Iowa's Four-Year State Plan for the Strengthening Career And
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IOWA’S FOUR-YEAR STATE PLAN FOR The Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act Revised August 2021 Bureau of Career and Technical Education Iowa Department of Education 400 E 14th St Des Moines, Iowa 50319-0146 cte.educateiowa.gov Executive Summary Under the leadership of Governor Kim Reynolds, Iowa has made significant education, training, and workforce investments through the Future Ready Iowa initiative, with the goal of ensuring 70 percent of Iowa’s workforce has education and training beyond high school by 2025. Moreover, significant reforms to Iowa’s career and technical education (CTE) system have been implemented following passage of House File 2392. Passed and signed into law in 2016, HF 2392 incorporated most of the recommendations of the Secondary CTE Task Force and drove at the goal of ensuring all students have consistent and equitable access to high-quality CTE opportunities. Iowa’s four-year state plan under the Strengthening Career and Technical Education (CTE) for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) builds on these important state-level initiatives and reforms, building on the work to ensure consistent access to CTE opportunities and ensuring Iowa has a robust, skilled workforce. To that end, the Perkins V state plan is a vital component of broader strategy to strengthen Iowa’s education and workforce system, with a specific focus on: • Advancing the Future Ready Iowa goal to strengthen Iowa’s talent pipeline and ensure Iowans have the training and education required to succeed in college and careers. • Establishing a cohesive CTE system to ensure learners can flow seamlessly to the right program, at the right time, with the necessary skills needed on their path to a career. • Building stronger relationships with education partners, professional organizations, and business and industry professionals across the state. • Ensuring CTE programs and CTSO organizations reflect the diversity of our learners, business and industry, and the community. The major components of this plan are grouped under three overarching objectives: 1. Leverage and reinforce state CTE policies by developing intentional strategies that build on the initiatives and practices implemented through HF 2392 in order to strengthen the reforms, and avoid duplicative, siloed exercises. Examples of this include the middle school CTE and career exploration standards (page 37), braiding the state CTE program approval and Perkins comprehensive local needs assessment processes (page 58, 60), and streamlining business engagement (page 25, 35, 52). 2. Address gaps in the implementation of state CTE policies, specifically priorities not addressed through HF 2392 such as CTE teacher recruitment, preparation, and professional development (page 62) and a greater focus on expanding Career and Technical Student Organizations (page 97). 3. Promote greater equity in CTE programs through meaningful, and achievable, performance targets (page 69) and a greater focus on supporting recipients in collecting, analyzing, and acting on available data to strengthen CTE programs and provide students with greater access to CTE opportunities. 2 Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................................... 2 Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... 3 Overview of Career and Technical Education in Iowa ................................................................ 4 A. Plan Development and Consultation .....................................................................................13 B. Program Administration and Implementation ........................................................................21 1. State’s Vision for Education and Workforce Development .................................................21 2. Implementing Career and Technical Education Programs and Programs of Study ............31 3. Meeting the Needs of Special Populations.........................................................................61 4. Preparing Teachers and Faculty ........................................................................................64 C. Fiscal Responsibility .............................................................................................................67 D. Accountability for Results .....................................................................................................71 Appendix A - Statewide Career and Technical Education Advisory Council Membership ..........80 Appendix B - Definition of Size, Scope, and Quality ..................................................................85 Appendix C - Recommendations of the Middle Grades Career Exploration and Development Subgroup ..................................................................................................................................88 Appendix D - Use of Reserve Fund ...........................................................................................91 Appendix E - State Determined Levels of Performance, Secondary and Postsecondary ...........92 Appendix F - Response to Public Comments: Accountability and Performance Indicators ........94 Budget Form for Section IV .......................................................................................................97 3 Overview of Career and Technical Education in Iowa Iowa delivers career and technical education (CTE) programs through comprehensive high schools and community colleges; the delivery system is not divided into academic and technical silos, which has helped to ensure all students have access to a well-rounded, complete education. In fact, all school districts in Iowa are required to offer career and technical education programming consisting of 12 units of coursework within 4 of the 6 CTE service areas. Data indicates that, typically, school districts offer about 6 career and technical education programs and about 30 career and technical education courses. Industrial technology programs make up the bulk of programs statewide, followed by human services and business, finance, and marketing. Most of these courses are for high school credit only, but there is an upward trend in the number of college-credit courses in secondary CTE programs. In 2018, 32 percent of courses within a secondary CTE program were college-credit courses, compared to 21 percent in 2014. We also see that a vast majority of high school students participate in a career and technical education program. Statewide, 96,916 high school students enrolled in a career and technical education program last academic year – approximately 65 percent of all high school students. What’s notable is that this is not abnormal - at no point over the last 5 years have we seen the secondary career and technical education enrollment count dip below 95,000 students. In terms of the demographics, secondary career and technical education participants are less diverse in terms of gender and socioeconomic status, but more diverse in terms of race/ethnicity, when compared to the overall student population. On the postsecondary side, Iowa’s 15 community colleges provide access to a significant number of career and technical education programs aligned to state and regional labor market demands. Students that have enrolled in a career and technical education program of study constitute roughly 24% of total community college enrollment state-wide. Just over half of these students are female, approximately 22% identify as minority, and close to 40% identify as low- socioeconomic status, which is indicated as those eligible for the federal Pell grant program. In short, CTE has a sizeable footprint in terms of number of programs offered as well as in terms of the number of students participating in CTE programs. However, it was recognized beginning around 2014 that Iowa’s career and technical education delivery system, particularly the secondary delivery system, was long overdue for review. In fact, the last time a comprehensive review of the state’s career and technical education policies was conducted was way back in 1989. The more pressing issue to address was that Iowa’s secondary CTE system had not kept pace with other states’ systems. This arguably put Iowa in a disadvantage, both in terms of ensuring 4 a consistent educational experience for Iowa’s students and ensuring programming that is responsive to the education and workforce needs of the state. The legislature responded to this need through House File 604. Though an appropriations bill, it contained language calling for the Iowa Department of Education to convene a task force to “review current secondary career and technical education programming…” and make recommendations that ensure “rigorous standards, consistency in program quality statewide… responsiveness to labor market needs… and efficient statewide delivery of programming”. The task force was to ultimately recommend specific changes that ensure all students statewide have access to high-quality career, globally competitive career and technical education programs”. The Department convened a group of 25 education, business, and community stakeholders, who met over a two-year period and ultimately produced in report issued in October 2015 that recommended a set of five recommendations. ● The first recommendation focused on career guidance, calling for changes in policy and practice that put in place a holistic and meaningful