U.S. Department of Education

Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development

Policy and Program Studies Service

Results in Brief:

National Assessment of Career and Technical Education: Final Report

September 2014

The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (Perkins IV) was intended to raise the academic and technical rigor of 

secondary and postsecondary CTE instruction in order to prepare students for entry into high-skill, high-wage, or high-demand 

occupations. Under Perkins IV, CTE generally means a sequence of courses that provides students with coherent and rigorous 

content aligned with challenging academic standards, as well as relevant technical knowledge and skills needed to prepare for 

further education and careers. Perkins IV introduced a requirement that all local subgrantees offer one or more programs of study 

(POS) — career pathways that help students make the transition from secondary to postsecondary education while pursuing an 

industry-recognized credential, postsecondary certificate, or degree. Perkins IV also introduced new accountability requirements, 

including adding new indicators and reporting requirements aligned with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as 

amended (ESEA) and extending accountability and performance reporting requirements to local subgrantees.

STUDY QUESTIONS

The congressionally-mandated National Assessment of 

Career and Technical Education (NACTE) was designed to 

address the following questions:

1. Has student participation in CTE programs changed?

2. How were Perkins IV funds allocated and used?

3. How were states and local subgrantees developing 

and implementing programs of study?

4. How were states implementing accountability 

provisions, and what measurement issues affect the 

validity and reliability of the accountability data that 

were reported?

5. Are educational and employment outcomes showing 

positive results for CTE participants?

STUDY DESIGN AND LIMITATIONS

This report summarizes data from a study of Perkins IV

implementation, commissioned studies of CTE student 

outcomes, and analyses of NCES datasets. The Perkins 

implementation study included surveys of all states and a 

representative sample of 2,041 LEAs and 1,006 IHEs in 

fall 2009; response rates ranged from 77–100 percent. 

It is important to note that much of the data in this 

report is for years when grantees were still in the early 

stages of implementing Perkins IV provisions, and CTE 

students had had limited exposure to changes enacted in 

Perkins IV. The NACTE was not able to examine the 

effects or effectiveness of Perkins IV and instead provides 

information on program implementation and on student 

participation and outcomes related to CTE in general. 

Highlights

• Secondary CTE coursetaking declined slightly from 1990 to 

2009, while academic coursetaking increased. Some 

occupational areas saw large increases in CTE coursetaking, most notably health sciences and public services.

• Subgrantees most commonly used Perkins funds for 

equipment, career guidance, and academic counseling.

• Both state and local CTE directors reported incomplete 

compliance, as of 2008–09, with requirements that POS 

link secondary and postsecondary education by aligning 

course sequences.

• States and local subgrantees are not required to report on 

POS participation and outcomes, and there are no 

national data on the number of students participating in 

POS or the outcomes they achieve.

• States showed substantial variation in their definitions of 

CTE concentrators and in the specific measures they used 

for performance indicators.

• Studies that used quasi-experimental methods to control 

for student background found little or no relationship 

between CTE coursetaking and academic achievement.

• Education and employment outcomes varied considerably 

by CTE field. For example, completion of a postsecondary 

degree or certificate in the same field was most common 

among high school graduates who concentrated in health 

sciences.

• Postsecondary students who earned a CTE certificate or 

associate’s degree had better employment outcomes than 

those who did not earn a subbaccalaureate credential, 

although students who earned a bachelor’s degree had 

even better employment outcomes.
CTE PROGRAMS AND PARTICIPATION

In 2009, 85 percent of public high school graduates 

completed one or more occupational CTE courses, 

76 percent had earned at least one full CTE credit, and 

19 percent were CTE concentrators who completed at 

least three credits in the same CTE field. 

Secondary CTE coursetaking declined from 1990 to 2009, 

while academic coursetaking increased. However, some 

occupational areas saw large increases in CTE 

coursetaking, most notably health sciences (+222 percent) 

and public services (+153 percent).

At the postsecondary level, the number of students 

earning certificates or associate’s degrees in CTE fields 

rose 71 percent from 2002 to 2012, compared with a 

54 percent increase in all undergraduate awards. Some 

CTE fields showed higher rates of growth (e.g., health 

sciences, +137 percent) while other fields showed declines 

(e.g., marketing, –44 percent).

FINANCE

Federal appropriations for Perkins IV have fallen since the 

2006 reauthorization. Adjusting for inflation, total Perkins 

funding declined by 24 percent from FY 2007 to FY 2014. 

Declines in allocations for individual states ranged from

6 to 30 percent.

In FY 2010, states allocated 64 percent of their Perkins 

Title I subgrant funds to secondary school programs and 

36 percent to postsecondary programs, on average, about 

the same proportions as in FY 2001.

High-poverty school districts received larger allocations per 

secondary student in 2009–10 than lower-poverty districts. 

However, they received smaller allocations per poor schoolage child than lower-poverty school districts.

The uses of Perkins funds most frequently reported by 

subgrantees were purchasing equipment and providing

career guidance and academic counseling to students.

PROGRAMS OF STUDY

Reports from both state and local CTE directors indicated 

incomplete compliance, as of 2008–09, with statutory 

requirements that POS provide a coordinated, 

non-duplicative progression of courses that link secondary 

and postsecondary education. For example, less than twothirds of local directors reported that at least one of their 

five highest-enrollment POS was non-duplicative across the 

two levels.

Nearly half of all states (23) reported in 2008–09 that CTE 

teachers or faculty did not have a good understanding of 

POS, suggesting that the POS concept was unclear to the 

instructors who were expected to deliver it.

States and local subgrantees are not required to report on 

POS participation and outcomes, and there are no national 

data on the number of students participating in POS or the 

outcomes they achieve.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Flexibility in the Perkins accountability system precludes 

the ability to use the performance indicator data for valid 

comparisons between states or for aggregating data across 

states to examine national progress over time.

States showed substantial variation in their definitions of 

CTE concentrators, and local subgrantees used a variety of 

methods to identify CTE concentrators.

ESEA assessments are often administered before students 

reach concentrator status, so the academic attainment 

indicator often provides information on the academic 

abilities of students who subsequently became CTE 

concentrators.

Some states reported reading and math proficiency rates 

for CTE concentrators under Perkins that were 

unexpectedly higher than the proficiency rates they 

reported for all students under ESEA and that appear to be 

inconsistent with research findings. Similar patterns were 

found for reporting on graduation rates.

STUDENT OUTCOMES

The percentage of high school graduates completing 4-year 

college preparatory coursework nearly doubled from 1990 

to 2009, with larger increases for CTE students than for 

non-CTE students. However, the differences between CTE 

and non-CTE students may reflect changes in who 

participated in CTE rather than the impact of CTE.

NACTE-commissioned studies that used quasi-experimental 

methods to control for student background found little or 

no relationship between CTE coursetaking and academic 

achievement; differences in achievement between CTE 

concentrators and non-concentrators were almost entirely

explained by differences in student characteristics.

College-going and completion rates varied considerably by 

CTE concentration field. For example, college-going rates 

for 2004 high school graduates, as of 2006, ranged from 84 

percent for CTE students who had concentrated in 

computer and information sciences to 52 percent for 

concentrators in repair and transportation.

Eight years after graduating from high school in 2004, CTE 

concentrators had average hourly wages that were not 

statistically different ― no better but no worse ― than 

those for graduates who were non-concentrators and had 

the same level of postsecondary attainment.

CTE students in certificate programs were more likely to 

attain a credential than were CTE students in associate’s 

degree programs. Within each of these two types of 

subbaccalaureate credentials, students in CTE and academic 

fields attained credentials at similar rates within six years.

Postsecondary students who earned a CTE certificate or 

associate’s degree were more likely to be employed and to 

consider their job to be the start of a career than were 

those who did not earn a credential. However, students 

who earned a bachelor’s degree had even better 

employment outcomes.