Carl D Perkins Career And Technical Education Improvement Act Of 2004

Career and technical education is a critical component of a number of Federal education and training initiatives that are designed to help support the development of a 21st Century workforce. Career and technical education is unique in that it fuses challenging academic curricula with relevant skill training in order to prepare secondary and postsecondary students for the workplace. The central goal of Federally supported career and technical education programs is to provide students with strong academic and technical preparation, so that students can successfully enter the workforce or pursue additional education. The purpose of S. 250, the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2005, is to reauthorize and improve the federally supported career and technical education programs last reauthorized by the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Amendments Act of 1998.

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The "Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998" requires that the Secretary provide the appropriate committees of Congress copies of annual reports received by the department from each eligible agency that receives funds under the Act. Congress has made "accountability for results" a central focus of the Perkins III legislation, setting out new performance accountability requirements for states and local programs. These requirements were established "to assess the effectiveness of the State in achieving statewide progress in vocational and technical education, and to optimize the return of investment of Federal funds in vocational and technical education activities." This is the sixth annual report to Congress by the Department of Education. It transmits data that states submitted to the department for Program Year (PY) 2004-05. Highlights include: (1) Fewer students were reported by states as having enrolled in career and technical education courses in PY 2004-05 than in the previous program year, but the rate of enrollment was still higher than in the earlier years of "Perkins III" implementation; (2) Although there have been some improvements, concerns remain regarding the accuracy of states' performance data; (3) Sixteen states met or exceeded each of their PY 2004-05 secondary performance levels; (4) Nine states and the District of Columbia met or exceeded each of their PY 2004-05 postsecondary performance levels; and (5) Twenty-three states were awarded incentive grants from the Department during PY 2004-05 for having exceeded their performance levels overall under "Perkins III," Title I of the "Workforce Investment Act" ("WIA"), and the "Adult Education and Family Literacy Act" ("AEFLA"). The following are appended: (1) Allocation of Title I Funds to Secondary and Postsecondary Career and Technical Education under "Perkins III," PY 2004-05; (2) States' Definitions of "Concentrator" in Secondary and Postsecondary Career and Technical Education, PY 2004-05; (3) States' Measurement Approaches for "Perkins III" Secondary and Postsecondary Academic Skills and Vocational Skills Attainment; and (4) Individual State Data Profiles, PY 2004-05. A glossary of terms is also included. (Contains 13 figures, 9 tables, and 22 footnotes.) [This report was prepared by the Office of Vocational and Adult Education's Division of Career and Technical Education. For "Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998, Report to Congress on State Performance, Program Year 2003-2004," see ED494712.].