Resources across the following topics can help guide you through understanding and planning for Perkins V:
Perkins V Overview
- Summary and Analysis of Perkins V (PDF)
An overview of Perkins V, including state and local implications from Advance CTE and ACTE. - The State of Career Technical Education: An Analysis of States' Perkins V Priorities (PDF)
This cross-state analysis examines how states have leveraged the development of Perkins V state plans to advance the dual priorities of expanding quality and increasing equity within their CTE systems. - Perkins 101 Webinar (Webinar)
An hour-long overview of the provision of Perkins V presented by ACTE Senior Director of Public Policy Alisha Hyslop. - Putting Your CTE Vision into Action Through Perkins V Planning (PDF)
This tool aims to help state leaders think through where their system is working and where it needs to be pushed — and how Perkins V can help drive the changes necessary to achieve a statewide strategic vision for CTE. - Perkins V Leadership Levers (PDF)
This one-pager highlights the leadership levers that states may choose to exercise to advance the state's vision for CTE in Perkins V. - Perkins V Funding Levers (PDF)
This tool from Advance CTE highlights funding levers and questions to consider in Perkins V.
Access and Equity
- Perkins V Expands Commitment to Equity (PDF)
This resource discusses the mechanisms in Perkins V dedicated to closing equity gaps and addressing the individualized needs of each learner under Perkins V, as well as examples of how states are successfully approaching this work. - Making Good on the Promise (PDF)
This series confronts the negative aspects of CTE’s legacy and defines the key challenges learners face today. The series examines how states can leverage data to identify and address equity gaps, rebuild trust with historically underserved communities, expand access to high-quality CTE for each and every learner, and build systems to ensure learner success. - Achieving Inclusive CTE Goal-Setting Tool (PDF)
This goal-setting tool adds a new resource in the data toolbox for state and local CTE and career pathways leaders to assess learner group data in comparison to the broader student population. With this goal-setting tool, leaders can more intentionally plan to recruit, engage and support underrepresented learner groups to increase access to high-quality CTE programs and career pathways. - Advancing Employment for Secondary Learners with Disabilities through CTE Policy and Practice (PDF)
This report provides a policy landscape of state-level efforts to support secondary learners with disabilities in CTE programs based on a national survey of State Directors. - Overview of Equity in Perkins V Webinar (Webinar)
A one-hour webinar that provides an overview of the equity provisions in Perkins V. - Equity in CTE & STEM Root Causes and Strategies (PDF)
This resource provides an intersectional lens to examine specific and overlapping root causes to assist with program and institutional improvement initiatives, stimulate dialogue within and among institutions and systems, and identify general recommendations for interventions. - PIPEline to Career Success for Students with Disabilities: Root Causes & Strategies (PDF)
PIPEline to Career Success provides school leaders with a tool to assist in recruiting and retaining more students with disabilities into transition pathways within CTE/STEM careers.
Career Development and Middle Grade
- Broadening the Path: Design Principles for Middle Grades CTE (PDF)
This resource aims to support state and local leaders as they work to develop or strengthen middle grades CTE policies, programs and practices. The paper links to a related repository of state-level resources about middle grades CTE and career exploration. - Perkins V Opens Access to Middle Grades (PDF)
This resource discusses the new mechanisms in Perkins V to broaden and diversify the pipeline of prospective learners that enter secondary CTE programs by expanding CTE in the middle grades. - The State of Career Technical Education: Career Advising and Development (PDF)
This report summarizes a national survey of State CTE Directors, State School Counseling Directors and school counselors to describe effective and promising strategies for career advising and development. - Implementing Individual Career and Academic Plans at Scale (PDF)
This brief highlights promising practices for ICAP implementation at the state and local levels and provides recommendations for further state and local work to scale ICAPs.
Credential Attainment
- Credential Currency: How States Can Identify and Promote Credentials of Value (PDF)
This report provides a roadmap for how states can identify which credentials have labor market value and approaches to improve credential attainment and reporting. - Expanding Opportunities: Defining Quality Non-Degree Credentials for States (PDF)
This framework proposes a consensus definition of quality non-degree credentials and criteria developed in consultation with 12 leading states and national organizations that states can adopt for their own quality assurance systems. - Stackable Credentials Tool Kit (PDF)
This toolkit examines topics of importance to colleges considering a stackable credential approach.
Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment
- Lessons in Collaboration and Innovation: The Impact and Promise of the Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (PDF)
This resource provides a set of recommendations for state leaders to consider as they support the CLNA going forward to ensure they continue to build on early CLNA success and drive quality and equity within their CTE systems and programs of study. - A Guide for State Leaders: Maximizing Perkins V’s Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment & Local Application to Drive Quality and Equity in CTE (PDF)
This guide provides a summary, analysis and guidance for each major component of the comprehensive local needs assessment and the decisions states can make now to support a robust CLNA process that aligns with the state’s overall vision for CTE. - A Guide for Local Leaders: Maximizing Perkins V's Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment & Local Application to Drive Equality in CTE (PDF)
This guide provides an overview and guidance for the comprehensive local needs assessment so that local leaders can utilize it as a tool for program improvement. - State Needs Assessment Crosswalk (Excel and Google Spreadsheet)
This crosswalk tool, developed with input from the Shared Solutions Workgroup on the CLNA, is designed to support state-level discussions about and the coordination of state- and federally-required needs assessments, such as the required under Perkins V, the Every Student Succeeds Act and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. - Driving Quality & Equity in CTE: A State Guide to Developing the Perkins V Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment Template (PDF)
This tool, developed with input from the Shared Solutions Workgroup on the CLNA, helps states identify the major decision points that will impact the design, development and implementation of their CLNA and related local application. It also includes a bank of questions to draw from to help states create a template that elevates and addresses state and local priorities. - Investing in Quality: Funding the Perkins V Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (PDF)
This guide, developed with input from the Shared Solutions Workgroup on the CLNA, identifies potential funding streams to support the CLNA. - ACTE’s Quality CTE Program of Study Framework Self-evaluation: A Tool for the Perkins V Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (PDF)
This brief describes how the ACTE Quality CTE Program of Study Framework™ and its companion self-evaluation instrument can help local CTE leaders evaluate their programs and complete key portions of the CLNA.
Cross-sector Strategies and Governance
- Coordinating Across Perkins V and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (PDF)
This guide looks at six opportunities to promote coordination across Perkins V and WIOA as states develop and implement plans under Perkins V. - Perkins V Promotes Cross-System Collaboration (PDF)
This resource discusses the mechanisms in Perkins V for cross-system collaboration, an overview of how this appears in Perkins V state plans and an example of how a state is ensuring that engagement is ongoing and will successfully achieve a shared vision for education and workforce.
- Strengthening Career Pathways Through the Power of State and Local Partnerships (PDF)
This resource is the third in a series of policy briefs centered on strengthening career pathways. It offers promising practices for leveraging the strengths of state and local leaders to cultivate sustainable, scalable partnerships and advance high-quality career pathways.
CTE Educator Pipeline
- Perkins V Supports Teacher Recruitment and Retention (PDF)
This resource discusses the mechanisms in Perkins V that support teacher recruitment and retention, an overview of how this appears in Perkins V state plans and examples of how states are tackling the challenge of recruiting and retaining qualified and diverse CTE instructors. - CTE on the Frontier: Strengthening the Rural CTE Teacher Pipeline (PDF)
This brief is the fourth installment in the CTE on the Frontier series, which examines challenges and strategies for expanding access to high-quality career pathways in rural areas. The brief explores one of the most pressing challenges rural schools and institutions face: strengthening the pipeline of qualified CTE teachers and faculty. - The State of CTE: Increasing Access to Industry Experts in High Schools (PDF)
Industry experts are in short supply in secondary classrooms. This publication recommends ways to increase access to industry experts, including alternative certification and allowing experts to teach part-time or co-teach with a fully certified teacher of record. - Strengthening the Pipeline for Career and Technical Education Teachers and Other Educators (PDF)
The document outlines how Perkins funds can be used to support CTE teacher recruitment, preparation, development or retention and how educator preparation programs can be integrated into CTE. - Prioritizing Strategies to Racially Diversify the K–12 Teacher Workforce (PDF)
This report presents selected findings from the 2022 State of the American Teacher survey related to increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of the teacher workforce. - Diversifying the Teaching Profession: How to Recruit and Retain Teachers of Color (PDF)
This report draws on recent nationally representative data as well as a body of research on recruiting and retaining teachers of color to summarize the primary barriers to recruitment and retention of teachers of color all along the teacher pipeline.
Data and Accountability
- Measuring Secondary CTE Program Quality (PDF)
This series draws on data from a 2018 national survey of State Directors to help states adopt robust methods for measuring secondary CTE program quality. The series explores the pros and cons of each of the three options and examines different ways states are measuring and validating them. - Career Readiness Metrics Framework: A Continuum of Actionable Measures of Career Development and Readiness (PDF)
This framework presents a comprehensive list of metrics that span middle school through adulthood and provides a standard for practitioners, policymakers and researchers to evaluate whether learners are on track for and progressing through their career pathways. - Career Readiness Data Quality and Use Policy Benchmark Tool (PDF)
This Policy Benchmark Tool is a comprehensive resource designed to assist state leaders in strengthening the quality and use of career readiness data. It provides a roadmap and tools for understanding the six elements of a high-quality career readiness data ecosystem. - Ensuring Career Pathway Quality: A Guide to Pathway Intervention (PDF)
This report from Advance CTE outlines the steps that state leaders can take when making decisions to transform or phase out pathways that do not have market relevance. - Championing High-Quality Data (PDF)
This brief addresses the importance of a unifying vision for education and workforce that draws upon and regularly uses postsecondary CTE data to measure progress and guide state policy and practice. - Strengthening States’ Implementation of Program Quality Indicators for Career and Technical Education: Collecting and Analyzing Data for the Secondary Program Quality Indicators in the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (PDF)
This report describes the outcomes of the Department’s Quality Indicator Project, an initiative to assist states in refining the validity, reliability and accuracy of their new quality indicators under Perkins V, featuring suggestions, examples and guiding questions to help state leaders develop and refine these measures. - Perkins Accountability Comparison (PDF)
This document compares the secondary and postsecondary indicators of performance in Perkins IV and Perkins V, as well as points out alignment with performance measures from ESSA and WIOA. - Beyond the Numbers: Design Principles for CTE Data Reporting and A Toolkit for Communicating CTE Data (PDF)
This report, developed with input from a shared solutions workgroup of national and state experts, provides nine principles for developing effective and accessible CTE data reporting tools. A companion toolkit contains guidance, best practices and tools that CTE leaders can use to create communications to help stakeholders better understand and act on CTE data. - Putting Labor Market Information in the Right Hands: A Guide (PDF)
This guide is designed to help states think through the process of disseminating labor market information. The guide highlights how Nevada, Kentucky and Washington disseminated data to various audiences and provides questions for states to consider for each. - Aligning to Opportunity: State Approaches to Setting High Skill, High Wage and In Demand (PDF)
This report describes approaches that states are taking to partner across agencies to access and review labor market information; develop definitions for high skill, high wage and in demand; provide local flexibility; and disseminate the information widely to key audiences.
Early Postsecondary and Credit Transfer
- The State of CTE: Early Postsecondary Opportunities (PDF)
This 50-state report reveals key findings on how EPSOs serve CTE learners and provides recommendations for state leaders to leverage state infrastructure and collaboration to advance equity in these experiences. - Intentional Acts of Dual Enrollment: Strategies for Scaling Early Postsecondary Opportunities in Pathways (PDF)
This brief explores common attributes of high-quality early postsecondary opportunities in Texas and Utah. - The Dual Enrollment Playbook: A Guide to Equitable Acceleration for Students (PDF)
This playbook features nine dual enrollment programs that have decreased or closed equity gaps in dual enrollment for students of color and provides key principles, strategies, practices and assessment tools that community colleges and K-12 leaders can use to increase equity in dual enrollment programs. - Embedding Credit For Prior Learning in Career Pathways (PDF)
This tool, developed by workgroup members representing various state agencies, advances that any policy — be it regulatory, legislative or programmatic — related to the effective development and implementation of credit for prior learning should include and/or address five core elements. - Embedding Credit For Prior Learning in Career Pathways (PDF)
This tool identifies five core elements of effective credit for prior learning (CPL) policy and guides state, system and institutional leaders through a self-assessment of their current CPL policy and practice to accelerate learners’ completion of career pathways that lead to high-quality credentials. - All Learning Counts: State Policy Toolkit (PDF)
This resource shows a sample timeline for Perkins V state plan development and was designed to be modified to help states create their own timeline. - Perkins V: Secondary "CTE Concentrator" Definition Background (PDF)
This policy toolkit seeks to support states in ensuring all college-level learning is applied to college credentials. It includes state policy priorities, state policy exemplars, and more.
Program Approval and Review
- Policy Benchmark Tool: CTE Program of Study Approval (PDF)
This tool lays out the non-negotiable elements of an effective policy for approving and evaluating CTE programs of study and offers an assessment rubric that state leaders can use to identify gaps in their current state policy and prioritize areas for improvement. - Driving Quality in Postsecondary CTE: Approval and Evaluation Policies (PDF)
This report explores how states can leverage program approval and program evaluation policies and processes to ensure postsecondary CTE program quality with state examples from California, Florida and Wisconsin. - Ensuring Career Pathway Quality: A Guide to Pathway Intervention (PDF)
This report outlines the steps that state leaders can take when making decisions to transform or phase out pathways that do not have market relevance.
Stakeholder Engagement and Communication
- Opportunities to Advance Statewide Industry Collaboration and Engagement in Career Technical Education (PDF)
This report explores state strategies to systematically engage business and industry leaders in support of CTE through Perkins V. - With Learners, Not for Learners: A Toolkit for Elevating Learner Voice in CTE (PDF)
This toolkit, developed with input from a shared solutions workgroup of national and state experts, provides state and local CTE leaders with actionable resources, guidance and tools to ensure CTE learner voices are elevated and heard for the improvement of CTE policies and practices. - Engaging Representatives of Learners with Special Population Status through Perkins V (PDF)
This resource is designed to help states establish processes and routines for systematically engaging representatives of learners with special population status at the state level. - Engaging Families and Communities to Support Special and Underserved Populations in CTE (PDF)
This report describes strategies for communicating with, collaborating with and supporting CTE learners’ families and communities, particularly for learners and communities who have been historically underserved. - Planning for Engagement: Identifying Key Stakeholders for Perkins V (PDF)
This tool outlines the types of engagement required in Perkins V and was designed to help states begin the brainstorming process for their engagement efforts related to Perkins V. - Stakeholders and Perkins V: Meaningful Engagement for Student Success (PDF)
This guide contains detailed guidance on stakeholder engagement strategies, state examples, stakeholder-specific tactics, planning templates and tools and more.
Work-based Learning
- Connecting Every Learner: A Framework for States to Increase Access to and Success in Work-Based Learning (PDF)
This report provides a five-step framework to address equity gaps in work-based learning by building a statewide infrastructure that enables cross-agency collaboration and prioritizes relationship building, data and accountability, quality, and extending social and cultural capital. - State Work-Based Learning Innovation Tracker Analysis (PDF)
The tracker captures components of 41 publicly accessible state WBL toolkits, and the State Work-Based Learning Toolkit Innovation Tracker Analysis highlights key elements of the tracker and promising practices in six states. - Building A Youth Apprenticeship Data Ecosystem: A Starter Kit (PDF)
This toolkit is meant for youth apprenticeship agencies and organizations at various levels of implementation, from early design to statewide expansion, and includes templates, guides and links to external resources that can be adapted and modified to suit different program needs. - State Strategies to Scale Work-Based Learning (PDF)
This resource from the NGA defines what a high-quality work-based program looks like, explains the elements of long-term systems change needed for a high-quality program, and identifies strategies that can support each element of change. - Work-based Learning Data Collection Toolkit (PDF)
Informed by lessons learned from a multi-year study, this toolkit walks district and school leaders through the process of identifying work-based learning data collection goals, implementing collection processes and using data to improve work-based learning programs.