The Carl D. Perkins Act, Perkins IV, will be debated in Congress during 2003, taking into account recommendations from the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE). Tech Prep Leadership has been invited to provide only minimal input to either OVAE or Congress. As we move ever nearer to a Perkins discussion and decision, it is imperative that we be afforded the opportunity to speak and be heard.

Tech Prep or, more appropriately, College Tech Prep, has proven to be an educational initiative that works. While the CAR (Consolidated Annual Report to OVAE) report fails to note the success of Tech Prep, NATPL and its members have amassed results from both state and national research that demonstrate the positive effects of Tech Prep on teaching and learning of students and systemic change in schools and districts. Data tracking within CAR fails to recognize Tech Prep's contributions to the "middle 60%" of high school students, the old general education track. Tech Prep is providing significantly improved academic and technical preparation to students who in the past would either have enrolled in college and "dropped out," or would not have started college due to lack of preparedness. Through contextual learning, increased awareness of the importance of education, and the potential for future employment, Tech Prep students are more successful in their postsecondary endeavors than non-Tech Prep students.

Lack of preparation by secondary students has proven most costly. For example, a recent Ohio report showed that the state spent $15 million re-teaching 260,000 credit hours of remedial and developmental courses to 20,000 students in 2000. The students paid an additional $15,000,000 for courses that did not count toward graduation. Each year, approximately 38% of Ohio's freshman entering public postsecondary education need remedial or developmental courses. At the same time Tech Prep graduates have demonstrated lower need for remedial coursework. Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio conducted a three-year study which found that Tech Prep students needed 17% less math remediation and 25% less English remediation than non-Tech Prep entering freshmen. These results have been borne out by studies in several other states. Nationally Tech Prep is, at its worst, "a no cost program," generating savings in excess of investments made by both the federal and state governments.

Based on economic conditions and the publicly perceived quality of education, Tech Prep is a foundation for systemic educational reform. Education certainly fuels America's economic engine and Tech Prep has proven to be very efficient as an educational driver. Tech Prep prepares students for further education and for ever-changing career patterns. Students learn to be lifelong learners and able to adjust to new and rapidly changing business needs.

Based on fact, not opinion or public perception, Tech Prep deserves to be continued as a funded initiative under a reauthorized Carl D. Perkins IV. NATPL has fully supported continuation of Perkins funding for career and technical education at appropriate levels, but firmly believes that maintenance of a separate and financially adequate funding stream is necessary to sustain current Tech Prep initiatives on national, state, and local levels. Present and uncertain funding mechanisms for Tech Prep marginalize the program and serve as a barrier to future growth.

Funding should be provided to states that have adopted and adhere to appropriate definitions for Tech Prep students, concentrators, and completers to enable more accurate and consistent Tech Prep data. While definitions vary among states, NATPL has promoted and provided to OVAE definitions that cut across individual states' definitions. We strongly encourage OVAE to adopt the NATPL definitions and to create appropriate accountability measures based on these definitions.