State Profile For District of Columbia

Data sources used in this profile (MSWord,54Kb)

State Director

Mr. Christopher Lyons, Director, State Adminstration and Accountability
Office of Career & Technology Education, District of Columbia Public Schools
825 N. Capitol Street, NE, Suite 8112
Washington, DC 20002-4232

CTE Web Site(s) as Applicable

Secondary: http://www.k12.dc.us/dcps/programs/program16.htm

Mission

(Editor’s Note: The above URL is currently under construction).Career-technical education programs of study—coherent sequences of career-focused and competency-based technical courses, built upon a rigorous academic foundation, which span both secondary and postsecondary education, lead to certification and an associate degree, and prepare students for both further education and high skills, high wage careers—serve as a critical nexus of education and the economy in the 21st century; at one and the same time, CTE represents:

• the career-specific component of high performance public education;


• the school-based arm of high skills workforce development; and,


• the education engine of high wage economic development.

CTE Statistics

Number of Public High Schools:	30
Number of Public High Schools Offering Solely (or primarily) CTE courses:	0
Number of Students in Public High Schools:	13,363
Number of Secondary Students Enrolled in CTE:	2,617
Number of Public Community Colleges:	0
Number of Students at Public Community Colleges:	0
Number of Postsecondary Students Enrolled in CTE:	1,861
Perkins Funds Received:	$4,545,551

CTE Governance Structure

Perkins Eligible Agency:	District of Columbia Board of Education, DC Public Schools (DCPS)
Agency Administering Secondary CTE:	DCPS, Office of Career & Technical Education
Agency Administering Postsecondary CTE:	University of the District of Columbia
Programmatic Control For Secondary CTE:	DC Board of Education
Programmatic Control For Postsecondary CTE:	UDC Board of Regents

CTE Funding

State Secondary Funding:
State Postsecondary Funding:
Local Secondary Funding:	N/A
Local Postsecondary Funding:	N/A

State Director Roles and Responsibilities

The State Director has the title of Director, State Administration & Accountability for the Office of Career and Technical Education. The State Director is a career position who reports to the Assistant Superintendent for Academic Support, Division of Academic Services. The State Director’s primary areas of responsibility include state-level administration of career-technical education; State Administration under section 112(a)(3) of the Carl D. Perkins Act; and the State Performance Accountability System under Perkins section 113.

CTE Connections to Secondary Education and High School Reform

Career-technical education plays a significant role in high school redesign efforts. Under former Superintendent Paul L. Vance, the Office of CTE (within the Division of Academic Services) was assigned lead responsibility for high school reform and developed a plan for “wall-to-wall” restructuring of most DC high schools around Career Academies and CTE Program Majors. Under new Superintendent Clifford B. Janey, wall-to-wall restructuring has been dropped, but CTE remains directly involved in high school redesign. In addition, the renewal and rebuilding of a DC-wide, state-of-the-art CTE system continues to be a high priority goal of the Master Education Plan currently under development. OCTE’s high school redesign model—a universal core academic curriculum (“4×4”) paired with clearly articulated, career-focused gateways (College/Tech-Prep, Pro-Prep, Pre-Apprenticeship, Liberal Studies, and International Baccalaureate) to postsecondary education and high skills, high wage employment—is under review as a key framework for high school curriculum reform. Finally, the DC Council has identified CTE site upgrades as one of four priorities for the use of $150 million that has recently been appropriated for facility improvements.

Implementation of Career Clusters

The District of Columbia believes that Career Clusters provide the infrastructure for a seamless educational transition between all learner levels and an essential component of high school redesign. The state also views Career Clusters as: a tool for career guidance; a platform for organizing programs of study; and, in general, a vehicle for career-technical education renewal and rebuilding in the District of Columbia.

DC’s “Revised State Plan” for the 2005 program year incorporated 12 career clusters, termed “Academies,” as the organizing framework for 40 existing and planned CTE Program Majors. Adapted from the original 16 cluster taxonomy, DC’s clusters subsume the entire labor market in the District, and the 12 cluster design has been carried over into all strategic planning documents for DC CTE. In compliance with OVAE’s revised instructions for the annual “CAR” performance report, DC is now disaggregating CTE participation and concentration data by Career Cluster, and the state is also benchmarking existing and newly developed program standards against Career Cluster knowledge and skill statements. In addition, Career Clusters are being used to support effective and accelerated transitions into postsecondary education, and local Perkins plans are required to incorporate the Career Clusters framework.

Indicators

The data for 2003-2004 in the above chart was taken directly from the Consolidated Annual Reports (CAR Report 2003-04). The CAR is a mandatory fiscal and accountability report submitted by each state to the U.S. Department of Education. It provides performance information on 14 Perkins indicators. A red X means a state did not meet its adjusted level of performance and a green checkmark means that the state did meet its goal.A blue bar in the Secondary Indicators table means that the state does not offer students the opportunity to earn both a high school diploma and other credential (e.g., a skill certificate) or that the data was not otherwise provided by the state. A blue bar in the Postsecondary Indicators table indicates that the state did not provide data.

The data for 2004-2005 was taken from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education, Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998, Report to Congress on State Performance, Program Year 2004-05, Washington, D.C., 2007.

Last updated on 02/20/2008