Will Secretary of Education Linda McMahon Pull the Plug on Career and Technical Education Research?

They don’t agree on much, but there’s at least one issue on which Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro can find common ground: both Sanders and Shapiro are champions of career and technical education (CTE) programs in high school. High school CTE has become a popular financial investment for policymakers of both parties, with over half of the states increasing funding for these programs over the last decade. Young people also invest a lot of time in high school in CTE. Nearly all of the students who graduated high school in 2019 (about 85 percent) had earned at least one credit in CTE, and 44 percent had concentrated their studies in CTE by earning two or more credits in a single career area. About 80 percent of “CTE concentrators” enroll in postsecondary education after high school; for the remaining one in five, high school CTE is their chief preparation for the workforce.

Until recently, there was more enthusiasm in policy for high school CTE than there was evidence of its effectiveness. However, thanks to the leadership of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in the U.S. Department of Education (ED), we now know that CTE benefits high school students (more on that later). Unfortunately, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon now seems poised to end this leadership, despite her praise for CTE during her Senate confirmation hearing and a “passion” for CTE described in her official biography on the ED website.

It was not until 2016, during the Obama administration, that IES first began to mention CTE in its solicitations for competitive research grants. While IES does not select projects for funding based on the topic, instead using panels of independent peer reviewers to assess the quality of proposals’ methodology and the significance of the research questions that they will address, it does signal the topics that are of greatest interest to it in its solicitations.

The result of highlighting CTE in these solicitations was immediate. IES soon began funding projects that proposed to use “gold standard” causal methods to assess the impact of participating in CTE in high school in different contexts, including CTE-focused high schools, CTE offered as electives in comprehensive high schools, CTE dual enrollment programs, CTE delivered virtually, and new models of CTE like Pathways in Technology Early College High Schools. To build on this work, in 2018, during President Trump’s first term, ED’s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) provided IES with funds to create a CTE Research Network to promote collaboration among IES-funded research teams and support activities to strengthen and expand CTE research (OCTAE used a portion of the funds available to it for national leadership activities under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins Act).) The Network developed tools that could be used by CTE researchers in tasks like cost-benefit analysis, trained new researchers to evaluate CTE programs using rigorous methods, and disseminated research findings to practitioners.

This leadership by IES has accelerated CTE’s evolution as an evidence-based field. Last year, the CTE Research Network published the results of a systematic review of rigorous, causal research on the impacts of participating in CTE in high school, using the same standards employed by IES’ What Works Clearinghouse. The majority of the studies included in the review, 21 of 28, were published in the last seven years. Among other impacts, the review found that participating in CTE in high school increases academic achievement and the likelihood of graduating high school and enhances employability skills and college readiness. Researchers found no negative effects of high school CTE participation.

Encouraged by the results of their collaboration, IES and OCTAE launched a second CTE Research Network last year as the grant for the first network was drawing to a close. To comprise the network, IES awarded new grants to research teams now studying CTE and other career development opportunities in six large school districts across the country. The network is responsible for publishing another systematic research review and synthesis later this year, this one examining the literature on work-based learning to identify what is known about the effectiveness of different work-based learning strategies (such as internships and apprenticeships) and where further research is needed. In addition to the grants supporting the network, IES has nine other open grants supporting CTE research on a variety of topics.

Secretary McMahon will soon determine the fate of these research projects. The preliminary signs are concerning. Earlier this year, IES cancelled two contracts that were supporting a Congressionally-mandated evaluation of the $1.4 billion Perkins Act. Over a million dollars had been invested in surveys to learn more about how the law is being administered at the state and local levels, as well as other studies to examine the extent and types of CTE course-taking in high school and the characteristics of high school students who concentrate their studies in CTE. Those data may now be lost, denying policymakers and taxpayers information that would help them assess the program and identify how to improve it. Mass layoffs at ED then removed nearly all of the career employees at IES, leaving it to one staff person to manage hundreds of grants across multiple topic areas. Elon Musk has acknowledged that the Department of Government Efficiency may make mistakes and agreed to correct errors when they’re identified. He and Secretary McMahon can start by reinstating the ED employees needed at IES and in other offices to run ED competently.

In the next few weeks, ED will decide whether to use funds for Perkins Act national leadership activities to continue the CTE Research Network into a second year. Later this summer, IES will decide whether to continue the CTE research grants awarded last year by awarding another year of funding. Under three presidents now—including President Trump in his first term—IES has provided strong leadership to improve our understanding of CTE and its impact. But it has only scratched the surface. We now know CTE benefits high school students, but we know little about which models, strategies, and components are most effective. With policymakers of both parties now investing more funding in high school CTE and 3.5 million “CTE concentrators” in our high schools, we should know much more. Secretary McMahon has an opportunity to make sure we do.