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Career & technical education

PAES puts a working workplace inside your program. Students clock in, report to a supervisor, and do real jobs. You get scored, defensible evidence of program quality and work-based learning, ready for Perkins V reporting.

Why PAES fits inside a CTE program

PAES is hands-on assessment of real work. Students move through 264 jobs across 44 units and five career areas, sequenced from simple to complex, while educators score what they actually see them do.


Every job is measurable, tied to real employer tasks, and sequenced by difficulty. The result is evidence your Perkins V program quality indicators can actually use.

Business & Marketing

Construction & Industrial

Consumer & Service

Processing & Production

Computer Technology

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Perkins V alignment

Perkins V is the core federal funding source, and many states add equipment grants on top. For the full state-by-state picture, download the funding guide.

Program Quality

Peer-reviewed instrument validation

The instrument behind PAES was peer-reviewed and presented at the 1998 American Educational Research Association annual meeting by Swisher, Green, and Tollefson. That foundation holds up when state and federal reviewers look closely at your program quality. Swisher, J. D. and Green, S. B. (1998). Educational Assessment, 5(1), 57-70.

1998

peer-reviewed in Educational Assessment

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Special Populations

Built for learners paper tests miss

Perkins V explicitly names students who have special needs, English learners, and other special populations. PAES was built for learners whose strengths are missed by paper-based assessment. It surfaces capability that standard CTE tools routinely overlook.

81%

say PAES reveals strengths traditional assessment misses 2026 PAES Customer Impact Survey of 307 educators

Work-Based Learning

A workplace inside the classroom

Students clock in, report to supervisors, perform structured tasks, and generate productivity data. PAES meets the spirit of work-based learning in a controlled environment, scalable for programs that cannot always place every student externally.

86%

report increased transition readiness after PAES 2026 PAES Customer Impact Survey of 307 educators

What CTE directors get

PAES fits into what you already run: no separate

Turnkey lab configuration

Plugs into existing CTE space or a Career and Technical Center, no special build-out.

Measurable outputs

Feeds directly into local, state, and federal CTE reporting: no separate data pipeline.

Program improvement data

A Perkins V requirement, generated automatically from every assessment cycle.

Audit-ready evidence

For self-study cycles and site visits: structured, peer-reviewed instrument data.

Special populations served

Without standing up a separate program: all students, one lab environment.

Where PAES fits in your system

Regional CTE centers & joint vocational districts

Ohio JVSDs, Pennsylvania Area CTCs, New York BOCES, Oklahoma CareerTech, Texas Regional ESCs built for this scale.

Comprehensive high schools with CTE programs of study

Plugs into existing lab or classroom space and fits within a standard class schedule.

Career and transition centers serving SPED and CTE simultaneously

One program that satisfies both sets of reporting requirements without duplication.

Supported internship & community-based pathways

Structured baseline and progress data that external placements cannot always generate consistently.

Adult CTE & workforce delivery

Community colleges and adult education programs run shorter assessment cycles built for adult learners and tighter enrollment windows.

FAQ

  • Yes. Perkins V is the core federal funding source most CTE programs use for PAES, and many states layer additional equipment grants on top. See the full state-by-state breakdown on our funding page →

See a PAES lab running

Perkins V is the core federal funding source. Many states layer state-level CTE equipment grants on top.

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