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Legislation passed in May 2023 by the Minnesota Legislature created a new requirement related to use of Minnesota CTE Frameworks (Minnesota Statutes 2024, section 120b.022, subdivision 1):
Elective Standards: A district must establish and regularly review its own standards for career and technical education (CTE) programs. Standards must align with CTE frameworks developed by the Department of Education, standards developed by national CTE organizations, or recognized industry standards.
So... what are "CTE Frameworks"?
Frameworks are similar to "standards" and provide guidance for local school district CTE business and marketing teachers as to the rigor and outcomes MDE would expect to see in courses to be accepted in the Program Approval process. The collection of Frameworks documents is organized by the seven career clusters identified on the Business Table C.
Frameworks are not "curriculum" – you have local control to develop your curriculum based on interests of students while preparing students with career pathway technical skills to help them meet local workforce needs. The stronger alignment your courses have to these Frameworks, the stronger the case to be made regarding the rigor of your courses and the preparation for students continuing with postsecondary education or moving into the workforce after graduation.
Each career cluster Frameworks document is comprised of several elements:
- Each "strand" or "competency" is comprised of performance indicators and benchmarks (numbered for ease of use in student information systems) and sample learning targets in student language. Indicators and benchmarks have been developed to align to national standards, technical skill assessment competencies, and/or national standards.
- Strands 1-8 comprise indicators and benchmarks related to academic integration and employability skills ... aspects of high importance to employers and in the Perkins V legislation. These employability skills are typically taught in combination with the technical skills that make up the course objectives for career pathway development – rather than being taught in isolation. These employability skills are typically evaluated with formative assessments rather than the type of summative assessments that would be recorded in a grade book.
- Strand 10 is the specific indicators and benchmarks for each course (i.e., Computer Applications, Marketing, Graphic Design, etc.). The Performance Indicators identify the key technical skills recommended for development within each course. The Benchmarks identify a "menu" of options in which student mastery of the Performance Indicators could be assessed.
Minnesota Frameworks for Business, Marketing, and Information Technology are found at the bottom of the MDE website for Business, Marketing, and Information Technology programs.
Maintaining and renewing Program Approval status for your Business and Marketing program includes maintaining program eligibility to request federal Perkins funds to support your program. Here are some reminders for making successful requests:
- Use the current version of the request form found on the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) website for "Perkins V Legislation." Make sure this July 1, 2022, version is the one that you and your Perkins consortium leader are completing and submitting to MDE.
- Follow your consortium process for submitting requests. Your consortium may have an internal form for making requests to your consortium leader or leadership team, especially for requests under $1,000. The MDE form mentioned above should be verified or completed and then submitted to MDE by the consortium leader.
- Recognize the purpose of using Perkins funds vs. local district funds to support your program. Perkins funds are intended to be like "research and development" funding, to support "innovations" in program delivery and student career pathway preparation. Resources that are needed to "maintain and sustain" your program (that are likely also needed by teachers in other curriculum areas) are the responsibility for your school district to fund and would likely not be approved for Perkins funding. This includes items such as supplies, textbooks and teacher instructional resources like SmartBoards and LCD projectors. For more information and examples, review the "General Guidance for Perkins V Local Uses of Funds" document on the MDE website.
- Equipment and curriculum requests are made to support delivery of specific courses. The syllabi that MDE have on file for those courses should demonstrate curriculum alignment to Minnesota Business Frameworks (or national standards where appropriate). Performance indicators and course outcomes should prepare students for high-need business career pathways identified in your consortium Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA). Make sure you are aware of the CLNA developed by your consortium, align your program to identified career needs, and update curriculum and syllabi to reflect those changes. Submit those updated syllabi to MDE Specialist Dean Breuer as additions to your Program Approval files.
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The information below describes resources available from two MDE partners that can assist with data-driven decision-making regarding the projected future career pathways that should be the focus of your Business and Marketing program efforts. These resources are also often used in the development of Perkins Consortia Comprehensive Local Needs Assessments (CLNA):
RealTime Talent
RealTime Talent is an employer-led, public-private collaborative focused on aligning Minnesota education programs and Minnesota workforce needs. They have developed a series of six regional reports and presentations, providing workforce sector analysis that can be used by educators to evaluate the alignment of their current career and technical education (CTE) programs to projected future workforce needs in their region.
The six regional workforce trend reports and presentations can be downloaded from the RealTime Talent website. You may find these to be very helpful resources for working with advisory committees, local school administration, and your professional learning communities (PLC) to examine current and future needs to be addressed by your CTE programs.
Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED)
DEED's Career Pathways tool connects occupational data from DEED's Labor Market Information office with educational programming from the Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota State Career Wheel, displaying career fields, clusters and pathways. The primary goal of this dashboard is to help students understand how their educational path matches employment opportunities and to inform education curriculum, initiatives and programming to labor market realities. The tool is designed to help start career exploration with students, parents and counselors.
BestPrep provides educational programs to prepare students with business, career and financial literacy skills through hands-on experiences. One of these hands-on experiences is Mock Interviews. Volunteers conduct multiple 10-15 minute interviews with students and provide feedback so that they can improve and prepare for a real interview. BestPrep provides the interview questions and materials ahead of time by email to help guide the interviews.
A registration portal has been created for volunteers to sign up for participation in scheduled mock interview events. Visit the volunteer registration portal.
When volunteers use the site, they will see a list of mock interview events that are open for volunteers to sign up. The list will show the date, mode (in person or video), school name, time and number of spots left for the mock interview. When signing up be sure to select the small box on the very left side and click next; you are able to sign up for one at a time. When you sign up you will receive a confirmation email, and a BestPrep staff member will follow up with a confirmation email. BestPrep staff reviews all the volunteers and will reach out if you have not filled out the volunteer agreement form.
We have two upcoming mock interviews in December looking for additional volunteers:
- December 10 at St. Louis Park
- December 12 at Simley (looking for interviewers in the health care field to participate in virtual mock interviews)
Please consider sharing this information with business professionals and advisory committee members who may be interested in participating in these mock interview experiences!
Contact BestPrep Program Manager Claire Gustafson (763-233-6329) for more information on how to have your classroom added to the list of scheduled mock interview experiences.
"How Businesses Are Using Artificial Intelligence in 2024," From Forbes magazine
"90 Artificial Intelligence Examples Shaking Up Business Across Industries," From BuiltIn.com
"Artificial Intelligence in Business – Statistics & Facts," From Statistica.com
"What Model CTE Looks Like in The Age of AI," From Tech & Learning magazine
"Teaching CTE Students About Work-Related Uses of AI," From Edutopia magazine
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