State Profile For Tennessee

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

State Director

Mr. Ralph Barnett, Assistant Commissioner
Career Technical Education, Tennessee Department of Education
710 James Robertson Pkwy., 4th Floor
Nashville, TN 37243

CTE Web Site(s) as Applicable

Secondary: http://www.state.tn.us/education/cte/

Mission

Preparing todays students for tomorrows opportunities

CTE Statistics

Number of Public High Schools:	284
Number of Public High Schools Offering Solely (or primarily) CTE courses:	24
Number of Students in Public High Schools:	233,279
Number of Secondary Students Enrolled in CTE:	176,725
Number of Public Community Colleges:	13
Number of Students at Public Community Colleges:	80,947
Number of Postsecondary Students Enrolled in CTE:	22,014
Perkins Funds Received:	$26,526,575

CTE Governance Structure

Perkins Eligible Agency:	Department of Education
Agency Administering Secondary CTE:	Department of Education
Agency Administering Postsecondary CTE:	Department of Education
Programmatic Control For Secondary CTE:	State Board of Education
Programmatic Control For Postsecondary CTE:	Board of Regents

CTE Funding

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

State Director Roles and Responsibilities

The State Director has the title of Assistant Commissioner for Vocational-Technical Education. The Director is a political appointee who reports to the Commissioner of Education. The Director’s primary areas of responsibility are all secondary CTE programs High Schools that Work Jobs for Tennessee Graduates Work Based Learning Field Service Centers
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CTE Connections to Secondary Education and High School Reform

Career technical education plays a very high role in high school reform efforts. Tennessee is working cooperatively with teaching and learning and the State Board of Education to redefine high schools. This includes addressing structure, virtual education, and career clusters/career pathways/model sequence of courses.

Implementation of Career Clusters

Tennessee believes that Career Clusters provide the basis for high school reform by offering an infrastructure for seamless educational transition between all learner levels. Through Career Cluster implementation, the quality of CTE will improve, and students will benefit from career guidance and organized sequence of courses.
In order to effectively implement Career Clusters, Tennessee has adopted a state policy that supports this effort as well as integrated Career Clusters into the state plan. The state has also redirected state resources and personnel to support effective transitions between secondary and postsecondary education.
Several delivery methods are being used to implement and deliver Career Clusters, including career academies, High Schools That Work, and High School Reform Efforts.

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 08/07/2008