This project relates to the following ED Priorities:

  • Identifying, recruiting, developing, and retaining highly effective teachers and leaders
  • Implementing college- and career-ready standards and aligned, high-quality assessments for all students
  • Building rigorous instructional pathways that support the successful transition of all students from Secondary education to college without the need for remediation, and careers

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Revising Career and Technical Education (CTE) Standards, Grades 6–12


The 80th Texas Legislature directed the updating of student standards, or TEKS, in House Bill 3485; and the Texas Administrative Code and the Texas Education Code require that the State Board for Educator Certification set teacher certification standards that are based on the current TEKS. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) requested assistance from the TXCC in creating a process to develop and align the educator standards in fulfillment of this requirement.

The development of this process began under the previous TXCC grant; the process is being refined under the current grant. TEA has requested that the TXCC document the process in its final configuration, along with the successes and barriers encountered in developing it. This will serve as a model for TEA to use in developing teacher standards for the CTE clusters remaining at the end of the TXCC's work on the project.

The process includes convening and facilitating several meetings of a committee of stakeholders with expertise in the cluster of CTE courses being considered (there will be a total of 16 clusters). The committee conducts a gap analysis between the revised TEKS and the existing educator standards for the CTE cluster under discussion. Collaborating through interactive webinars and face-to-face meetings, the committee then identifies recommendations for revising the standards. A panel of CTE experts consults on a regular basis to provide guidance for the project.

The TXCC will collaborate with TEA to compile the recommendations and create a report defining new standards for certification of teachers in the identified CTE cluster; the report will be presented to the State Board for Educator Certification.

Project continued from prior grant:
Revising Career and Technical Education (CTE) Standards, Grades 6–12

Previous Work Updates

2013

November

The Career and Technical Education (CTE) team at the TXCC is continuing to document the standards alignment process. January 2014 is the projected deadline to complete the document and provide it to the Texas Education Agency (TEA). TEA has approved continuation of the alignment process for the next set of educator standards. Currently, the standards to be addressed, the dates, and the staff at both TEA and the TXCC are being identified for the 2014 work continuation. This will be the fifth cluster of educator standards to be aligned to the TEKS since the project began in Summer 2012.

October

The Career and Technical Education (CTE) team members at the TXCC are engaged in finalizing the CTE process, taking into consideration the many variations that can exist for a cluster. Upon completion, the process will be published along with all materials and resources so that TEA can replicate the process of alignment with other CTE clusters, as well as with any topic, using this alignment process. The process is also being depicted graphically to demonstrate the strength of the design, with multiple iterations of processes and reviews to ensure a thorough and reflective alignment of the updated standards for the cluster’s Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills.

September

During September, the subject matter consultants completed the draft Educator Standards for Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources and Health Science with stakeholder input incorporated. They were submitted to the Texas Comprehensive Center for final editing. The standards were then submitted to the Texas Education Agency division of Educator Certification, Standards, and Fingerprinting.

August

The TEA and TXCC collaborative project held the fourth major session for each CTE cluster during August – webinars for the Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources and the Health Science consultants and stakeholders. In advance of the webinars, stakeholders received the consultant-prepared Draft 2 Standards so that they could analyze the alignment with their assigned courses. Their task was to verify that the courses’ TEKS had an aligned standard, knowledge statement, and application statement. If not, stakeholders were to identify the specific need(s) during the webinar. Through webinar chat pods and polls, excellent suggestions were received for the next version of the standards. Overall, the stakeholders indicated that they found the standards acceptable. The consultants will now take the stakeholders’ suggestions and make additional changes in the standards. Then, to ensure that all of the 32 courses’ TEKS are fully aligned, consultants will conduct a third gap analysis.

July

The TEA and TXCC collaborative project to align CTE educator standards to the current TEKS continues as the two strands of work intersected again this month. The stakeholder strands for Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources and Health Science met for two days each and conducted the Big Idea Process on 32 courses. This process identified the big ideas and topics that were needed, as indicated by the Gap Analysis, in the Educator Standards for that cluster. The consultants initiated draft 2 of the standards based on input from both their own and the stakeholders’ gap analyses. After receiving the input from the July meetings on missing Big Ideas and topics, further revisions on the educator standards will ready them for the August webinar.

June

The TEA and TXCC collaborative project to align CTE educator standards to the current TEKS continues, as the two strands of work will begin their intersection this month. The stakeholder strands for Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources and Health Science met for two days each and conducted the Gap Analysis Process on 32 courses. This process will identify the standards and their statements that will need to be either edited or written to ensure alignment to the educator standards for the prospective cluster. The consultants have completed their first gap analysis. They will begin their second gap analysis that will include the melding of their analysis with that of the stakeholders. This Gap Analysis 2 will initiate the first revision of the existing educator standards for both clusters. The next set of stakeholder meetings in July will focus on this first draft of the standards to confirm alignment with all 32 courses in the clusters. The Big Idea Process will be used to complete all identified gaps still existing in the document.

May

Collaborative work between the TXCC and the TEA continues on the dual strands of work that merge in the Standards Alignment Project. The consultant strand, 7 content experts, is immersed in conducting the Gap Analysis Process on the 24 Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources courses and eight Health Science courses. In addition, an initial analysis of the existing educator standards for both clusters has been conducted. The stakeholder strand, 43 CTE educators representative of the state of Texas, are beginning the Gap Analysis Process through home-based activities described during the May webinar. These will be further developed during four days of meetings in June. The webinar also detailed TEA’s expectations for the project and the TXCC structure of activities for May through August. These two strands will be merged for the July meetings when both consultants and stakeholders will use results from the gap analyses to begin the Standards Refinement Process.

April

TXCC continues collaborative planning with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for the alignment of CTE Educator Standards to course TEKS. Expert consultants have been identified to facilitate the standards-writing process, and a webinar training for the consultants is planned for early May. A diverse group of stakeholders with content experience in the courses currently under review has been invited by TEA to participate in the project. Their input will drive the development and alignment of the CTE standards to the TEKS. Four webinars and meetings are planned from May through August to accomplish the standards alignment: (1) webinar introducing the process to stakeholders and consultants; (2) stakeholder meeting to identify how well the existing standards are aligned to the TEKS by using the Gap Analysis Process; (3) meeting of stakeholders to ensure that the draft standards reflect research and best practices for CTE courses by using the Big Idea Process; and (4) webinar for a final review of the Draft Educator Standards’ alignment to course TEKS.

March

During March, planning for the Educator Standards alignment process for the CTE clusters of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources and Health Science began with TEA. Consultants with content expertise and writing experience will be identified to facilitate the standards-drafting process. Stakeholders with content experience will be invited to participate in the project and their input will drive the alignment of the Educator Standards to the TEKS of CTE courses. Webinars and meetings are planned from May through August to accomplish this alignment. Content for these sessions includes the following: (1) Webinar for stakeholders and consultants to introduce the process. (2) Meeting to conduct the Gap Analysis Process so the stakeholders can identify TEKS that have weakly aligned or missing Education Standards. Then, the focus turns to developing standards in these weak and missing areas. (3) Meeting to use the Big Idea Process with stakeholders to ensure that an in-depth review of the TEKS and Educator Standards reflects research and best practices for CTE courses. (4) Webinar for a final review of the Draft Educator Standards to ensure that each of the course TEKS for the cluster is aligned to a standard, a knowledge statement, and an application statement.

2012

December

During fall 2012, three remote broadcast sessions (October 9, October 23, and November 20) were conducted for the second cluster of CTE courses—Business and Finance. The first session served to familiarize the 50 stakeholders with the project's expectations, time requirements, and tasks to be completed. The second broadcast session prepared stakeholders to ensure that all of the TEKS from their respective assigned Business and Standards CTE courses aligned to the Draft 1 standards, knowledge statements, and application statements. If there was misalignment, stakeholders recommended "big idea" revisions to the standards and statements. Finally, during the third broadcast session, stakeholders compared the revised Draft 1 standards (which addressed any gaps identified in the prior session) to course TEKS and verified that every TEKS was aligned to a standard, as well as to knowledge and application statements. Further refinement of the Educator Standards for Business and Finance is anticipated in future sessions.

August

The second cluster of Career and Technical Education (CTE) Standards has been redesigned in a format for powerful input by an increased number of stakeholders at a vastly reduced monetary scale. A series of four webinars have been designed to include the same high-quality processes used in cluster 1:

  • • Gap analysis for each of the eighteen courses to identify the weak and missing business and finance standards
  • • Big idea development to ensure that the standards include all of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) as well as the aligned knowledge and application statements
As the standards are developed from the gap analyses and big ideas, multiple opportunities will be afforded the fifty plus stakeholders for input, suggestions, and final agreements. The two processes used to develop educator standards—the first that included three days of face-to-face sessions with the stakeholders as well as webinars, and the second comprised of only webinars—are being documented in a facilitator guide product. This will allow the development and updating of the remaining fourteen clusters of CTE courses with delivery options based on existing resources.

July

TEA and TXCC staff conducted the final CTE webinar for the Marketing 6–12 Educator Standards alignment project on July 19. The purpose of this webinar was for the expert stakeholders to review the standards, which had been edited by the panel of expert consultants, and suggest further and final refinements. The consultants were then charged with making these final refinements based on the stakeholders' suggestions. On July 24, 2012, the final standards were submitted for TEA review; they will be posted on the TEA Website for thirty days to allow public comment prior to presentation to the board. Work on the second cluster of CTE standards, Business and Finance, has begun. Sessions for the second cluster of educator standards revision are scheduled for September through December 2012. The design of the revision process is currently being documented and reviewed for use with future educator standards revisions.

June

The first Career and Technical Education (CTE) webinar for the Marketing Education Standards alignment project was conducted on June 7 with the 18-member Committee of Expert Stakeholders. The purpose was to provide an overview of the standards revision process. Texas Education Agency (TEA) staff, and Texas Comprehensive Center (TXCC) staff provided the webinar. Three days of face-to-face meetings were conducted in June at SEDL Headquarters with the Committee of Expert Stakeholders for the Marketing courses. On June 19, the committee members completed a gap analysis to identify the education standards for the seven Marketing courses that were missing or poorly aligned to the TEKS. The Panel of Expert Consultants for the Marketing courses then reviewed the gap analysis and final gap analysis ratings were recorded. On June 27 and 28, the Committee of Expert Stakeholders for the Marketing courses reviewed the finalized gap analysis. Their initial work included identifying the "Big Ideas" found in the seven CTE Marketing standards. By comparing these ideas to the content of the TEKS, some reorganization as well as new content was suggested for the knowledge and application statements within each of the seven standards. These recommendations were provided to the Panel of Expert Consultants for final editing and formatting. The newly formatted, reorganized, and updated standards, with their knowledge and application statements, will be reviewed by the Committee of Expert Stakeholders at the webinar scheduled for July 19.

May

The TXCC team held weekly conference calls with the CTE Panel of Expert Consultants and continued development of the process and materials required by the CTE standards alignment project. TEA and TXCC staff participated in a rehearsal for the June 7 CTE webinar. It was recorded and reviewed so that improvements could be made for the actual webinar.

Five of the seven Marketing courses were reviewed and submitted—these course materials will constitute the basis of the June face-to-face meetings in Austin with the Committee of Expert Stakeholders. Eighteen members of the committee confirmed their attendance for the Austin meetings in June.