Located in:
b. 2. F. The Criteria That You Will Use to Approve Eligible Recipients for Funds Under the Act, Including Criteria to Assess the Extent to Which the Local Plan Will—
i. Promote continuous improvement in academic achievement;
ii. Promote continuous improvement of technical skill attainment; and
iii. Identify and address current or emerging occupational opportunities
Current Narrative:
F. i,ii,iii
Minnesota has established a data systems that, at the state level, identify participants and concentrators in secondary career and technical education programs and which identify whether those students have met the academic performance requirements established by the state under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Summary data, disaggregated by sub–populations, is made available to Perkins recipients and will be used as the baseline for promoting academic achievement of career and technical education concentrators.
Special legislation points to the connections between business and agriculture education programs to deliver economics education and all career and technical education programs to deliver science, mathematics and arts education. The 2007 Minnesota Legislature added language to the section on graduation requirements and course credits (M.S. 120B.024) allowing CTE to fulfill science, mathematics and arts credits not otherwise specified in statute. Expansion of these linkages will be a priority. Likewise, Minnesota has heavily promoted the incorporation of academic concepts in CTE within the constraints of highly qualified teacher requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
The expectation under Perkins IV, that technical skill attainment must be measured with valid and reliable instruments aligned with industry standards and certifications (where available and appropriate) will pose a significant challenge for Minnesota. Like many states, Minnesota has measured technical skill attainment using either program completion or level of participation as prima facie evidence of a student gaining technical skills. To move beyond such measures, as the Law requires, state leaders throughout the country reached consensus on the use of assessments that were developed by third parties and which provide evidence of validity and reliability but administered locally.
To meet the expectations under Perkins IV, Minnesota established a process for identifying technical skill assessments in 2009 that will be used in each of the 79 career pathways identified in the MN Career pathway model. The process relies on teachers, faculty, administrators and counselors, and business and industry representatives to identify and validate the core competencies within a pathway for both secondary and postsecondary students, then review and identify available nationally–developed assessments aligned with industry–recognized standards (when possible) which become part of the state–approved list of technical skill assessments for use in MN career & technical education programs.
During FY10, Minnesota engaged in this process in five career pathways. The process will continue by identifying and validating competencies and identifying potential technical skill assessments that align with those competencies in eight additional career pathways during FY11, 25 career pathways in FY12, 21 career pathways in FY13, and the remaining 15 career pathways in FY14.
The purpose of this collaborative project is to develop an assessment system that will provide teachers, administrators and policymakers with accurate and useful information about student technical skill achievement. This assessment system will provide information that is useful for improving program quality, creating strong connections between high school and college programs, and communicating to employers and policymakers the value of career and technical skill programs of study in preparing students for college and work readiness. Baseline data will be collected for both secondary and postsecondary concentrators in the state approved programs of study in the five career pathways in the project pilot to be reported in the FY11 CAR report.
More information (including the MN Position Statement on Technical Skill Assessment Implementation) can be found at:
http://cte.mnscu.edu/programs/documents/MnSCU–MDE–FINAL–Position–on–TSAImplem–7–1–15.pdf
The MnSCU/MDE Career and Technical Education position on Technical Skill Assessments can be found in Appendix E–4.