As career and technical education (CTE) programs across the country innovate to meet the unprecedented challenges presented by COVID-19, Assistant Secretary for Career, Technical, and Adult Education Scott Stump announced the launch of the 2020 Catalyzing Career and Technical Education Competition. With funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, Social Finance and JFF will provide technical assistance to up to two winning Perkins-eligible sites to scale up high-quality, Perkins-eligible CTE programs.
“At OCTAE, we believe that high-quality CTE programs are more important than ever to help students transition successfully into a labor market and economy that has been greatly affected by COVID-19,” said Assistant Secretary Stump. “We are delighted to support JFF and Social Finance as they administer this competition, providing technical assistance and supporting the expansion of effective CTE programs.”
Win $150,000-$225,000 in technical assistance to support program development and achieve greater scale
Eligible applicants are Perkins-eligible CTE providers. Awardees will receive free technical assistance at no cost, a value of approximately $150,000-$225,000, to expand their CTE programs. Social Finance and JFF will provide a suite of expert consultation services, evaluate preparedness to scale up programs, and explore new funding strategies to identify whether outcomes-based funding is feasible. Outcomes-based funding can take many forms, including Performance-based Contracts, Social Impact Bonds, Income Share Agreements, and Outcomes Rate Cards.
Depending on the needs of the winning site(s), potential outputs from the technical assistance could include identification of potential funding strategies for CTE programs and wraparound costs, analysis of local labor market needs and trends, evaluation of promising practices (e.g., remote learning) through a landscape review, and design of data collection and analysis strategies to capture program impact.
Learn more & submit your application
The Request for Proposals can be found here. Additional competition information and applicant supports can be found on Social Finance’s competition page.