Narrative: d. 1. B.

Secondary: The state distributed data pertaining to performance on elements required for negotiation during the transition year and has stated its intent to use that as a baseline for negotiations with local recipients for the 2007–2008 year. Individual districts may accept the state’s proposal or propose a different performance level with stated rationale for the request. Negotiations, where necessary, will be conducted on a case–by–case basis.

The Minnesota Department of Education maintains a liaison relationship with the Minnesota Association of Career and Technical Administrators (MACTA) and the Minnesota Association for Career and Technical Education (MnACTE). The elected boards of these two organizations are consulted in all phases of Perkins planning and implementation. Administrative representatives from small and large, rural and urban school districts will be consulted on Perkins indicators.

Postsecondary: The Office of the Chancellor will use the postsecondary entry–level cohort–based Perkins Brio data for negotiating individually with each college. Each Perkins eligible college will be provided access to baseline and trend data for the Perkins IV indicators through the Brio database and will be provided proposed targets for each indicator. The proposed targets will include the level below which the college would need to request technical assistance and develop an improvement plan and as well as a slightly higher a level at which only a written report addressing an improvement plan would be required. The proposed levels will be based on the institution’s trend data and trend data at the state level. Negotiations will be conducted when a college proposes a performance level other than that proposed by the Office of the Chancellor.

In negotiations with individual colleges and in the development of proposed state level targets for negotiation with the U.S. Department of Education, the Office of the Chancellor will continue to analyze state and local level data and continue to seek input from key research and policy staff within the colleges and within the Office of the Chancellor.

Measuring Secondary and Postsecondary Technical Skill Attainment

• It is the state’s expectation that consortia with state–approved programs of study in the five career pathways included in the project pilot discussed above will assess CTE students using the state approved assessments beginning in the 2010–2011 year. As assessments are approved for additional career pathways, those assessments will be included in accountability reporting beginning with each effective year.
• Consortia with state approved programs of study are to select at least one assessment from the state approved Technical Skill Assessment list within the career pathway for the appropriate approved program of study. Beginning in FY11, information about the assessments selected at a local high school or college was to be entered into the MN Program of Study website (www.mnpos.com) and student results are reported to the Minnesota Department of Education and the Office of the Chancellor using established data–collection systems and procedures. Each consortium is encouraged to determine the appropriate time within the student’s participation in the program of study to administer the assessment. This may vary from one local program to another depending on the selected assessment, course offerings, and class schedules.

Secondary:

• Beginning with the reporting for the 2010–2011 school year, each consortium must note whether the student was assessed and whether the student received a passing score on that assessment. The state will extract assessment data for CTE concentrators from the assessment data submitted on all CTE students.
• The state will determine the number of secondary CTE concentrators who were assessed and the number of secondary CTE concentrators who passed the assessments and will report those results as part of accountability reporting process.

Postsecondary:

• At the postsecondary level, the use of a three–year cohort model for reporting postsecondary indicators and variations in the timing of assessments (end of course/end of program) will necessitate a phase in of reporting based on the new approved state assessments and may necessitate the continued inclusion of some licensure exam pass rate information when reporting for FY 2012. As data on state approved technical skill assessments within specific programs of study become available for students in the reporting cohort, those data will replace the annual aggregate licensure pass rate data currently used as a proxy for this indicator.
• The Office of the Chancellor will coordinate the statewide collection of data from third party vendors and licensing boards whenever possible. The Office of the Chancellor will work with consortium staff to ensure that information on technical skill assessments taken by students, including the name of the assessment and the student’s score, are entered into the system’s integrated student record system (ISRS), the system’s data warehouse and the Hyperion/Brio reporting system used by consortia to review data on their students and programs.
• Data will be collected on all postsecondary students taking the state approved assessments. The state will determine the number of CTE concentrators who were assessed and the number of CTE concentrators who passed the assessments and report those results as part of the postsecondary accountability reporting process.

Minnesota feels that the above approach will take into account the eight characteristics that describe any technical skill attainment measure and answer the basic question underlying each:

• Skill: How is technical skill attainment defined?

1. Level of inclusion
2. Degree of specificity

• Cost: Who bears the burden of the cost?

1. Test Development
2. Update costs
3. Administration costs

• Rationale: Why the need for a differentiated system of accountability?

1. Measures the Value–Added of CTE
2. Direct Link to Employer Perceptions

• Alignment: Which takes precedence?

1. Industry Standards
2. College and Program Accreditation (Student Learning Outcomes)
3. State and Local Requirements (Student Success)

• Penetration: Who takes the assessment and in which program?

1. Program coverage
2. Student coverage

• Performance: How does one arrive at a single performance level?

1. Target
2. Baseline
3. Variability

• Estimation: Does the estimation procedure truly measure technical skill assessment?

1. Validity
2. Reliability

• Reporting: Which provides the most consistent results?

1. End of Course
2. End of Program
3. At Job Market Entry Point

A long–term goal for Minnesota will be to apply the above characteristics and answer the underlying questions. By so doing, Minnesota intends to build and sustain a technical skill attainment process that is based on solid rationale, using a cost–effective, widely–reported, well–aligned, broadly penetrable and perfectly–estimated system of assessment instruments, and leads to a true measurement of student technical skill performance levels.