Narrative: b. 2. A.

Program Approval for Secondary CTE Programs. To provide guidance to high school districts, the Minnesota Department of Education has developed curriculum frameworks in six CTE areas: agriculture, business/marketing, family and consumer sciences, health occupations, and trade and industrial/technology education. Each of these framework documents aligns Minnesota academic standards with national curriculum standards and nationally recognized occupational skill standards that incorporate academic concepts into career and technical education instruction. Additionally, the following are in place or planned:

• Curriculum Frameworks for CTE programs (six program frameworks completed and all districts standards completed and are on file in districts).
• Local District and Regional Training for Program Improvement and Approval.
• Provided workshops in the use of the self-assessment tool and the new Program Approval Rubrics to evaluate alignment of program delivery for Career and Technical Education.
• Into the third year of the regional five-year program approval process for CTE programs.
• Promoted use of the self-assessment tool and the new Program Approval Rubrics.

Program Approval for Postsecondary CTE Programs.

The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system has developed policy and procedure for approving all academic programs including CTE programs. Relevant policy http://www.minnstate.edu/board/policy/336.html and procedures http://www.minnstate.edu/board/procedure/336pl.html are summarized below. The purpose of the Academic Programs policy is to direct system decision-making regarding the development, approval and management of academic programs to meet Minnesota’s educational needs. This policy applies to credit-based academic programs of system colleges and universities.

Constructed as a cohesive arrangement of college-level credit courses and experiences, an academic program is designed to accomplish predetermined objectives leading to the awarding of a degree, diploma, or certificate. Most academic programs include a general education component. The purpose of an academic programs is to:

A. Increase students’ knowledge and understanding in a field of study or discipline,

B. Qualify students for employment in an occupation or range of occupations, and/or

C. Prepare student for advanced study.

Credit means a quantitative measure of instructional time assigned to a course or an equivalent learning experience such as class time per week over an academic term. General education means a cohesive curriculum defined by faculty through system college or university procedures to develop reasoning ability and breadth of knowledge through an integration of learning experiences in the liberal arts and sciences.

An academic program inventory is the official list of academic programs offered by system colleges and universities. The academic program inventory also includes all approved postsecondary CTE programs and only those are eligible for Perkins funding. CTE programs are programs:

• Offered at two-year colleges.
• That are assigned a six-digit Classification of Instruction Program (CIP) code and one of the 16 career clusters.
• That, upon completion, result in the receipt of a certificate, diploma, associate of applied science degree, or the associate of science degree.

An approved academic program shall include curricular requirements for earning an academic award, such as credits in general education, in a major and/or minor, and for all prerequisite courses. Approval of the system chancellor is required for new academic programs, changes to existing academic programs, suspension of academic programs, and closure of academic programs at system colleges and universities.

The chancellor shall maintain the academic program inventory. Only academic programs approved by the chancellor as recorded in the academic program inventory may be offered by system colleges and universities. Each system college and university shall regularly review its academic programs for the purpose of academic planning and improvement and shall submit an annual summary of its academic program review activity to the chancellor. The chancellor, as appropriate, may conduct statewide or regional reviews of academic programs or program clusters, report findings to the Board of Trustees and, when necessary, impose conditions on academic programs.

Career Pathways and Programs of Study. With standards on program approval and new program development in place at both the secondary and postsecondary levels, and capitalizing on much of the development work done in other states, Minnesota intends to implement programs of study (POS) and career pathways as a primary mechanism to identify, build and sustain its new consortium structure proposed under the State Plan. Minnesota has long used the 16 CTE career clusters as a data organizing framework. However, only under its new consortium structure has Minnesota began exploring the use of career pathways/POS as a structural framework for organizing the coordinated delivery of CTE in high schools and colleges. Details of the activities undertaken in Minnesota to support implementation of career pathways/POS can be found on the website www.cte.mnscu.edu/programs/index.html and include the following:

• Promoting early consideration of career clusters as a guidance tool (middle school), discussion has finalized a set of six Minnesota Career Fields that encompasses the 16 career clusters.
• Minnesota has begun to apply the 81 Career Pathways Model as developed by the National Association of State Directors of Career and Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc) to Minnesota’s CTE curricula at the secondary and postsecondary levels.
• Using the Minnesota Career Fields, Clusters, and Pathways framework developed nationally and by other states, but in particular Nebraska, the State has developed an organizing framework (graphically depicted in Appendix D) of the foundation knowledge and skills, career fields, clusters, and pathways that Minnesota will use for developing programs of study in career and technical education.
• Along with this organizing framework, guidelines and print and electronic communication pieces, the State has begun to lay a solid foundation for local consortia to implement at least one POS in FY09 (July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009), five more in FY10 and one more in FY11. A draft version of these guidelines is shown in Appendix E.
• The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Office of the Chancellor has reconfigured its inventory of programs and created a report that reorganizes them according to career fields, career clusters and career pathways. The report is titled Minnesota State Colleges & Universities Programs by Career Fields, Clusters, and Pathways.

The educational programming and support services needs of all students must be considered in implementing the organizing framework described above, including adult students, particularly those whose high school experience is in the distant past, and are entering directly into college, maybe for the first time. In general, the organizing framework must consider all transitions from secondary into postsecondary education, in and out of postsecondary education, and between education and employment.