With many disabled people worldwide unemployed or underemployed it begs the question: what career and technical educational (CTE) programs are being offered to disabled people and how can they improve?
There are resources of course, like this 2016 project between the Independent Labour Organization’s Canada branch and the government of Bangladesh, or this guide for educators and students’ individualized education plan(s) (IEP), but the data behind technical and career training for disabled people is promising.
A 2018 study published in the Journal of Disability Policy Studies found that students with disabilities involved in their Massachusetts-based project achieved higher graduation and certification rates when they attended a regional vocational and technical school. They attributed this to “better integrating academic and technical coursework and enhancing mentorship.” The increased graduation rates mirror an even higher increase in disabled students accessing CTE courses. According to the Center for Public Education, CTE enrollment among IDEA students rose 73 percent between 2008 and 2018.
Many of the stories around success in these programs are personal accounts of individual students, including those detailed by the National School Boards Association. According to their 2019 analysis, students with disabilities who participated in CTE programs had an 89% graduation rate average nationwide during the previous school year. That’s 20% higher than the overall disabled student high school graduation rate, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, when adjusted by cohort.
According to a recent report produced by the National Center for Learning Disabilities and Advance CTE, there are five areas that CTE directors need to focus on if programs are to improve for disabled students: “leverage” recent legislation, support advising, “leverage data”, offer professional development to staff, and confirm that the offerings being given to disabled learners are of high quality. The collaborators also found three central issues: a lack of data, a lack of instructor training, and funding “confusion” related to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Another researcher, the University of Michigan’s Brian Jacob, suggests that schools should be “making sure CTE instructors participate in Individualized Education Program team meetings. These are important conversations where school personnel identify the specialized instruction and support services SWD [students with disabilities] need to achieve their annual goals.”
The takeaway appears to be CTE programs drastically increase the American graduation rate of students with disabilities, but programs still have a long way to go in order to fulfill their potential. This opportunity for increased graduation rates comes at a time when some states significantly lag behind the percentage of disabled students graduating. When the most recent data puts Mississippi’s cohort-adjusted graduation rate for students with disabilities at 42.2%, it’s going to take more than technical training to even out the divide.
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