This recent research on tech prep has uncovered some encouraging findings, as well as others that are unsettling. The tech prep concept is catching hold, since nearly two-thirds of the nation's high schools and most community colleges have some involvement with it. But exactly how tech prep initiatives affect teaching and learning at the classroom level is less clear. These findings suggest promising trends, but several challenges lie ahead. In many cases tech prep programs have made greater changes in high schools than in community colleges, though participants sometimes say that the first students to enter community colleges will force changes there too because they are accustomed to more integrated and active forms of instruction.
Many issues continue to cloud the image of tech prep.
Exactly how local consortia navigate these rough waters vary widely, producing uneven results. Connections to employers and work-based learning Partly because the economic benefits of community colleges improve when students find work related to their fields of study, establishing close connections between occupational programs and local employers is an important objective. Yet another promising linkage to employers is the expansion of workforce development activities, providing relatively specific forms of training for particular employers. Economic and community development represent complementary but more diffuse efforts intended to improve the well-being of the communities that colleges serve, usually carried out in innovative ways others than providing coursework. The solution, in the Center's research with seven leading colleges, is again to create connections between workforce development activities and regular credential programs, recognizing that each can strengthen the other and thereby create more powerful colleges.