Dear Colleagues,

The Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE), Division of Academic and Technical Education (DATE) invites States and discretionary grantees to apply for customized technical assistance (TA) for Program Year (PY) 2018-2019.  The TA is designed to support high-quality accountability and data reporting systems through services provided by our contractors at RTI International.

With the recent passage of the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V), a priority of TA will be assisting States and discretionary grantees in transitioning to the legislation’s new student definitions and measurement approaches. Transition-related TA topics might include, but are not limited to:

• Collecting data on secondary and postsecondary concentrators as newly defined in the legislation
• Implementing measures of career and technical education (CTE) program quality
• Improving the quality of CTE data collection and reporting
• Using data for program approval, monitoring, improvement, and stakeholder outreach
• Establishing new baseline levels and State determined performance levels for the section 113(b) core indicators

Given the anticipated interest in the new legislation, TA activities this year may also include cross-State or cross-local discussions of accountability.

As a reminder, this TA is intended to supplement, not supplant, State or local efforts to improve CTE accountability system. Projects should build on information and data currently available and be of manageable size and scope. RTI will assist DATE in identifying appropriate national subject matter expert(s) as needed and provide on-site consultation if necessary. Recipients will need to commit to bi-monthly meetings with the technical assistance team and provide access to relevant documentation, State and local experts, and other key stakeholders.

TA projects will culminate in summary reports with recommendations that have value for other States and discretionary grantees addressing similar issues. Products and reports from past TA projects can be viewed on the Perkins Collaborative Resource Network at https://cte.ed.gov/accountability/technical-assistance-to-states.

To be considered for PY 2018-19 TA:
Please submit a brief description (maximum of one page) of your TA needs via e-mail to Sandra Staklis at sstaklis@rti.org no later than Friday, October 12, 2018. If you have questions about the application process, contact Sandra by email or phone (503) 428-5676. DATE support for this project will be provided by John Haigh who can be reached at (202) 245-7735 or via email at john.haigh@ed.gov.

Best –
Sharon

Sharon Lee Miller
Director, Division of Academic and Technical Education