Oklahoma Tech Prep

Oklahoma’s Tech Prep consortia were a nationally recognized effort that was instrumental in pioneering reform strategies for career and technology education. Through these pioneering efforts, several new initiatives evolved into best practices and benefited many Oklahoma CTE students.

The Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education (ODCTE) administered the first Tech Prep programs through individual competitive grants in 1991. The first six projects funded began with a $150,000 grant to the SOAR consortium, the CREATE consortium quickly followed.

In 1992, SOAR developed the first articulation agreement with Oklahoma State University – Oklahoma City and in 1994, Tech Prep launched Oklahoma’s School-to-Work system.

In the Spring of 2004, Tech Prep consortia and the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education began the transition from Cooperative Agreements and “banked” college credit to “transcripted” college credit for high school students through the Cooperative Alliance Program partnerships. As a result of Tech Prep's efforts, transcripted college credit is avaliable in all 29 technology center districts.

The development of career clusters and pathways was championed by Tech Prep and served as the basis for the work by ODCTE in 2007 to use the Career Cluster Framework to move Oklahoma's CareerTech System from programs to courses.

In 2007, Oklahoma Tech Prep consortia were unified under the goal of increasing the number of Oklahoma CTE students who complete high school with college credit, pursue and complete a post-secondary credential, an industry recognized certificate or degree and are employed in the field in which they were prepared.

The National Association of Tech Prep Leadership recognized Oklahoma as a national leader in Tech Prep when they named Oklahoma as the recipient of the the 2009 Promotion of Tech Prep/Career Pathways National Award. Oklahoma was again recognized when it was named the recipient of the 2011 NATPL Innovation in Tech Prep/Career Pathways National Award.

Tech Prep as an initiative was eliminated from the federal budget in 2011 and Oklahoma was able to continue the initiative until 2012. During the final year of Tech Prep, consortia began to lay the groundwork for implementing rigorous Programs of Study.

The core concepts of Tech Prep - Articulated Credit, Programs of Study, and College Readiness, will continue through various school improvement initiatives and the impact of countless Tech Prep coordinators will be felt for years to come through increased student success.