Georgia State University grant study will focus on career and technical education

ATLANTA — The U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences has awarded Georgia State University a $1.7 million grant to conduct a four-year study of the relationship between student outcomes and career and technical education, and teacher preparation and experience.

The research also will examine the challenges school districts face in recruiting and retaining qualified CTE teachers.

The project, “CTE Teacher Labor Markets, Attributes and Student Outcomes,” benefits from the strengths of an existing CTE policy research partnership, the Career & Technical Education Policy Exchange in the university’s Georgia Policy Labs. Principal investigator Daniel Kreisman, an associate professor of economics, leads the project along with Thomas Goldring (Georgia State), Roddy Theobald (American Institutes for Research), Celeste Carruthers (University of Tennessee) and Shaun Dougherty (Boston College).

“Every state in the country faces CTE teacher shortages and is trying to align with industry demands,” Kreisman said. “However, policy decisions are being made without a concrete understanding of what instructor skills, experience and certifications are critical to CTE student outcomes. Our research will fill this gap.”

The project will provide a comprehensive overview of CTE teachers and contextualize strategies for addressing CTE staffing. It will explore how student outcomes, such as test scores, college enrollment, employment and earnings, vary with these teacher characteristics. The research team will observe data across four states in a sample of more than 2 million unique students who took CTE coursework from more than 15,000 CTE teachers.

“We know a whole lot about the role K—12 teachers play in student learning,” Kreisman said. “We even have good insight into the challenges districts face in recruiting and retaining them. Yet, when it comes to CTE, we know next to nothing. Our research will provide detailed information the CTE field has sought for years.”

Special Photo: GSU