Earning, 

Learning, 

and Choice Career and Technical Education 

Works for Students and Employers

Report of the 

NAVE Independent Advisory Panel

June 2004

❿☎❿☎❿☎❿☎❿☎

❿☎❿☎❿☎ National Assessment of

Vocational Education
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Earning, 

Learning, 

and Choice Career and Technical Education 

Works for Students and Employers

Report of the 

NAVE Independent Advisory Panel

June 2004

❿☎❿☎❿☎❿☎❿☎

❿☎❿☎❿ National Assessment of

Vocational Education
June 2004

To obtain copies of this report,

write to: Paul Cole, c/o New York State AFL-CIO, 100 S. Swan Street, Albany, NY 12210-1939;

or fax your request to: 518-436-8470;

or e-mail your request to: Paulfcole@aol.com 

or call 518-436-8516

This report is also available on the U.S. Department of Education’s National Assessment of

Vocational Education Web site at: http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/sectech/nave/index.html
❿ iii ❿

This report of the NAVE Independent

Advisory Panel fulfills an important

obligation under the 1998 Carl D.

Perkins Vocational and Technical

Education Act (Perkins III). Perkins III

directed the Secretary of Education to complete an “independent evaluation and

assessment of vocational and technical education programs under this Act”

(Section 114(c)(3)). The law also directed the Secretary to appoint an

Independent Advisory Panel to provide advice on conducting this National

Assessment of Vocational Education (NAVE). Such a panel was selected in mid1999 and included employers, secondary school and district administrators, representatives of postsecondary institutions, state directors of vocational education

at both the secondary and postsecondary levels, union representatives, education and workforce development policy experts, and researchers with experience

in relevant fields. 

The panel met on seven occasions to (1) identify the key policy and research

questions NAVE was to address, (2) review the analytic framework and study

designs, and (3) receive and help interpret results from NAVE analyses, including

those described in the NAVE final report already transmitted to Congress.

Perkins III required the panel to submit to Congress and the Secretary of

Education its own independent analysis of NAVE findings and recommendations. This report contains that independent analysis, and the judgments

expressed in it are solely those of the panel and do not represent the views of

the NAVE authors or the U.S. Department of Education.

Preface
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❿ v ❿

Karl A. Anderson

Workforce Development Team Leader

Saturn Corporation

June S. Atkinson

Director of Instructional Services

North Carolina Department of Public

Instruction

John H. Bishop

Professor of Human Resource Studies

Cornell University

Gene Bottoms

Senior Vice President

Southern Regional Education Board

Betsy Brand

Co-Director

American Youth Policy Forum

Paul F. Cole*

Secretary-Treasurer

New York State AFL-CIO

Jay Cummings

Dean of the College of Education

Texas Southern University

Philip R. Day, Jr.

Chancellor

City College of San Francisco

James H. Folkening

Director of the Office of Postsecondary

Services

Michigan Department of Career

Development

Stephen F. Hamilton

Professor of Human Development

Cornell University

James Jacobs

Director, Center for Workforce Development

and Policy

Macomb Community College

Independent Advisory Panel

*Panel Co-chairpersons.
Mark D. Milliron

President

League for Innovation in the Community

College

Naomi Nightingale*

Principal

Nightingale & Associates

Katharine M. Oliver

Assistant State Superintendent

Maryland State Department of Education

Robert A. Runkle

Administrative Director

Berks Career & Technology Center

Ellen O’Brien Saunders

Executive Director

Washington State Workforce Training and

Education Coordinating Board

Jack Jennings

Director

Center on Education Policy

Dale Kalkofen

Assistant Superintendent of Instruction

Chesterfield County Public Schools

Christopher T. King

Director of the Ray Marshall Center for

the Study of Human Resources

University of Texas at Austin

Joanna Kister

State Director of Career-Technical and

Adult Education (Retired)

Ohio Department of Education

Russ McCampbell*

Assistant Commissioner for Vocational

and Adult Education (Retired)

Missouri Department of Elementary and

Secondary Education

❿ vi ❿

Independent Advisory Panel—continued

*Panel Co-chairpersons.
❿ 1 ❿

Twenty years ago, A Nation

at Risk called upon schools

to turn back the rising tide

of educational mediocrity

threatening American competitiveness and living standards. Arguing that access to

well-paying jobs increasingly would depend on strong academic and technical skills, the report recommended that all teachers expect more of their students and that all high school

students take the New Basics curriculum of at least four credits in English, three

credits each in mathematics, science, and social studies, and a half credit in

computer science. Responding to the report, many states increased academic

course graduation requirements and introduced a minimum competency test

requirement for receiving the high school diploma. 

Career and technical education, which was also subject to criticism for not

providing sufficient academic fundamentals, had to respond as well. The Carl

D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Act of 1990 focused on integrating academic and vocational proficiencies, and the 1998 Perkins Act made rigorous

academic standards and accountability additional priorities for career and

technical education.

Career and technical education (CTE), a formal part of American education since

the first federal vocational education law was passed in 1917, has changed not

only in response to the education reform movement but also to changes in our

nation’s economy. CTE now is increasingly linked to high academic standards

as well as particularly responsive to our nation’s need for a labor force better

prepared with the diverse skills required for our knowledge-based economy. In

addition to significantly enhancing students’ earnings, CTE expands their

opportunities for learning, careers, and further education.

Earning, 

Learning, 

and Choice Career and Technical Education 

Works for Students and Employers
Earning, Learning, and Choice ❿ 2 ❿

These are the key messages we wish to convey as the congressionally mandated

Independent Advisory Panel to the National Assessment of Vocational Education

(NAVE). Our 22-member panel includes state and local career and technical education leaders at the secondary and postsecondary levels, business and labor leaders,

academics, and workforce development professionals. The panel was charged by

the 1998 Carl D. Perkins legislation with providing independent advice to the

secretary of education on implementing NAVE and reporting to the Congress

on “ . . . the issues addressed, the methodology of the studies involved, and the

findings and recommendations resulting” from it [Section 114 (c)(2)]. The panel

has met seven times since it was selected in 1999 and has drawn on the findings

of NAVE, as well as other research and its members’ own experience and expertise,

in articulating the ideas and recommendations presented in this paper. 

We are united around three large and important conclusions: First, CTE “works”

by increasing earnings for students. Second, the changes that have been initiated

under the Perkins Act are aligning CTE with the school reform movement and

raising academic standards for CTE students. And third, CTE provides students

with choices for how to learn and which careers and postsecondary education

options to pursue.

CTE Increases Earnings

High school career and technical education helps students develop technical

skills that are highly valued by employers. The most significant effect of secondary school CTE is the boost in earnings and wages that students get from even a

handful of courses. Analysis of nationally representative data for NAVE found

that taking four high school CTE courses increases a student’s average earnings

by $1,200 immediately after graduation and by $1,800 seven years later. Because

the instructional cost of a high school CTE program is less than $6,000, this

amounts to a rate of return of more than 20 percent per year.1 Rates of return on

1Rates of return describe the annual payoff, usually over a number of years, of an investment or

one-time cost. Because they compare benefits to costs, rates of return characterize the payoff of CTE

in a way that is independent of how many courses a student takes.
❿ 3 ❿ Earning, Learning, and Choice

the investment in CTE are equally high when students take only two or three

courses. Millions of high school students who take several career and technical

courses reap this short- and medium-term benefit. In addition, given the fact

that 37 percent of America’s three million annual high school graduates go

directly to work after receiving their diplomas, it

is critical that they be prepared for the labor

market. 

Since most students work to put themselves

through college, the skills learned in CTE courses

can help them pay for their higher education.

This is one reason why more than 50 percent of

those who complete a CTE concentration in

high school are able to attend college and persist

long enough to obtain at least a two-year degree

or certificate. In addition, because CTE is more likely to benefit those students

who are less well served by strictly academic classes, these students are more

likely to stay in school learning productive skills than to drop out and potentially

burden the welfare or criminal justice systems. 

Economic benefits also accrue to the millions of students who participate in

career and technical education at the postsecondary level. NAVE reports that for

each year of postsecondary vocational education, participants earn between 5

and 15 percent more than high school graduates with similar characteristics.

Earnings for women who receive an associate degree in a CTE field are on average 47 percent higher than those for females with only a high school diploma,

whereas CTE associate degrees for men raise average earnings by 30 percent over

similar high school graduates. These earnings gains for women help to close the

gender gap in earnings. They are particularly impressive given the fact that more

than one-fifth of these students are from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. 

opportunities In addition to significantly

enhancing students’ 

earnings, CTE expands

their opportunities for

learning, careers, and 

further education.
Earning, Learning, and Choice ❿ 4 ❿

Thus, at both the secondary and postsecondary levels, CTE plays an important

role in advancing economic opportunity and social equity. In contrast to the

mixed results of many other initiatives intended to improve earnings and wellbeing among disadvantaged populations in the United States—including shortterm adult training programs—CTE stands virtually alone in having an unambiguously positive economic effect. 

CTE Improves Learning

Learning among CTE students has undergone a major transformation during the

last two decades: Students have demonstrated significant increases in academic

course taking, test score results, and college matriculation. Prompted by congressional direction, the CTE system has responded.

Indeed, CTE students have been closing the gap with academic students. CTE

programs have led the way toward increasing the number and rigor of academic

courses required. As a result, the number of academic courses taken by occupational concentrators increased by nearly 30 percent from 1982 to 1998 without

a corresponding decline in the number of CTE courses taken. During the same

period, the number of CTE students completing the New Basics curriculum has

risen from 5 percent to 46 percent. Today, 26 percent of CTE concentrators

take trigonometry, pre-calculus, and other advanced math courses, compared

to 42 percent of other students. The proportion of U.S. students successfully

completing both college prep and vocational concentrations in high school

has risen from 1 percent in 1982 to 7 percent in 1998. 

The types of CTE courses that students are taking are also changing in response

to employers’ growing knowledge and skill demands. Since 1982, enrollments in

traditional fields such as auto mechanics have been declining, while health-care

courses have more than tripled their enrollment, and communications and

information technology have nearly quintupled their enrollment. Rather than a

low road to a high school diploma, CTE is now a rigorous and rewarding means
❿ 5 ❿ Earning, Learning, and Choice

of acquiring the academic and technical learning that meets the high standards

required for both productive employment and further education. 

This greater emphasis on academics has produced quantifiable results. The test

score gap between CTE concentrators and other students is closing. For example,

reading scores of CTE concentrators rose by nearly a

grade equivalent on the National Assessment of

Educational Progress (NAEP) scale2 between 1994

and 1998, according to NAVE.

CTE keeps students engaged in learning, as data

show that the option of taking CTE courses reduces

the probability of dropping out of high school.

Without this option, more young people would be

left behind.

Another sign of the increased academic proficiency of CTE students is the fact

that college attendance among CTE students increased by 32 percent between

1982 and 1992, keeping pace with increases in postsecondary attendance among

all students. Nearly half of vocational concentrators go on to college, compared

to 64 percent of college prep students. The articulation agreements linking high

schools and community colleges that were encouraged by tech prep and other

initiatives have made CTE a bridge between secondary and postsecondary education. In fact, high school CTE programs increasingly serve as a pipeline to community colleges. 

In short, CTE students have opted for more academic rigor in their studies and

have remained engaged in their learning.

2National Assessment of Educational Progress, the test that is popularly known as “the Nation’s

Report Card.”

results Students have demonstrated

significant increases in 

academic course taking, 

test score results, and 

college matriculation.
Earning, Learning, and Choice ❿ 6 ❿

CTE Provides Choices

Career and technical education empowers students by providing a range of

learning opportunities that serve different learning styles. CTE relies on a powerful mode of teaching and learning that cognitive scientists call “contextual” or

“situated” learning, both in classrooms and in workplaces. For many students,

applying academic and technical skills to real-world activities, using computers

and other tools, and being able to see how their learning is related to the world

of work make CTE classes more interesting and motivating, and more educationally powerful, than standard academic classes. A career focus often gives students a sense of direction and motivates them to achieve and to stay in school.

Practically inclined students can become hooked on academic learning through

CTE study. This is especially important for young people who learn best by

doing, a group that includes disproportionate numbers of disadvantaged and

special education students. Just having the option of being able to concentrate

in CTE in high school results in more young people staying in school because

more individually relevant choices are available to them.

Academically inclined students taking CTE courses also

benefit from getting different kinds of learning experiences that can complement their academic learning to

give them a richer, more rounded education and help

them identify and refine their education and career

goals. 

Most European countries offer a very broad range of

CTE programs that attract a majority of upper secondary

school students. Because of the greater number of CTE

options offered there, secondary school graduation rates

and proportions of 15- to 19-year-olds attending school or college are higher in

Europe than in the United States.

skills At both the secondary

and postsecondary levels,

CTE courses enable 

students to develop 

marketable skills that 

meet industry-recognized

skill standards. 
❿ 7 ❿ Earning, Learning, and Choice

CTE also allows students to explore career options and clarify career goals. CTE

promotes learning in workplaces through internships, job shadowing, cooperative education, and apprenticeships. More students now gain some work experience as part of their high school program—31.6 percent in 1998 compared to

28.3 percent in 1990, NAVE reports. High school seniors describe CTE classes and related work experience

as very helpful to them in clarifying their career

goals.

At both the secondary and postsecondary levels, CTE

courses enable students to develop marketable skills

that meet industry-recognized skill standards. As a

result, students can earn credentials or certificates

that are valuable for career placement and advancement. Youths and adults gain occupational skills

through secondary and postsecondary education more efficiently and without

the stigma often attached to remedial employment training programs. As a

result, high school CTE has a much higher rate of return than second-chance

programs such as Jobs Corps. 

In short, CTE prepares students for a variety of postsecondary options, including

higher education, skilled employment, and lifelong learning. For the 1.25 million high school graduates who go directly to work after graduating each year,

and for many of those who have not yet completed high school, CTE provides

skills that are critical in first jobs. And for the millions who do not attain a fouryear college degree, an associate degree provides a recognized credential for

countless career options.

options CTE prepares students 

for a variety of 

postsecondary options,

including higher education,

skilled employment, and 

lifelong learning.
Earning, Learning, and Choice ❿ 8 ❿

Recommendations

While today’s career and technical education is clearly providing meaningful benefits to millions of American students, it can be improved so that our education

system successfully prepares our young people for rewarding careers and helps our

nation’s workforce be the best trained and most productive in the world. 

Approved, high-quality programs of study should become a central feature of

future CTE legislation at the federal level. 

What would such programs look like? A CTE program of study is a multi-year

sequence of courses that integrates core academic knowledge with technical and

occupational knowledge leading to higher levels of skill attainment and whose

curriculum is organized around a unifying career theme. Such a program of

study provides students with a pathway to postsecondary education and a career

by detailing academic and occupational competencies needed for advancement

and by providing a series of related courses. Programs of study must provide

articulated pathways between the high school and postsecondary curricula and

help students move efficiently into college and careers.3

Programs of study can take several forms. They resemble or are found in career

clusters, career academies, tech prep programs, small learning communities, and

small schools. Secondary students in CTE programs of study take a core academic curriculum that is strong in literacy development, numeracy, and science,

together with a concentration of electives in a broad career area. 

In addition, career-themed programs of study must provide comprehensive

career exploration and counseling. Partnerships with employers and the community are needed to help provide information about careers and the workplace

to students and their parents, to expand the roles of mentors or advisers, and to

help relieve the burden on school counselors. 

3See Brand, Betsy, “Rigor and Relevance: A New Vision for Career and Technical Education”

(American Youth Policy Forum, 2003).
❿ 9 ❿ Earning, Learning, and Choice

The federal government is well positioned to support the development of programs of study by creating, evaluating, and disseminating effective practices. It

should continue to play a leadership role by funding strategically designed programs and sharing information on best practices, thus promoting the continuous improvement of CTE in our schools and colleges. The federal government

should invest in research to determine how young people best learn skills and

acquire knowledge. This will have significant payoff

for our nation in the years ahead. 

Continuous improvement and greater accountability

for outcomes, in line with the school reform movement and the No Child Left Behind Act, require rigorous research, with targeted evaluations, technical

skills assessments, and better tracking of employment and earnings outcomes.

Rigor cannot be assured when there is limited accountability for CTE program

outcomes. As NAVE indicates, there is considerable inconsistency of measurement across and within states, and measurements often are not tied to outcomes

of interest. Overarching assessments such as NAVE are important to get a

national picture, but CTE has suffered from a dearth of research that evaluates

local promising practices aimed at the broader goal of developing well-educated,

highly trained citizens and workers. 

We need to bring a meaningful and consistent standards and assessment strategy to career and technical education. Outcomes—such as college matriculation

and completion rates, skills attainment, attainment of industry-recognized credentials, employment, and earnings—need to be better measured, and schools

need to be held accountable for these outcomes. Student achievement would

benefit from investments in assessment systems that take into account more

than just academic skills, for example, skills that will be important for young

people’s future employability. In addition, given current problems in measuring

quality Approved, high-quality

programs of study should

become a central feature

of future CTE legislation at

the federal level. 
Earning, Learning, and Choice ❿ 10 ❿

and comparing outcomes across and within states, the federal government

should support states in developing meaningful data collection systems for

career and technical education that are coordinated with the accountability systems required by No Child Left Behind. One way to do this would be to develop

means by which income gains can be measured and

linked to specific degrees earned. 

Consistent with this, the federal government needs to

step up its support for programs and activities that

explicitly, and successfully, integrate academic and

career and technical education. Since there is basic

agreement that young people need both good academic

skills and higher-order career competencies, federal dollars should go to CTE programs that emphasize these

academic connections, evaluations that measure this

learning, and efforts to replicate programs that succeed.

While federal policy and funding for CTE clearly must be aligned with No Child

Left Behind and broader efforts to improve student achievement, these funds

should focus on the goals of continuing to prepare students for careers and lifelong learning, but with a greater academic focus. One of the goals should be to

prepare students to succeed in postsecondary education even if they do not

choose to enter postsecondary education right after high school or if they

choose to pursue education and work at the same time. 

To further enhance academic achievement among CTE students, in addition to

supporting changes in the CTE curriculum, the federal government needs to

support improved CTE teacher preparation and development. Despite some

promising changes, a profound pedagogical disconnect exists between most

academic and CTE teachers, with few interested or able to venture onto the

instructional turf of the other. Many CTE teachers lack the mathematics and

other academic knowledge to be able to integrate these subjects into their curricula, and they have few opportunities for professional development in which

to gain these skills, as NAVE reports.

support In addition to supporting

changes in the CTE 

curriculum, the federal

government needs to

support improved CTE

teacher preparation and

development. 
❿ 11 ❿ Earning, Learning, and Choice

Because teachers are such a vital part of the learning process, federal funding

and policy should foster the improvement of CTE teachers’ academic skills. CTE

teacher training in math, science, English, and other subjects, as well as the

integration of academic teachers into contextual CTE foundation skills programs,

would go a long way to enhance the academic rigor of career and technical education. Professional development should ensure depth of content knowledge;

provide a strong foundation in pedagogy; be rooted in best available practices;

contribute to measurable improvement in student achievement; provide sufficient time, support, and resources to enable teachers to master new content and

pedagogy, and integrate these into their practice; and provide opportunities for

CTE and academic teachers to plan jointly.

The federal role should be to support state and local CTE leaders as they develop,

institute, and promote the improvements called for in this paper and in the

NAVE report itself. Because previous NAVE reports and other research have

demonstrated the importance of effective state leadership in promoting curriculum integration, secondary-postsecondary articulation, and other Perkins reforms, states should have

considerable latitude in designing systems and initiatives that meet the legislation’s goals. Thus, the

federal government should reinforce and support

the states’ role in reforming CTE, as long as states

are held accountable for making these reforms.

The federal government can also help CTE programs

improve their connections to employers through

support of industry-endorsed skill standards and

assessments and by providing better, more updated labor market demand data. 

In addition, because students consistently report that college and career planning

activities in high school are helpful, the federal government should support efforts

to improve career guidance and counseling services.

improvement Because teachers are such

a vital part of the learning

process, federal funding

and policy should foster

the improvement of CTE

teachers’ academic skills.
Earning, Learning, and Choice ❿ 12 ❿

Clearly, if we want at least 14 years of education to be the norm in America, we

must do much more to make the transition from high school to college more

seamless to enable more of the two-thirds of young adults who do not receive a

bachelor’s degree to earn a postsecondary degree. Limited federal funds for postsecondary career and technical education need to be targeted to efforts that get

secondary and postsecondary CTE programs to work together so that career and

technical students can follow more clearly delineated pathways from high

school to community college. In well-coordinated programs, community colleges can enhance the quality of vocational learning at the secondary level. The

federal investment also should be used to improve career information and linkages to employers for secondary school students. In a new version of the federal

law, well-marked pathways through various educational levels and into the labor

market should be a main feature of all state plans.

Conclusion

By promoting a new, more rigorous vision for career and technical education,

the federal government can have a profound influence on how state and local

funds are spent and how millions of students are educated. 

The federal government is involved in career and technical education to

enhance the well-being of the American people. Our nation needs, and will continue to need, highly skilled workers with strong academic, occupational, and

technical skills. Although the federal government, through the Perkins Act, provides only a small fraction of the total resources devoted to CTE in the United

States, its investment is strategic and essential.

Federal support for CTE signals the priorities that national policy-makers want

for career and technical education. Legislation can specify that funded programs

should not only develop students’ occupational skills to meet challenging

standards but also contribute to students’ academic improvement. In addition,

federal legislation can direct secondary school CTE programs to encourage
❿ 13 ❿ Earning, Learning, and Choice

students to pursue postsecondary education or training and can focus on

increasing disadvantaged students’ access to high-quality CTE programs. 

The federal government is also able to distance itself from state and local policies that inhibit reform and to help promote equal access by providing funding

targeted to low-income communities. National leaders can play a vital role in

coordinating policies and funding among the many federal initiatives designed

to improve our people’s skills and well-being—ranging from the No Child Left

Behind Act and the Higher Education Act to the Workforce Investment Act and

Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. Federal

funding is also important for ensuring a focus on

results because accountability requirements mean

that federally funded CTE programs must demonstrate continuous improvement if they are to continue to receive federal support.

If we truly want to leave no child behind academically or economically, we need to combine our

humanistic values with an awareness of educational

and labor force realities and a recognition that one-size-does-not-fit-all. We need

young people who are able to gain the very best academic skills. While 65 to 70

percent of American youths do not go on to receive four-year degrees, and a

commensurate number of jobs do not require such degrees, we do not do as well

in ensuring that our millions of students are literate, numerate, civic-minded,

and prepared for careers after 12 or 14 years of education. Finally, the hundreds

of thousands of young people who do not graduate from high school or are at

risk of dropping out are at risk of being excluded from the American Dream

unless we concentrate our efforts to engage them in their education. As we

look ahead to new federal CTE legislation, it is this vision of a reformed career

and technical education that we hold up. It is one in which academic rigor and

real-world relevance, buttressed by strong accountability, combine to provide

expanded opportunity for millions of young Americans.

We need to combine our vision

humanistic values with an

awareness of educational

and labor force realities

and a recognition that 

one-size-does-not-fit-all.