Evaluation of The Tech-Prep Education Program

The National Evaluation of the Tech-Prep Education Program was a five-year study conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. in response to the Department of Education's need for a broad analysis of Tech-Prep implementation progress throughout the United States under Title IIIE funding. Included within the evaluation is a detailed description of Tech-Prep programs funded under the Perkins Act--documenting the number of programs, their characteristics, the institutions involved, the populations they serve, and their planning and implementation activities, and an in-depth examination of the approaches to Tech-Prep.

The national-level analysis is based primarily on three surveys of all local Tech-Prep consortium coordinators, in fall 1993, 1994, and 1995; and a survey of state-level Tech-Prep coordinators, in fall 1993 and spring 1997. These surveys documented the methods and resources used to foster Tech-prep development, the program models implemented, aggregate levels of study participation and progress to postsecondary education, and challenges local consortia face as they create Tech-Prep programs.

In-depth studies of l0 local consortia, based on four visits to each site and a follow-up survey of a sample of Tech-Prep participants in selected member high schools added to and illuminated survey information. The evaluation produced a series of reports highlighted below:

• The Emergence of Tech-Prep at the State and Local Levels (1995) is the first report to come out of the Department of Education's Evaluation of the Tech-Prep Education Program. The report draws primarily on the first surveys of state and local coordinators, and relies to some extent for interpretation of survey data on insights from the first round of visits to in-depth study sites. It presents an in-depth discussion of nine aspects of Tech-Prep program development--the state role in promoting Tech-Prep; the local setting of Tech-Prep programs; the organization, leadership, and resources of local consortia; definitions of Tech-Prep at the local level; the extent of reported student participation in Tech-Prep; the school and workplace content of local programs; approaches to staff development; reported student outcomes; and local efforts to evaluate Tech-Prep. Analysis and Highlights

• The Diverse Forms of Tech-Prep: Implementation Approaches in Ten Local Consortia (1995) documents the approaches, progress, difficulties, and creative solutions and innovations of 10 local Tech-Prep consortia. This report is based on several types of data: on-site interviews with a wide range of key individuals--high school and college administrators and faculty, counselors, representatives of actively involved employers and labor or community groups, and the consortium coordinator. Evaluation staff also conducted focus groups with students participating in Tech-Prep, and observed classes (including those involving vocational or technical instruction and academic classes affected by Tech-Prep curriculum development). Analysis and Highlights

• The Continuing Development of Local Tech-Prep Initiatives (1996)describes the status of Tech-Prep implementation in 1994 and documents changes in implementation since 1993, based on the first two waves of longitudinal data collected from local Tech-Prep consortia. It builds upon an earlier, more comprehensive report on the status of Tech-Prep development in 1993. This report draws on two major data sources. Information on local Tech-Prep implementation came from survey questionnaires administered to consortium coordinators in fall 1993 and again in fall 1994--The Inventory of Local Tech-Prep Planning and Implementation. Some background information--specifically, data on secondary district enrollments--was obtained from data files compiled by the Department's National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). Analysis and Highlights

• Building School-to-Work Systems on a Tech-Prep Foundation (1996) assesses the implementation status of key school-to-work features in Tech-Prep communities in 1994, using data from annual surveys of Tech-Prep consortia. These data are particularly relevant for assessing early national school-to-work progress because they illustrate reform activity in a substantial number of communities around the country. High response rates to the Tech-Prep surveys in both 1993 and 1994, and the significant "coverage" of consortia, provide a credible, national picture of school-to-work implementation within the Tech-Prep framework. Analysis and Highlights

• Promising Practices in Tech-Prep: Local Solutions to Common Problems (1996) presents examples of approaches and solutions developed by local consortia in meeting the challenges presented by their individual community circumstances in developing Tech-Prep programming. The report highlights four solutions developed by some of the local consortia studied in the national evaluation in addressing challenges:
  1. How to make time in school-day schedules for hands-on, contextual learning;
  2. How, despite high student-to-counselor ratios, to make the most of existing resources and help students plan their educational path with future career goals in mind;
  3. How to sustain fruitful collaborations between high school and community college faculty, beyond the initial links formed to create curriculum articulation; and
  4. How to promote students' interest in technology. Chapter One of the Report

• Heading Students Towards Career Horizons (1997) is the third in a series of reports based on one major component of the evaluation--surveys of local Tech-Prep consortia. The report presents findings about the status of Tech-Prep at the time of the third survey and about changes observed since the earlier surveys in 1993 and 1994. Analysis and Highlights

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