 20% of the available jobs required a four year college degree, 15% of jobs required a high school diploma plus some kind of technical training, and Central High School in Newnan was Coweta's ``black'' high school, just a stone's throw from integration. Today, while still only 20% of jobs still require a four year college degree, 70% of jobs now require a high school diploma plus technical training. That's one major reason that the former Central High School is now the Central Educational Center-a one-of-a-kind model for seamless education that's turning heads around the country. The change has been a long time in coming. While technology since the `60's has morphed from black & white TV to color, broadcast to cable, VHS to DVD, and dialup to broadband, public education is only just beginning to change in ways just as fundamental and dramatic. The good news is that Coweta County is leading the way. ``To my knowledge, no other community in Georgia has figured out how to build a partnership with the business leadership of the community and the education system like we have here,'' says state representative Lynn Smith. ``To make Central happen, government and educational bureaucracies had to erase their traditional boundaries and not worry about funding-which is hard for government to do-all for the greater good of doing something new and making it work.'' In 1997, a group of local leaders in business, education and government convened to examine the issues of education and workforce development for Newnan and Coweta County. This was not just another committee. The group was chaired by Joe Harless, an internationally- respected expert in human performance technology and a Newnan resident. Harless has twice won the Outstanding Instructional Communication award from the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), most recently for his book The Eden Conspiracy: Educating for Accomplished Citizenship. The group worked for three years, studying educational programs across the country, and their eventual proposal found favor with U.S. Congressman Mac Collins and Governor Roy Barnes. A central tenet of the committee's blueprint is that educational curriculum and performance must be accomplishment-based. Barnes provided $7 million in state funds to bring the vision to reality, and the Central Educational Center opened last summer. Central is not a school in the traditional sense. It will never have a football team, a gym, a Beta club, school colors, or a mascot. Its top administrator is a not a principal, but a CEO. Many of its instructors come from industry, not education school. Those who attend classes there are called ``team members'' instead of students. Central has a board, not a PTO. And in addition to the school superintendent, the Governor of Georgia spoke at its groundbreaking. Perhaps the best answer of what Central is comes from the man at the helm, CEO Mark Whitlock. ``Central is a lifelong learning center,'' he says. ``Coweta County residents can receive instruction here for life. We provide evening technical school and high school classes, we provide adult education to receive a GED, and we train workers for local business and industry. But we're probably best known for the charter school that offers dual credit in high school and technical college.'' Indeed, being a charter school-and therefore free from many of the rules and regulations that dictate the vast majority of public education-has opened a Pandora's box of progress that may sweep the state and the nation. It attracted Whitlock from the private sector, after serving 18 years for Bank of America and its predecessor banks, including 9 years in international banking. He sees a significant parallel between Central and the training his overseas competitors received. ``I have an MBA, and some of my toughest competitors were European managers whose high school diploma, received at age 18, was the equivalent of an American associate technical college degree plus two years of apprenticeship.'' Central presents a European model of education, mixed with Harless' emphasis on performance technology. ``Governor Barnes has embraced Central as his model for seamless education, in which people are trained better and earlier, focusing at an earlier age on the jobs of the future.'' Whitlock adds, ``When a student leaves Central at age 18, he or she can have a high school diploma, a two-year technical college degree, and walk straight into a job paying as much as $32,000 a year. Since the average technical school student today in America is 27 years old, we're closing a 9-year gap. That has a tremendous impact on economic development in communities.'' As the chief executive of the state with the lowest SAT scores in the nation, Governor Barnes is emphatic that the Central model should be introduced statewide. In his dedication speech last June, he said that ``Georgia is in the throes of an education revolution. Students are frustrated that they aren't properly prepared to find jobs even after 12 years of school. The problem is the world has changed, but our schools haven't.'' To answer the question of how to educate students in the 21st century, Central offers four career tracks: Business and Computer Information Systems, Technical and Engineering, Health and Medical, and Services. The classes were recommended by a professional needs assessment and echoed by Central's technical school partner, Carrollton-based West Central Technical College. ``This is what makes education that involves Central `seamless','' said Whitlock. ``We cut out the lack of connectedness that's been a problem in the past. We provide the training we know businesses need, and our students are also prepared for what WCTC expects from them, because that's what we expect too.'' Barnes is impressed. ``It's a model I'd like to see replicated across the state. It's using technical schools to educate high school students, and that makes perfect sense. We must educate our children for the technical jobs that have come to dominate the new economy.'' Doing so will make quite a difference. Last month Central held its first ``graduation'' ceremony. While students receive their actual diplomas from one of the county's three high schools, and they receive degrees from WCTC, the Central graduation marked the completion of their first full year of study at what has become a landmark institution. 107 ``team members'' received technical school certificates of credit for specialized coursework that night, and enrollment for the fall will likely exceed expectations. If this model is truly introduced to the rest of the state, says Whitlock, ``you would reach 145,000 high school students, and Georgia's technical school enrollment would increase by 150%.'' A Georgia Tech study shows that companies considering a move to Georgia have two things at the top of their list: first, local education, followed closely by the quality of the workforce ``With Central, we're killing two birds with one stone,'' says Representative Smith. Perhaps the biggest advantage Central has is as a charter school. Freed from some of the rules of ``normal'' public schools, it shows decidedly entrepreneurial leanings. Among the several courses to be added in the fall is a series on broadcast TV and video production, taught by Teacher of the Year nominee Kevin Pullen. ``Central has an entrepreneurial spirit. That's one reason I'm here.'' Pullen was hired away from industry to teach graphic arts, and now he's overseeing the installation of a $100,000+ TV studio and video editing facility. As was done with the genesis of Central, he turned to industry experts for advice. ``We identified local people who have real experience in this area and have made their living in it for some time. We asked their advice on how to spend our grant money-what equipment to buy, how best to use it for instruction and practical learning-and now they're helping us develop the curriculum. This program is a perfect example of how Central is more than just a school-it's a resource for the community.'' Students who enroll in the video classes will have a chance to produce programming that may be seen on local cable, and the training they receive will make them marketable in video production hotbeds like Atlanta and Savannah. ``We're not just training them on how to use this particular equipment,'' says Pullen. ``Our advisers said if we want our students to be able to work anywhere, we should teach them about production processes and challenges that transcend equipment, and that's what we're doing.'' That is perhaps the most important contribution of Central Educational Center-creating an environment in which the classes that are taught are the classes that need to be taught. And Governor Barnes' highest praise centered on what impressed him most. ``Central is all about the most important thing of all,'' he said. ``It's about providing a better future for Georgia's children.'' CEC article--Part 2 August, 2001 by Russ Moore This article is part 2 of a 2-part series about Coweta County's new Central Educational Center. Last year, Central CEO Mark Whitlock was conducting a tour, escorting one of a seemingly never-ending stream of visitors from other school systems curious to learn what is so special about Coweta's newest educational jewel--and why Governor Barnes would spend $7.5 million on it. Toby Hughes was standing nearby, listening. Hughes is 18 years old, the son of a minister. Two years ago, as a high school junior, he had been considering what to do with a senior year that would only require him to earn one credit to graduate. A counselor told him about the new Central Educational Center that was opening, and he enrolled, taking Graphic Arts, Computer Repair, Pre-Engineering, a Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) course, advanced Calculus and English. Hughes recalls that Whitlock's visitor thanked him for the tour and said, ``I'm glad you're doing something for those types of students''-- expressing the bias many school systems have that places ``college prep'' as the top priority and provides technical training as a bone thrown to those not smart enough to go to college. ``Her attitude really got to me,'' Hughes said. ``I graduated in June with high honors, and I spent my whole senior year at Central because it offered me the chance to be the best I can be. Now, every chance I get, I help with tours so I can tell people why I came to Central and took a job with Computrac over a chance to go to Georgia Tech. Central is not an alternative school--it's the new mainstream. For people going to college, for people going to technical school, and for people just going to work--Central works for everybody.'' This summer, Hughes is sitting for A Plus, Net Plus, and CCNA certifications. He is already making more money than most new bachelor's graduates, and with his certifications, he can increase his already impressive salary by another 35%. Computrac works for Central's newest national corporate partner, 3M Corporation. 3M is providing fiber optic cable connections to every desktop computer in the facility--the equivalent of every student in a driving class having a Jaguar-and Hughes is the project manager. While Hughes' example is exceptional, he is by no means alone in his praise and enthusiasm for Coweta's Central Educational Center. From his fellow ``team members'' (Central-ese for ``students''), to local businesses, the local Board of Education, the Governor's office, the boardrooms of national partners, and even the U.S. Congress, Central is a model that people say should be replicated all over the nation. But why are so many people in so many places so impressed? What does the Central Educational Center do for our community that makes it unique in Georgia and beyond? To answer that question, one must first appreciate the genesis of CEC. Richard Brooks is Superintendent of Coweta County Schools. Before he was a school teacher and administrator, he was a regional manager in the private sector with Firestone. He also served as president of the Newnan-Coweta Chamber of Commerce, and his experience and community involvement with business and industry attuned him to the employment needs of the community. ``By 1998,'' he said, ``I had heard enough from local CEOs about the lack of qualified workers coming out of our school system that I knew we had to do something. I heard a lot about work ethic--basic things like getting to work on time, everyday--and the ability to work with teams, plus the need for specific technical skills.'' Mike Sumner, chairman of the Coweta County Board of Education, said, ``Like most school systems, our curriculum is geared towards college prep. But we did a study of our graduates, and we found that less than 40% of our high school graduates were going to college. Of that number, half of them were dropping out of college--so we had a net only about 20% of our high school graduates receiving college degrees. We also had a significant percentage of high school students dropping out to support their families. So we had a tremendous group of potential employees who didn't equate earning a diploma with getting a job.'' The consensus was that the community wanted and needed an education system more in tune with the challenges faced by the majority of its own students and the needs of employers. Brooks first broached the idea of creating a program of technical training at one location that would serve all three of the county's high schools. That was an efficient and inspired idea, one that was improved greatly by a combination of good timing and the hard work of many dedicated people. Joe Harless had recently retired as head of an international network of organizations that used his concepts to improve the performance of employees. He had also just finished writing his 14th book, The Eden Conspiracy: Educating for Accomplished Citizenship, in which he postulated that education reform must be community-driven and accomplishment-based. He read in the Newnan paper about the school system's deliberations and realized the opportunity for creating a real-life model of his vision. He called Brooks and volunteered to be a resource. Brooks immediately convened a group of concerned business leaders and invited Harless to address them. ``Before I knew it,'' said Harless, ``there was a steering committee and I was the chairman.'' The steering committee was made up of representatives from Carroll Tech (now West Central Technical College), the local business community, and the county school system. Harless and Carroll Tech President Janet Ayers collaborated to develop a Needs Assessment instrument. It was sent out to 500 local businesses, and the responses became the basis for two years of planning that resulted in today's Central. Sumner said, ``Richard and the school board had the wisdom to step back and let the committee develop the focus. And those people worked like Trojans.'' Harless introduced the idea of developing seamless curricula to provide dual credit toward high school and technical college degrees, thus dramatically lessening the years of training necessary to turn out productive workers. The committee also came up with the idea of forming a charter school. On the point of dual curricula and credit, everyone thought it was a great idea, but no one knew exactly how to make it happen. ``This was very difficult because local school systems and VoTech schools each have their own independent budgets and accountability standards,'' said committee member Don Moore of Bonnell, Inc. ``What we were proposing had never been done before in Georgia.'' Harless kept the committee focused by hammering, ``This is what industry wants,'' and the bureaucratic roadblocks were overcome. The county agreed to provide $7 million and the facility and land around what was then Central Middle School, but the project still needed at least a matching amount of funding and approval from the state. Brooks, Sumner, and Harless all spoke to U.S. Congressman Mac Collins in early 1999, who was impressed enough with the plan to arrange a critical meeting with newly inaugurated Governor Roy Barnes and Collins, Brooks, Harless, State Representatives Lynn Smith and Lyn Westmoreland, and Chamber of Commerce representative Leah Sumner. By all accounts, the meeting was a roaring success. ``We pushed all his buttons,'' said Harless. ``Education reform, accomplishment-based training, seamless education. He started off non-committal, but by the end was very interested.'' What had been scheduled as a 15-minute meeting extended to most of an hour, during which the governor called Dr. Ken Breeden, Commissioner of the Department of Technical and Adult Education (which oversees all Georgia's technical colleges) and encouraged him to do whatever he could to help the Coweta planners. Later, Barnes was also supportive with funding, recommending that $7.5 million be appropriated. During the 2000 legislative session, Rep. Smith, Newnan-Coweta Chamber President Greg Wright, and a hired lobbyist worked yeoman hours keeping the issue before legislators and in the appropriations bill, and the bill passed and was signed by the Governor. Ground was broken on June 2nd last year, and last month two new wings opened providing 65,000 square feet of additional classroom and lab space. The hook that landed money and influence and makes Central unique is community involvement. Said Harless, ``We are changing what is taught by looking at the performance desired by the community and working backwards.'' Don Moore of Bonnell: ``Business, education and government got together to solve a problem, and we've gotten stronger by doing it.'' Chairman Sumner: ``Once the community bought into the idea and got behind it, it became their program.'' President Ayers: ``With all these groups involved, we keep waiting for someone to have an argument, and it hasn't happened!'' Perhaps the biggest problem Central faces is meeting demand. With all the attention focused on Central, rightly so, far more students are applying to enroll than can be accommodated. But all parties agree if you have to have a problem, that's a good problem to have. And perhaps Toby Hughes and CEO Whitlock will have another visitor soon; the education advisor to the king of Spain has read Harless' book and wants to know more about Central. ``It's a new world,'' says Harless, and perhaps a good idea from the New World, starting in Coweta County, might someday have an impact on the whole world. Appendix B Central Educational Center Newnan, Georgia Prepared by International Center for Leadership in Education Executive Summary The Coweta County School System is perhaps one of the fastest growing school systems in the nation, recording a growth rate of between six and eight percent each year over the past four years. The school system's 17,500 students are enrolled in 27 schools across the county. Central Educational Center (CEC) is one of the newest schools and represents the county's flagship for educational renewal and innovation, student graduation success, and teacher satisfaction. The total grade 9-12 enrollment at the center is 1,123 students, with 174 of the students being dual-enrolled in both high school and technical college classes held at the center. CEC was created in response to needs expressed by local business and industry leaders who believed that area high school graduates were not adequately prepared for the Atlanta-area high tech labor market. In 1997, a group of leaders in business, industry, education, and government convened to examine educational and work force issues. After three years of work, the county received a charter to open the center to educate high school students with a goal being that each would achieve one or more technical college certificates of credit (TCCs), or one or more industry recognized certificates, in addition to the high school diploma. These certificates were part of career exploration and training in: agriculture and natural resources; business and information management; health science technology; technology and engineering; arts and communication; architecture and construction; hospitality and tourism; information technology; and engineering/ manufacturing. Any Coweta County high school student may choose to attend CEC as part of the regular high school program. Students register through their base high schools to attend CEC as an extension of the high school program. Students are accepted into special CEC programs, like work-based leaning, after completing an application, participating in an interview, and outlining career aspirations. For dual-enrolled CEC students (high school students in technical college classes), appropriate COMPASS or ASSET test (with SAT or ACT as substitutes) scores are required for admission. All CEC students are given connecting opportunities to ``earn'' their way into special program acceptance. For example, special remediation is provided for those who must then re-take the COMPASS or ASSET test. Over the past four years, 559 students have earned 657 technical college certificates of credit, as well as their high school diplomas. Students attend the center for one or more block periods, and return to their base high school for many academic courses and for extracurricular activities like sports or band. In this regard, the center is not a traditional high school. As a charter school, the administrators and teachers have more flexibility in operating the school, selecting courses, and developing curriculum. The instructional staff is divided between Coweta County employees and employees of the West Central Technical College (WCTC). The center's culture reflects six major characteristics: setting high expectations; fostering a work ethic; maintaining business and industry relationships; developing a business environment at the school; establishing a seamless approach to career-path education; and setting a macro objective of giving students the skills and knowledge necessary to function successfully in a technological society. The leadership is collaborative, student-centered, and supportive of faculty and business environments. The building-level leader is called a CEO, and he describes his role as ``servant leader.'' Students are called ``team members,'' and teachers are known as ``directors,'' reflecting the business setting fostered at the school. The organizational structure of CEC reflects its charter school designation, which continues to encourage trust, teamwork, and communication among staff. This provides a great deal of flexibility in the structure, management, and instructional practices of the center. The curriculum is based on the job competencies related to each of the certificate programs. Career exploration work also includes job shadowing, internships, and youth apprenticeships. The emphasis in courses is on project-based learning and accomplishment-driven competencies. Visitors are aware of the clean and well-ordered environment within the building. The teachers demonstrate a sense of purpose, pride, and dedication when discussing students. Professional development is a daily occurrence in that all staff members have a common planning period as a result of the block scheduling. The staff takes pride in demonstrating the technology available for use in instruction. Local business and industry leaders continue to support the center with donations of equipment, advice, and grants. CEC operates effectively in support of its macro objective to prepare its students with entry-level technical skills that will serve them well as they attend college or enter the Atlanta-area labor market. The center represents a rigorous and relevant training model for career preparation. I. Demographics/Profile/Performance Data Central Educational Center is a collaboration of the business community, WCTC, and the Coweta County School System. The school system enrolls 17,500 students in 27 schools. It is one of the faster growing school systems in the nation with a six to eight percent growth rate each year. Located southwest of Atlanta in Newnan, Georgia, CEC draws students from the three base high schools in Coweta County--Newnan, East Coweta, and Northgate. The school's enrollment mirrors that of the county with about 28% of the students identifying themselves as minority students. Total enrollment is 1,123 high school students including 174 students who are dual-enrolled in the technical college's classes. In its first three full years of operation, CEC served 2,861 students during the traditional four-block day schedule, with 895 students attending for more than one year, and 159 students attending all three years. Since CEC opened in 2000, 559 students have earned 657 technical college certificates of credit. The origin of CEC is unique in that it is a response to the needs of local business and industry. In 1997, a group of local leaders in business, industry, education, and government convened to examine issues of education and workforce development for Newnan and Coweta County. The group worked for three years, studying educational programs across the country, and canvassing Coweta County's business and industry leaders. Over 40% of Coweta's business and industry leaders responded to a needs assessment survey. Among that response rate overall, 80% of the manufacturing and technical jobs in the county were represented. Critical employee concerns included life skills, work ethic, and basic math and reading skills. In response to the concerns of the county leaders and business representatives, CEC was established ``to ensure a viable workforce for the 21st Century based on targeted needs within the community.'' The goal of the center is: ``To create synergy among the educational, business, industrial, and governmental entities that will favorably impact and enhance economic development and the quality of life in the region.'' CEC is a school of choice for students who wish to add technical electives to their high school programs of study, and/or add a Technology/Career Seal of Endorsement to their high school diploma. In collaboration with WCTC, students may complete postsecondary courses and programs while at CEC, and earn dual credit in the high school and the technical college. CEC is not a school in the traditional sense. It is a start-up charter school that gives school planners and administrators considerable, but not unlimited, flexibility. Students are still enrolled in their base high schools, but spend half, or in some cases, all of the school day at CEC. Students are called team members rather than students; their teachers are called directors, and the head administrator is a CEO, rather than a principal. A board of directors has replaced the PTO. Perhaps the best descriptor of the center comes from its board chair and former CEO, Mark Whitlock who said, ``Central is a lifelong learning center. Coweta County residents can receive instruction here for life.'' The school presents, perhaps, a more-European model of education with a heavy emphasis on an educational curriculum that is accomplishment-based. Georgia's former Governor Barnes embraced CEC as a model for seamless education, in which people are trained better and earlier, focusing at an earlier age on the jobs of the future. The Governor and state legislature provided $7 million in state funds to bring the vision of CEC to reality. More than 20 business partners have also provided financial support. II. Culture The four-year period of the school's operation was preceded by three years of open-ended problem solving and needs assessment that set the culture of the school. The center maintains a unique quality in its adherence to a seamless approach to career-path education and accomplishment-based instruction. The curriculum is derived from an analysis of post-education performance of students, and the instruction reflects a seamless match with the desired post-education competencies. The instructional staff works to build trust, work ethic, and responsibility in the students. To emphasize the use of a business and industry model, CEO Russ Moore brings a wide and diverse business background to the center, which operates under a charter agreement with the Georgia Department of Education. The center's culture is reflected in six major characteristics: 1. The establishment and maintenance of high expectations by students and faculty related to class work and accomplishments. 2. The fostering of a work ethic that is measured, graded, and reported as part of the grading system. 3. The maintenance of a business and industry environment within the center, and the availability of on-the-job experiences for students. 4. The generation of a working partnership among businesses, WCTC, Coweta County's Chamber of Commerce, and the Coweta County School System. 5. A seamless approach to career-path education, which mixes high school students with adult learners seeking job skills, and adults employed in industry who are improving job skills as part of their employment. Many of the high school students have dual enrollment seeking both high school and college credit. The instructional program is based on the competencies required within the job market, creating a highly relevant, seamless approach for students. 6. As a charter school, the center uses certain exemptions to achieve the macro objective of ``giving students the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to become accomplished family members, society members, workers, and citizens.'' Many of the teachers come from a business background, and have extensive on-the-job experience to model for students. A group of business leaders initially approached the school superintendent with a concern that students were not prepared either academically or attitudinally for the available jobs in the county. Out of that request grew a working partnership that opened a discussion about what can and should be done to improve the economic and work conditions within the county and the state. The work group created a needs assessment instrument to identify on-the-job needs, and a concept of education that would support seamless career-path instruction. An application for charter school status was supported by funding from the State of Georgia, Coweta County, WCTC, and the Coweta County School System. Much of the conceptual base for CEC is summarized in the publication The Eden Conspiracy: Educating for Accomplished Citizenship, written by Dr. Joe Harless, chairperson of the work group. The work group prepared a mission statement, purpose statement, and a goal for CEC based upon responses to the needs assessment survey from over 40% of Coweta County's business and industry leaders. The school's mission is ``To ensure a viable workforce for the 21st Century based on targeted needs within our community.'' Its purpose is ``To develop, implement, and offer innovative learning opportunities for residents of Coweta and surrounding counties to achieve economic and personal goals.'' Its goal is ``To create synergy among the educational, business, industrial and governmental entities that will favorably impact and enhance economic development and the quality of life in this region.'' The staff endeavors to treat students respectfully as adults, but it also emphasizes the responsibilities that each student must assume through a policy descriptive of a desirable work ethic. Visitors to the building quickly sense the importance placed on work responsibilities such as respect, attendance, and teamwork. Each student is evaluated on 22 characteristics for work ethic using a rubric adapted by the staff from work done over a decade by Georgia's technical colleges. The melding of the partnerships also represents a unique contribution to the culture of CEC. Both school system staff and WCTC staff were selected based on their ability to contribute to the mission and goal of the center. School and college staff members are working partners with the business and industry representatives whose needs and support guide the development of instruction. The culture within the building is reflected in the statement that, ``Every person is a leader in this building.'' III. Leadership The vision, mission, and goals of CEC are realized through a collaborative leadership effort. All stakeholders contribute to and support the center's mission, with a goal to have ``95% of graduates in related career or related education within 90 days of graduation.'' The Coweta County School Superintendent and the Coweta County Board of Education oversee and support the efforts of the center. The school system's Director of the High School Program and Business-Community Director work collaboratively with CEC to ensure appropriate bridging of programs and activities from the three high schools sending students to the center, and to ensure that the programs and operations of CEC meet the school's mission. Business and industry partners, the core founders of the center, continue to provide leadership and direction on employment trends, industry needs, up-to-date curricular components, and state-of-the-art equipment and technology needed in the classroom to ensure workforce readiness. The WCTC Board and the Director of College Operations work closely with the Technical College Directors at the center to provide leadership in the curricular components of the dual-enrollment program. This collaborative ensures that the technical college's certificate programs provided for team members at the center are comparable to those provided for technical college students throughout Georgia. (Georgia's technical colleges, like technical colleges and community colleges nationwide, generally host enrollees whose average age is 27. CEC is part of a strategic effort on the part of Georgia's technical colleges to reach a younger population to ensure the State's workforce needs are met.) To sustain parental involvement and support, six members of the Board of Directors of CEC are parents. This ensures parental input when setting school policy. Clearly, leadership extends beyond CEO Moore to include all groups who have stakeholder status in the center. These groups sustain CEC's mission, and help it move forward. The building-level leadership consists of a CEO and the directors of the high school program, technical and career education (now Business-Community Director), and college operations. The titles of CEO and directors are reflective of the business-like culture that characterizes the school. The CEO reports to the board of directors as outlined in the school's charter. The flexibility of a charter school enables CEC to have a businessperson with real-world experience administer the school. The CEO with a business background brings a new perspective, and helps to link public education and the private sector. The primary responsibilities of the CEO are to reinforce the vision and mission of the school, stay close to the people in the school, keep in touch with the outside community, and pursue ``the continuous improvement of the partnership.'' The original concept of the role of the CEO was a ``bridge'' to connect the various partners in the project, and that concept remains the key to the entire role. The founding CEO of the school describes the leadership of CEC as ``servant leader.'' It is a situation in which there is power without power. The CEO has little direct control over those he manages. CEC has little budget of its own, but largely depends on its partners, particularly the Coweta County Schools and WCTC, for the funds it has. Faculty are employed by one of those two partners. There is no CEC diploma, nor is there a CEC school in the eyes of the state. CEC is seen at the state level as an extension of the three Coweta County public high schools and as a satellite campus location for WCTC. The CEO connects partners, promotes efficiencies, and encourages partners to pursue continuous change and improvement. He promotes a shared environment for education and business, and he is responsible for oversight and integration of high school, technical and career education, and college operations. He acts as a facilitator, building and strengthening relationships among all the partners including business, the school district, the college, parents, state and local elected officials, and the community at large. The center's leadership model values trusting, teamwork, and communication among team members and directors. The model describes leadership as: <bullet> Communicating an exciting vision of the future to team members and directors. <bullet> Initiating action to bring about continuous improvement. <bullet> Acting as mentor, developer, and facilitator. <bullet> Using strong influencing and negotiating skills. <bullet> Making the complex simple. <bullet> Making fact-based arguments. <bullet> Planning strategically for change in the program. <bullet> Ensuring that team members understand career goals. <bullet> Attracting and retaining team members whose career goals match the program. Management's philosophy was identified and developed by the first CEO Mark Whitlock, who outlined four challenging yet simple directives: 1. Hire GREAT people. 2. Provide clear goals. 3. Expect and support continuous improvement. 4. Build a culture of continuous change. Within this philosophy, personal goals for directors are identified as: gain nationwide respect for your CEC work, and have more fun than you have ever had in your career. The leadership focuses on mission and values. With successful ``bridging'' of all the partners, setting clear goals and high expectations, and trusting, respecting and empowering directors as true professionals, effective leadership is a large part of the explanation of CEC's success. IV. Organizational Structure Central to the organizational structure of CEC is its charter school status, which allows a great degree of flexibility in structure, management, and instructional practice. This flexibility is considerable, yet the school is held accountable to certain state and school district parameters, and is obligated to report to the school superintendent. As a charter school, CEC functions as a pilot school, trying out some things that may eventually become part of the traditional school organization. A board of directors that includes parents, educators, and industry representatives governs the school. The board meets bi-monthly to conduct strategic planning and reflect on progress. It considers and advises on issues such as student attendance, busing schedules, tracking outcomes, resource acquisition and distribution, communications, and marketing. The CEO reports to the board as defined in the school's charter. CEC represents an application in the educational arena of the Accomplishment Based Curriculum Development System (ABCD) of Dr. Joe Harless, a performance technology model used in private industry. Detailed in his book, The Eden Conspiracy, the ABCD system differs primarily from the traditional subject matter-based curriculum in that its educational goals are clearly defined and measured in the accomplishments of students. The ABCD system begins with a needs assessment that identifies both present and future needs. These needs become tangible outcomes from which the educational model is designed. Students are empowered and taught to perform tasks that apply the knowledge and skills identified in the original needs assessment, ensuring that the needs of business and students are met. The process for establishing a CEC-like educational institution is defined by Dr. Joe Harless in the following four phases. Phase 1: Needs Assessment and Planning <bullet> Form a task force composed of representatives of principal stakeholder segments. <bullet> Survey area employers to determine current and expected employment needs. <bullet> Determine employer expectations regarding technical skills, knowledge, and work ethic. Phase 2: Design <bullet> Determine major curriculum paths. <bullet> Determine courses, articulations, and dual-enrollment opportunities. <bullet> Determine facilities, equipment, and staff required. <bullet> Develop research protocol to assess results. Phase 3: Implementation <bullet> Select CEO, faculty, and staff. <bullet> Conduct faculty training in performance-based instruction. <bullet> Deliver courses. Phase 4: Evaluation <bullet> Continuously monitor instructional effectiveness and relevancy of content. <bullet> Perform follow-up of students to determine placement, and transfer of skills and knowledge. The organizational structure of CEC is also defined by its partnership that brings high schools, businesses, and a technical college together to provide students with an opportunity to engage in a seamless program of study that integrates secondary and postsecondary education. Following a needs assessment and the development work of a 26-member steering committee representative of all the partners, WCTC collaborated with the Coweta County School System, local government, other educational agencies, and the business community to create a new program to meet the needs identified by potential students, residents, and business owners in the county. One tangible result of the committee's work was the writing of a charter that was approved by the local and state boards of education in 1999. The center has become the most innovative technical education program in Georgia. One student described CEC as a ``full-service educational hub.'' Five groups of students attend CEC: college-level students, high school students, dual-credit students, adult learners in GED and literacy programs, and local employees undergoing custom training. The school operates on a schedule with four blocks per day with 10% of the students attending CEC all day, and most students attending for one-half day. Students may attend classes for the first block only; the first and second blocks; the third and fourth blocks; or for all four blocks. In addition, some high school, college, adult, and training programs operate in the evenings until 10pm. CEC serves students in both a high school and a technical college housed within the same physical structure. In addition, adult students prepare for the GED in evening courses, and high school students in need of remediation and course make-up attend evening high school sessions. (Counting these additional students yields typical total enrollment for the entire program of CEC at approximately 1500 students.) Because the college and secondary school's career and technical education programs are housed in the same facility, students can earn technical college certificates while still in high school and have an opportunity to get a head start on the next phase of life, regardless of whether it involves a four-year college or university, further technical training, technical or community college, or the workplace. Upwards of 80% of dual-enrolled high school students pursue additional postsecondary education and training, which is double the local average. As a result of the strong business and industry partnerships, CEC is a showcase for state-of-the-art technology and technological equipment used in the workplace. These resources enable CEC to offer local employers the opportunity for off-site training. While CEC provides the instructional capacity to deliver (connected as it is to Georgia's award-winning QuickStart and other technical college programs) the training, business and industry provide the necessary resources to create a training environment that truly represents the world of work. From this unique organizational structure and with the flexibility of its charter status, CEC gives high school and adult students the opportunity to prepare for the world after school, and to stay current in work-based competencies requiring new technology, processes, and procedures. In this model, adults and high school students learn side-by-side in the same learning environment. V. Curriculum/Assessment Under the Harless ABCD system, educational goals are defined by the expectations learners have upon graduation as they fulfill their primary roles as society members, family members, workers, and individuals. The instructional design is based on five tenets, which characterize instruction at CEC: 1. All students can learn (and most to a high level). 2. Teachers must respond to student differences. 3. Good instruction is key to good learning. 4. The design and delivery of instruction is critical. 5. ``What'' is being taught largely determines ``how'' it will be taught. Relevance of the curriculum to the identified expectations of students is also a critical component in how courses are designed and delivered. CEC introduced project-based instruction and work ethic as fundamental teaching tenets to be emphasized across all instructional programs. The CEC curriculum has been identified and developed by two primary sources: the technical college system and the original needs assessment conducted by the steering committee that initiated the school. Academic courses required by the Coweta County School System are also taught as part of the core requirements. (Interestingly, the needs assessment yielded the notion that employers now require a combination of technical and academic skills thus also supporting the coupling of the technical with the academic.) Course offerings and certificate programs at CEC fall under the following career and technical education clusters: <bullet> Agriculture and Natural Resources <bullet> Business and Information Management <bullet> Health Science Technology <bullet> Technology and Engineering <bullet> Arts and Communication <bullet> Architecture and Construction <bullet> Hospitality and Tourism <bullet> Information Technology <bullet> Engineering/Manufacturing According to the Director of the High School Program, ``Every course in the curriculum responds to needs in the local labor market.'' Students can choose from programs that range from high tech (e.g., computer repair, computer networking, and CAD), to construction and production (e.g., certified manufacturing specialist, machine tool technology, and metal joining), to health care (e.g., dental assisting and patient care assisting), travel and tourism, and broadcasting. Curriculum development involves not only teachers and central office curriculum developers, but also representatives from business who serve as subject matter experts (SMEs) who work with educators to identify skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors needed in the workplace. The curriculum is designed around these parameters. Business representatives inform, design, and help deliver the curriculum. Through communication networks with the community and through the SMEs, business and industry have an opportunity to influence curriculum development. For example, if a program no longer aligns with labor market demands and does not have minimal placement, retention, or graduation rates, that program can be eliminated. The curriculum is primarily self-directed and self-paced, which reinforces the need for self-discipline, and which enables a student to finish ahead of schedule. Another important aspect of the curriculum is its project-based relevancy. The relevancy of the curriculum to the desired accomplishments desired from the students is the core to the Harless accomplishment-based curriculum development system. The project-based component was added by the initial steering committee. Each program area at CEC provides an opportunity for students to participate in work-based learning. Each job site has to be approved, and students have defined competencies to learn. Students may participate in work-based learning in the following ways: <bullet> Job shadowing--students report to a job site to explore opportunities in that field of study. <bullet> Internship--students work either paid or unpaid at a job site that is in their field of study. <bullet> Cooperative Education--students are enrolled in a cooperative class and work one or two class periods. <bullet> Youth Apprenticeship--students may work as many as three blocks in their field of study. Students commit to 2,000 hours of on- the-job training, are paid using a progressive pay scale, and must attend postsecondary education. In addition to academic grades, students receive a work ethic grade comprised of scores related to ten work ethic areas that are rotated for instructional emphasis on a weekly basis. All teachers are expected to integrate the ethic areas in instruction. Students enrolled in the certification programs in conjunction with the technical college are assessed through certification tests developed and administered by the related technical business and industry program. State standards-based assessments are administered at the base high schools. However, instructors at CEC are aware of state standards, and introduce, reinforce, or bring students to competency in these standards through their technical programs. The emphasis on project-based learning and accomplishment-driven competency puts assessment in a high performance mode. Students are expected to demonstrate what they know, and as team members in a business-like environment, they are expected to produce quality and quantity expected in the real world business situation. Product and performance are key components of the assessment system. As former CEO Mark Whitlock states: ``The true goal of education is the application of knowledge.'' Students are expected to not only attain high levels of cognitive skill development; but also be able to apply those skills to real-world business and industry situations. The project and performance-based relevancy of the curriculum is one of the primary components of CEC's effectiveness. VI. Extracurricular and Co-curricular Activities Students enrolled at the center participate in one or more of the four time blocks each day. Approximately 10% of the students attend CEC all day. Some students also enroll in the evening session to participate in programs that they cannot fit into their day schedule. Because of the arrangements between the center and the three base high schools in the district, the center does not attempt to provide duplicate extracurricular opportunities for their students. Students are encouraged to participate fully in the academic and social life of their base high schools. The present CEO commented that, ``This is not a school in the common sense. We will never have a football team, a gym or a mascot.'' One of the extracurricular opportunities at the center is the Youth Leadership Council. Students may nominate themselves or others to meet with the faculty representative for the purpose of discussing school operations, improvements, and activities. In addition, many programs at the center as a part of Career and Technical Education Youth Leadership Activities have regional and statewide competitions built into the syllabus. Several programs list students who were successful in competitions such as tool casing, landscaping, job interviewing, and construction. Other programs emphasize service projects that engage students in community projects. The construction program uses students' skills in the ``Habitat for Humanity Program,'' while the Health Science Programs place students in volunteer positions in hospitals, nursing homes, and dental offices. The programs and the personal attention shown by the faculty often result in students developing special interests related to their course of study. One student described his newfound interest in writing based on his work in Arts and Communication. A second student outlined her interest in floral display that she pursued as a part-time job and a possible entrepreneurial opportunity in the future because of the extra work and attention from a teacher at the center. Students also expressed a desire to have more opportunities for social activities, and for developing individual skills and interests. During the second instructional block, announcements are made at the center about base high school activities and information. The students feel that their additional travel time between schools and their study requirements prohibit their participation in many extracurricular activities at their base high school. In general, the traditional importance of extracurricular activities in high school takes on a different role at the center. The college atmosphere for both adults and high school students provides opportunities to develop personal skills and interests through job competencies and the variety of career- path explorations. However, students at the center are often more interested in accumulating credits toward multiple certificates than participating in additional clubs. For others, the base high schools offer a wide range of extracurricular opportunities for the students attending the two educational facilities. VII. Use of Data The center's use of data is influenced by its operation as a charter school focusing on vocational and technical training. Student achievement data are collected by the base high schools; competency data are collected by the technical college for adults and dual- enrolled students; and data on attendance, grades, work ethic, earned certificates, job placements, and postsecondary enrollments are collected by the center. Assessments from employers about the job performances of graduates provide a major source of data for the assessing achievement of the center's mission The technical college reports a 93% increase in the number of dual- enrolled team members (from 90 in 2001 to today's 174) and a 128% increase in the number of certificates earned each year, from 2000-01 (96), 2001-02 (163), 2002-03 (186) and 2003-04 (219). In CEC's first year, seven programs had students completing the requirements for certificates, compared to 16 programs listing successful completions in 2003-04. Equally impressive are the data that 41 students in 2003-04 completed two certification programs, compared to six in the first year and twelve in the second year of the center's existence. The staff continues to encourage students to explore more than one career when they apply to the center without a clear career path in mind. The rigor and relevance of the center's instructional program is measured by test scores and other business-related performance data. Student achievement scores of those enrolled at the center were isolated from scores of their base high schools. Despite the fact that a significant percentage of the school system's traditional ``college bound'' students do not attend CEC (though that percentage is increasing), students at the center match or slightly exceed the averages for Coweta County School System students in English language arts, math, science, and social studies, and are only slightly lower than the county's average scores in writing for the past three years on Georgia's High School Graduation Test. Scores for economically disadvantaged students (who make up 11% of the center's enrollment) are vastly superior on all five state tests, with an average improvement of 12% over the county average. While the center provides no instruction in core sciences (biology, chemistry, or physics), perhaps as a result of the applied versions of those sciences covered in courses like health occupations, welding and pre-engineering, the center's students score highest above the county average in science. Though test data are measured and tracked, the center also evaluates rigor and relevance using other key indicators identified in its charter and strategic plan; specifically, dropout rates, graduation rates, and placement rates. Since the center opened in 2000, Coweta County's dropout rate has fallen 3.6 percentage points, improving 42% from 8.6 to 5.0. A study by the University of Georgia revealed that the graduation rate of the center's dual enrollment programs was 98%-which is more than 20% better than the county's general high school graduation rate. Further, 100% of those graduates were placed in jobs or additional post-secondary education within two months of graduation. These data are shared with the faculty and discussed at their weekly team meetings. The guidance counselor tracks the academic performance and the grades in work ethic to ensure that those students are making adequate progress. When students experience difficulty, remediation is required. In addition, attendance remains a pivotal indicator of work ethic and acceptance of responsibility. Students who have six unexcused absences or more during a semester have points taken off their course grades. Students are accepted into the center after an enrollment process, structured interview about their career aspirations, and a review of attendance and school attitudes. When accepted, student data are used to informally construct a plan of study at the center and at the base high schools. As students begin each course, the instructor provides a syllabus that details the competencies to be learned, topics that will be covered, and testing dates leading to completion of one of the fourteen certificates awarded through the WCTC under a dual-enrollment arrangement. The use of needs assessment surveys with businesses, students, and parents represents one of the most discussed and influential data sources employed by the center's staff. The original needs assessment survey for business and industry was completed in 1999 to establish job-training areas for the center. A revised survey will be re- administered this summer. The new survey seeks to determine growth in the skill level of graduates, to re-assess needs of the local labor market, and to identify new training areas in business, which may be related to the aviation industry in the general Atlanta region. In general, the staff's attitude of continuous improvement means that ways can be found to increase the use of data to ensure relevance of the curriculum as viewed by business, parents, and students; and to ensure the rigor of the curriculum in light of the job competencies in a highly technological work environment. VIII. Parent/Community Involvement CEC had its genesis in community involvement that continues today. Business leaders concerned about the region's economy enlisted the support and involvement of education agencies to investigate root causes of a mismatch between the knowledge and skills of school graduates, and the needs of the labor market in Coweta County. After several years of brainstorming, investigating, and designing curriculum, the concept of the center emerged. The original committee pursued charter school status to allow implementation of several unique approaches to curriculum, dual enrollment and governance. CEC is operated under the direction of a CEO charged with the responsibility of melding partnerships among parents, business, community, and educational agencies (Coweta County School System and WCTC). The board of directors required by the school's charter has representation from business leaders, parents, and school personnel. Efforts are made to involve community and parents to determine the success of the center's activities, and to identify future needs. Business representatives acknowledge the importance of the center to the economic vitality of the region through donations of machinery and technology, personnel to assist the school, and use of the center to train business personnel along side of the center's students. Industry leaders encourage acceptance of apprentices, job shadowing, and internship students at their work sites. Parents receive information on academic progress of the students as well as telephone calls concerning student achievement or discipline issues. Open house opportunities exist for parents, as well as an open invitation to visit the school. Expanded communication opportunities in the form of newsletters and parent organizations are anticipated for next year. The WCTC operates with a policy that each of its programs must have an advisory committee to meet regularly to evaluate program objectives and competencies as a means of keeping the program relevant to business and technology needs. CEC's secondary programs have embraced this model and have advisory committees made up of representatives from business and industry that meet quarterly. Anthony Chow from Florida State University conducted a three-part research study on CEC. Part two of the study described a parent and graduate survey. Since the study was done in the second year of the center's existence, a small number of parents and graduates participated in the survey. Those that did respond were positive in evaluating the center's ability to address its mission and goals. The final portion of the study, now under development, reports a significant increase in respondents, and a continuing positive impression of the center. In summary, parent and community involvement is an intrinsic component of the culture and mission of the center. This involvement has grown over time, and serves as a model for what is possible in career training when partnerships are developed and nurtured. IX. Safe/Orderly School Visitors to the center are immediately aware of the clean and orderly environment of the building. The center occupies a main building that was a middle school prior to being occupied by the CEC. It was expanded during its first year of charter operation to accommodate industrial, pre-engineering, construction, health sciences, dental assisting, and horticulture labs and work centers. The faculty was consulted and involved in designing the functional expansion of the building. The wide corridors encourage team meetings and a college atmosphere at the school. Few students are seen in the halls during the instructional blocks because they tend to work in teams on projects moving to a level of competency in their courses. Since the day is organized around four instructional blocks, time is provided to socialize, travel to base schools, and consult with teachers during an extended time period between blocks. The school strives to provide a safe and secure environment with doors locked except for the front door, which is visible from the main office. A majority of students drive their cars to the school rather than take buses. Most students attend the center for one or two blocks and attend their base high school for the remainder of their instructional day. Directors and administrators are in the halls, are outside the building, and are in the parking lots during the break between blocks. The well-maintained atmosphere within the building is reflected in the individual classrooms where each instructor insists that the room be maintained to business or industrial standards as a matter of course. The work areas are maintained to the same standard as those where students intern as part of their work-based program. The influence of the work ethic curriculum with 22 characteristics measured in ten traits can be observed in the maintenance of the learning space. The center is a safe and well-organized building as a result of teachers' attitudes, the business curriculum, and student behavior. Several students commented that the center serves their needs for a more relevant and rigorous curriculum that will allow them to function well in the technology-rich business environment. As one student said, ``It is an honor to be here since we are treated like adults, and we are given a great education to prepare us for the job market.'' X. Professional Development The center recognizes the need to build staff's capacity and capabilities continuously. Professional development is a daily occurrence within the benefit of a common core planning period for all staff. School breaks between the morning and afternoon blocks give staff opportunities to collaborate on instructional practices. Staff are encouraged to share their most successful instructional strategies in what are called ``best practices sessions'' that are held once a week. The staff from the technical college is required to complete 60 hours of professional development each year. During the first year of the center's operation, all staff received 40 hours of training by Dr. Harless in his ABCD system of educational design. These faculty development seminars helped to ensure that the philosophy and goals of the center became a part of the instructional approach. Many staff have accomplishment-based course outlines, and most of the work students engage in is project-based or performance- based. Directors share what they do with one another, and when possible and appropriate, reinforce and connect learning from one discipline to another. Staff also attends professional conferences and workshops. Many staff members bring business and industry experience to the teaching profession, helping enrich the instruction of all staff. The business and industry partnership also makes it possible for staff to use other resources in the community for assistance with instructional content and delivery. Advisory boards play an active role in identifying curricular content, and assist with training to help develop the intellectual capacity needed to use the technology inherent in program. XI. Technology CEC is a showcase of technology. Team members have an opportunity to gain hands-on experience using state-of-the-art technical equipment, both in school and as a part of their work experience programs. Technology is integrated across almost the entire curriculum, with a focus on experiential, hands-on, work-based learning. Technology becomes the means to accomplish products and performances, and it is integrated within the instruction. During the initial planning stages of the CEC design, customized job training with a fluid or seamless credentialing process was a goal promised to business and industry. To make this possible and enhance the economic development of the community, business partners donated equipment for work simulations and laboratories. Business, industry, government, and community stakeholders came forward with financial and equipment investments in CEC to ensure students were prepared for work in the global marketplace. Georgia's former Governor Barnes and Georgia's Legislature provided $7 million as an incentive grant, and the Coweta County Board of Education provided $7 million in an existing middle-school facility and surrounding acreage for the initiation of the center. The Coweta County Board of Education, Georgia's Department of Technical and Adult Education, and businesses contributed some $3 million in funds and equipment to develop the technical labs. Coweta County provided some $2 million from an Education Local Option Sales Tax to support the renovation of the original building. Various levels of leaders, local and statewide, believed in the advantages of the center's workforce development model with its seamless approach to secondary and postsecondary education. CEC persuaded Yamaha to remain in the community since CEC delivers technical training for its future workers in a technology lab installed at the school with a major donation from the company. Business partners such as 3M Corporation provided thousands of dollars of fiber-optic material and labor for the schools' 800 computers, and Lab-Volt of New Jersey donated its newly developed state-of-the-art information technology program. Business representatives as subject matter experts (SMEs) often advise staff on equipment. The SMEs help to ensure that classrooms are adequately equipped by identifying and acquiring state-of-the-art equipment and technology. In some cases, staff has learned from their business partners that the important thing students need to know is the ``how.'' The ``right'' tools may not have to be the most expensive ones. One of the school's challenges is to keep the technology current. Active advisory committees work closely with staff to make this happen. XII. Lessons Learned The following factors have been most significant in the school's success. <bullet> The leadership within this school enables the student to learn through a first rate curriculum, with a first rate faculty, and with the support of the business community. Leaders within and outside the school have focused the energies of the center on the need to educate students to meet the demands of a technological society. <bullet> The partnerships among business, college, community, parents, and school systems began the venture of creating the center, and now maintain the focus on the center's mission and goals. <bullet> The use of work ethic as a curriculum component allows the school to address a stated need in the business community. <bullet> The flexibility in hiring, curriculum offerings, student choice, and building operation exists at the center because of its status as a charter school. <bullet> The ability to provide instruction in the same classroom for high school students, adults seeking employment, and adults seeking to upgrade skills for their present job is unique. The existence of the technical college staff instructing adults and dual-enrolled high school students provides a basis for competency education through the 14 certificate programs as part of the seamless education. <bullet> Classroom instructors have high expectations for learning within their areas, and the students have high expectations for their ability to learn. Staff members view themselves as coaches more than teachers, where demonstrating and modeling are more important than simply telling. <bullet> An attitude permeates the center that students should be treated as adults, with high expectations for learning. It is also expected that students accept personal responsibility for their learning, attendance, and attitudes. <bullet> The staff created a curriculum that is both relevant to the students' lives after schooling, and rigorous so those students will be well served when entering the labor market. The staff seeks to maintain a cutting-edge technology represented in the businesses and industries within the region through the operation of working partnerships. The staff and administration of CEC identified challenges that remain: <bullet> Increase communication with parents. <bullet> Re-define better procedures to provide communication between base high schools and the center. <bullet> Increase efforts to track the success of graduates in their careers and in postsecondary institutions. <bullet> Address ways to continue to improve the state test scores of students enrolled in the center. <bullet> Organize a formal orientation program for new employees to ensure an understanding of the center's mission, goals, and expectations. <bullet> Integrate core academic areas into the technical program. <bullet> Graduate students with more than one certification. <bullet> Keep the state-of-the-art technology current. XIII. Principal's (CEO's) List of Five Greatest Strengths When asked to name the five greatest strengths of the Central Educational Center, CEO Moore provided the following list. 1. Relevant Performance-based Curriculum and Instruction. CEC can speak directly to the post-school success of each student. We excel in areas traditionally separated as ``academic'' and ``technical'' education. Research suggests that the employment community (to which most students will one day belong) demands a whole person capable of performing and managing. This relevant, contextual curriculum and instruction provides great ``value-added'' learning experiences that build towards higher levels of compensation and complexity. Our US economy is shedding unskilled jobs, and our workforce must be provided the opportunity to achieve higher standards in more complex, demanding jobs. CEC is a major cog in the educational machine that is responsive to this need. 2. Joint Venturing. In the business world, partners give up control in order to achieve higher levels of performance for the organization. In joint ventures, the organization's success is valued above the standard operating procedures of the individual partners. This is very difficult to achieve in education, in particular. At CEC, our joint venture partnership has broken that mold. We allow the practical transition of high school students into technical college (dual enrollment) with all its strengths. Though these first joint venturing steps have been sometimes tentative, the fact that we have opened the door to this higher level of partnership is a radical and necessary change. All the partners (the school system, technical college, business community) have given up certain controls in order to achieve at higher levels as a joint venture. In addition, the state's charter school law has been a critical piece of the infrastructure necessary to make this joint venture operational. While, in theory, the joint venture could be achieved without charter school status, the flexibilities inherent in the charter school concept pave the way for new ventures. 3. Work Ethic. In education today, we hear much about ``character education'' or ``values education.'' At CEC, we have placed these ideas in context, and because we have done so, our students see the relevance of good character and good values. We have taken the higher road at CEC with the emphasis on work ethic by tying their experience to relevant future experiences. 4. Data-driven Management. CEC was designed from data derived from community surveys. We measure its performance from various data collected. We drive its improvement by holding certain measurements as being ``more'' or ``less'' important. CEC is not about the ``opinion'' of certain content-driven curriculum groups. It is, rather, about the data that specifies how learning best occurs. Data continues to change what is taught. Holding true to this strength will promote continuous improvement in CEC's future. 5. Post-secondary Environment and Organization. To achieve each of the first four strengths, it is necessary to develop an environment that facilitates the development of such strengths. We at CEC believe that this cannot be done in the traditional high school. As Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education Susan Sclafani discussed in a recent visit to CEC, ``The American high school must be re-invented and re- organized.'' Leadership at CEC is organized around function rather than rank. Directors have replaced teachers. Team members have replaced students. Choice, rather than compulsion, is the method by which students connect to CEC. The organizational structure is flattened and eliminated, in order to achieve the original design. Our team members have consistently rated CEC's environment as attractive, and so have our directors. In fact, recent school system climate surveys reinforced this concept in relationship to other high schools. More importantly, CEC's organizational design and implementation provide students with a glimpse of the postsecondary world in which they will live. As a result, CEC is more relevant to business organizations of today than are traditional high schools. Appendix C Collaborative Study: Final Report Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education Prepared by: Carl Vinson Institute of Government University of Georgia Athens, Georgia January, 2002 Introduction In recent years the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia has conducted numerous survey research projects for the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education. Most of these survey projects have measured the level of satisfaction of graduates with their technical college education. One important population of technical college graduates not included in past studies is graduates who were dually enrolled in high school and a Technical Certificate of Credit program at a technical college. The pilot Collaborative Study used a mail survey to measure the satisfaction of these graduates. This report summarizes the overall findings of the pilot Collaborative Study. Response Rate Overall, 454 surveys were mailed, with 44 being returned as undeliverable. Of the 410 graduates who received surveys, 87 replied, for a response rate of 21 percent. (Note: all percentages are rounded to the whole number.) Graduates from five technical colleges participated in the pilot study [with the number of respondents in parentheses]: Coosa Valley Technical College (9), North Georgia Technical College (26), Sandersville Technical College (11), Valdosta Technical College (9), and West Central Technical College (32). Respondents are evenly split by gender (54% female and 46% male). Over three-fourths of respondents are white (77%) and 21 percent are African-American. Asian, Other, and Hispanic descent were chosen by only one respondent each. Survey Findings Survey findings are presented in the order that the questions appear on the survey. (See Appendix A for a copy of the survey instrument.) <bullet> Question 1. Which high school did you attend? Respondents represent a total of 29 high schools. Listed below are the nineteen high schools attended by two or more respondents [the number of respondents in parentheses]. Coosa Valley: Cedar Town (5); Model (3) North Georgia: Habersham Central (2); Lumpkin (2); Stephens (4); Towns (5); Union (5); White (2) Sandersville: Brentwood (2); Hancock Central (5); Washington (3) Valdosta: Cook (2); Lowndes (2); Valdosta (4) West Central: Douglas (4); East Coweta (3); Lithia Springs (2); Newman (15); Northgate (7) <bullet> Question 2. Which track were you on in high school? Fifty-nine percent of respondents were on a college-preparatory track in high school, while 67 percent were on a vocational track. Twenty-three respondents (26%) indicated that they were on both tracks. <bullet> Question 3. When did you graduate from high school? Since one of the main goals of collaborative programs is to help reduce the high school dropout rate in Georgia, it is significant that 98 percent of respondents graduated from high school. (Note: The other two respondents are still in high school; no respondents indicated that they ``do not expect to graduate.'') Respondents finished high school in the following years: 1998 (7%), 1999 (15%), 2000 (18%), 2001 (39%), and 2002 (21%). <bullet> Question 4. How did you find out about the technical college programs available through your high school? Respondents initially learned about the technical college programs available through their high school from the following sources: a high school counselor (61%), a representative from a technical college (44%), a teacher (44%), and a friend/peer (28%). Examples of other sources of information about collaborative programs are school field trips to technical colleges and announcements made by the high school principal. <bullet> Question 5. What year in high school were you in when you started the technical college program? Sixty-five percent of respondents started their technical college program during their senior year of high school and 35 percent started in their junior year. Two additional respondents wrote on their surveys that they began the technical college program in their freshman year. <bullet> Question 6. When did you finish your technical college program? Eighty-five percent of respondents completed their technical college programs. These respondents graduated in the following years: 1998 (4%), 1999 (9%), 2000 (14%), 2001 (59%), and 2002 (13%). Of those that graduated from both their high school and their technical college programs, 57 percent graduated from the two schools in the same year and 84 percent graduated from both within one year of each other. <bullet> Question 6a. If you did not graduate from your technical program, how many courses did you complete? No data can be reported for this question due to the low number of respondents who did not graduate, and because few respondents correctly answered the question. For example, some provided the number of semesters completed while others left the space blank. Consequently, this question should be reformatted or deleted altogether in future studies. <bullet> Question 7. Since completing high school, have you... Since completing high school, all of the respondents have found a job, continued their education, or both. Most respondents either have entered the workforce (78%) or are continuing their education (66%). More specifically, 30 percent entered another technical college program, 37 percent enrolled at another college or university, and 3 percent have either not found work or have become unemployed (but are continuing their education). Respondents could choose more than one option, so the following are the most common combinations of post-high school activity: <bullet> 30 percent entered the workforce <bullet> 21 percent entered the workforce and entered another technical college program <bullet> 22 percent entered the workforce and enrolled at another college or university <bullet> 13 percent enrolled at another college or university <bullet> 5 percent entered another technical college program <bullet> Question 8. What is your job? <bullet> Question 9. Your current position is... (Related/Not Related to your previous technical training) Almost fifty percent of respondents who entered the workforce are in a position that is related to their previous technical training. Examples of jobs that are related to the student's program are web designer, flexograph press operator, cosmetologist, customer service representative, fork lift operator, veterinarian's assistant, intern architect, carpenter, welder, and physical therapy technician. <bullet> Question 10. Are you currently employed... Seventy-five percent of those who entered the workforce are currently employed full-time (40 hours per week), while 25 percent work part-time. <bullet> Question 11. What technical college do you currently attend? Seventy percent of those who entered another technical college program did so at the same technical college where they participated in the collaborative program. <bullet> Question 12. What is the name of your program? Question 13. Your current program is... (Related/Not Related to your previous technical training) Seventy-four percent of respondents who entered another technical college program are in a program that is related to their previous technical training. Examples of related programs are Welding and Joining Technology, Accounting, Business Office Technology, CIS- Networking, Industrial Electrical Technology, CISCO Networking, and Medical Assistant. <bullet> Question 14. Which college or university do you currently attend? Respondents are currently attending sixteen different colleges and universities, fourteen of which are in Georgia. The most common responses were for Georgia Southern (2), Georgia State (5), Catawba College (2), and West Georgia (6). <bullet> Question 15. What is your major/program of study? <bullet> Question 16. Your major/program of study... (Related/Not Related to your previous technical training) Fifty-nine percent of respondents who enrolled at another college or university are in a major/program of study that is related to their previous technical training. Examples of related majors are Pre- Veterinarian/Medical, Telecommunications, Computer Sciences, Nursing, Pre-Engineering, Pre-Medical, Architecture, and Pre-Physician's Assistant. <bullet> Question 17. Would you recommend attending a technical college? Consistent with previous studies, an overwhelming majority of respondents (98%) would recommend attending a technical college. <bullet> Question 18. How satisfied are you with your technical college experience? Similarly, 90 percent of respondents are either satisfied (39%) or very satisfied (51%) with their technical college experience. <bullet> Comments. Space was provided at the end of the survey for the respondents to explain or expound upon their answers. Selected representative comments are: <bullet> The technical skills I received during school are very useful in the workforce. <bullet> The technical college experience...allows the student and teacher to have one-on-one contact. <bullet> Attending a technical college gave me the hands-on experience that most jobs are looking for. It was also a great challenge. <bullet> This program gave me the basic skills of the career of my choice. It helped me to grasp new and better ways of self-discipline. <bullet> I think that technical colleges are the best way to get the skills, experience, and confidence to enter the workplace and succeed. <bullet> I think that the benefits of taking technical college courses while in high school are gaining experience, being able to stand out among the crowd, and becoming more versatile in the job market right out of high school.'' Findings by College Overall, it is clear that the collaborative programs provide a tangible incentive for high school students to stay in school and earn their diploma. The relatively low number of responses from each college, however, precludes valid analysis of the data on a school-by- school basis. One interesting observation, however, is that the only two respondents who have not yet graduated from high school are both from the same technical college, and are both still in high school. This suggests that the high school completion rate for dual enrollees may actually be 100 percent. Conclusion Five important conclusions can be drawn from the collaborative program pilot survey. <bullet> First, consistent with the satisfaction rate of graduates found in previous studies, graduates of the collaborative programs are overwhelmingly satisfied with their technical college experience. <bullet> Second, in light of current concerns regarding Georgia's high school students, the findings indicate that these programs provide an additional incentive for high school students to stay in school and earn a diploma. Indeed, the statewide completion rate for the high school class of 2001 was only 71 percent, compared to 98 percent of those in a technical certificate of credit collaborative program. <bullet> Third, the placement rate for graduates is 100%, as all of the respondents have either found work or are continuing their education. <bullet> Fourth, graduates of these programs that stay in the DTAE system after graduation tend to re-enroll in programs that build on their previous training. <bullet> Last, these overwhelmingly positive results seem to justify a statewide analysis of graduates of collaborative programs in order to document thoroughly this unique approach to improving the quality and diversity of educational opportunities in Georgia. ______ [Additional attachments to Mr. Moore's statement have been retained in the Committee's official files.] <all>