 I'm going to make a few general remarks and then hand over to Mark Zlatow for some more specifics. We're really grateful for the opportunity of speaking to you today, and our thanks to the New America Foundation for hosting us at this event, and our thanks to all of you for attending, and we're really indebted to the U.S. Department of Education for everything that they've done. I mean, Brenda's been talking about it from her point of view, and we from our side also are enormously indebted to the OVAE NCEA and the Department for their excellent partnership throughout this process. We're also extremely indebted to three states, Florida, Maryland and Washington State, and for their support and input, and indeed to all of those throughout the U.S., and that includes many of you in this room who took the time to talk with us as we undertook the work. Now, those aren't kind of ritualistic words of gratitude. We are very, very conscious that when we come into a country and write a report, we're outsiders. We don't have the detailed knowledge that you have, but we do hope and believe that we can offer some added value, and that added value comes from the international perspective, but to harness that, it needs to be pursued in coordination with national expertise. And in all the countries where we work, and that includes the U.S., it's very much part of our approach to rely on dialogue with you and others like you and to take advantage through dialogue of that expertise. Now, the OECD is an organization of 34 countries, includes the United States, initially an economic development organization, but increasingly concerned with public policy, including, of course, education. And we, and by we, I mean a small team, have spent quite a lot of the last five years going around the world and looking at different countries and their career and technical education systems. And we've spoken to thousands of people, literally thousands, policymakers, politicians, teachers, students, employers, unions, academic experts, and the report we're publishing today on the United States is the 26th country study, and there are about a dozen more on the way in the examples of the recent publications. Now, it's against that background of going to all these different countries that we've been looking at the U.S. And Magrata and I have both been really struck by how much is going on here in terms of innovation and policy development. In fact, it's been difficult sometimes to get our heads around all the exciting things going on. It's really exceptionally rich. And just to give you a couple of examples of the ideas that we've drawn from here and take back to some of the other countries that we're looking at. I mean, look, for example, at the I-BEST model of integrated basic skills and career preparation. That's a very powerful model coming out of Washington State initially, but also, of course, been replicated in different parts of the U.S. And that's something that we're using and suggesting and proposing to other countries. Look at the wide range of high school programs in which you can get post-secondary credits within high school. Brand has been mentioning some of those. Now, they're actually pretty well unique to the U.S. I have come across them in Scotland, but that's actually about the only other place where I've ever seen anything quite like that. And they are, of course, quite powerful means of making the link between high school and post-secondary. And thirdly, just the community college system as a whole, which is perhaps too often maybe just taken for granted here, because it's part of the scenery. And of course, there are all sorts of challenges, high dropout rates, and so on. But many countries simply don't have that kind of community-based provision working with adults, catering for diverse needs that offers many things beyond high school but less than university bachelor's degrees. And those are just some of the very strong things that we've seen here. Now, when we go to a country, sometimes we see things which are kind of pretty similar that we've seen many other times before. And other times we see things where we think, I've never seen anything like that before. And of course, we've seen both in the U.S. But let me start with something which you find in career and technical education everywhere. And it's this picture that I've presented of two worlds of learning and work. And those are tremendous stereotypes, of course. You know, it's a dirty old-fashioned sort of factory and a highly elite sort of university institution. But I've used those stereotypes deliberately because the issue is partly one of culture. One, even in the context of career and technical education, what you find is that the world of learning over there on the right-hand side has academic values in its bloodstream. And the other, the world of work over on the left-hand side is pragmatic utilitarian. And the challenge, which we've really found all over the world, and by all over the world, I mean China, Korea, Chile, Hungary, Australia, I can give you examples of these things in every one of those countries, is that these two worlds are just too separate. The career preparation is too disconnected from the realities of the labour market. And that disconnect comes out in all kinds of ways. Programs and credentials that don't interest employers, teachers and trainers who don't understand what is going on in modern industry, career programs which don't contain any work-based learning, a lack of data about what happens to graduates, whether they get good jobs, whether they get any jobs at all, whether they use the skills they've learned, weak guidance so that students don't know what career paths are possible or feasible and where a particular career program is taking them. And more broadly, insufficient partnership between these two worlds and between the training providers on the one hand and the labour market on the other. Now, some of those challenges we've also found in different ways in the United States. And our view is that in all countries the pursuit of quality in career and technical education should be very much concerned with overcoming this gap. That's in a way a key task, a key test of quality and establishing the partnerships between learning and work that are so sorely needed. In the moment, Margo Schacht is going to say a few more words about quality that goes to that issue. But I said that in some other ways you find that every country is different. And one way in which the United States is certainly different, or perhaps more accurately, at one extreme of the spectrum is in the extent of decentralization here. And it's not an issue of federalism. In part it's an issue of federalism, but it goes beyond that. And there's several other countries. I mean, UK, Canada, Belgium, for example, there's no central government competence in education at all. It's all devolved regionally. And in the United States, of course, there is a federal department of education. But the US is decentralized in all sorts of ways so that some of the things that you find in more centralized countries, like national skills or occupational standards, national tripartite bodies, linking government, employers and trade unions, guiding the provision of training, they just don't exist in the United States. Instead, there is a landscape of very diverse institutions, diverse programs, diverse credentials, and diverse policies if you look at the different states. And Amy was just mentioning some of that complexity in her opening remarks. Now, our view is that decentralization has many advantages. And actually it lies behind in part a lot of the innovative energy that you find in the US. But there is a risk. And there's a risk that diversity can cause confusion in the minds of students and employers. And it needs to be balanced by measures to promote coherence in the system and to provide reassurance about quality. And essentially that's what we've tried to offer in our review. So, in summary, what we've tried to offer in this review is some measures to address a challenge that you find everywhere, the disconnect between CTE programs and labour market needs. I mean, for example, in our emphasis on work-based learning. And some measures to encourage both reassurance about quality and greater coherence in a highly decentralized system. And that's a good point for me to hand over to Margajata who will pursue that point. I'm going to talk first about what we, on the basis of our experience across countries, believe are the key elements of strong career and technical education. And second, about the policy tools which can be used to develop and promote those strengths. That's an approach that cuts across the specifics of our report on the United States. But I believe it will provide some useful background to chapter by chapter discussions which we'll follow on this morning. Why should we care about good career education? We should care about it because of significant benefits for students, employers and government. A good career program has two characteristics. First, it equips students with skills and knowledge that can be applied immediately on the job. Second, it provides the foundation for career development over a lifetime. So first, let's have a look at key elements of good CTE. Good CTE is about well-prepared teachers, workplace training with employers, articulations and transitions, data on the labor market outcomes, well-guided and informed students and some other things. So all of our report is about promoting these characteristics using the policy tools such as funding frameworks, engagement with the world of work and quality assurance. While the issue of quality assurance is addressed very directly in chapter two of our report, the broader issue of quality is in fact critical to the whole report. Stronger credentials, as discussed in chapter three and more effective transitions which we look at in chapter four are also very important. So let me start with a question. Is it necessarily a problem if some programs are weak? If some programs do not necessarily have these characteristics? Won't students' choice on the market solve this problem out automatically? Well, it wouldn't necessarily be a problem if it was absolutely clear to everybody, students, employers and government which programs are good and which are no good. And in such a situation, in one way or another, the bad programs would just disappear quite fast. But in fact, it's a little bit more complicated. Quality in education is really hard to identify. It's hard enough in basic schooling, but at least we have some tools such as paper and pencil tests to assess students' outcomes in things like English or mathematics. But in CTE, seeing quality is really, really hard. So to respond to our initial question, is it necessarily a problem if there are some programs of bad quality? The response is definitely yes. So what can we do? Of course, some things can be done to make quality more transparent so that the market can work better. And we have argued in many countries that data on labor market outcomes linked to specific programs are really fundamental. But there are also some other things that can be done to improve quality. And here, I do think that the United States could draw on the experience of other countries. At the risk of large generalization, other countries tend to be rather more demanding than the United States in terms of accountability, especially when it comes to the distribution of public funding. So let me give you a few examples. First, the Scottish apprenticeship and training programs. So these programs combine training with employers on the one hand and off-the-job courses on the other. Off-the-job courses can be provided by a wide range of institutions, including public colleges, private companies and companies employers themselves. So quality in apprenticeship and training programs is assured through two channels. First one is related to the Scottish vocational qualifications. So programs leading to a national vocational qualification have to be approved by a recognized body issuing the qualification. For example, the Institute of the Motor Industry delivers qualification in car operation and maintenance programs. Every qualification defines practical and theoretical skills that the students should develop on the program. So in a sense, it regulates both training in a company and off-the-job courses. It also defines how the assessment of these skills should be carried out. So it's a little bit like your programmatic accreditation, but with a much wider scope and most of the time mandatory. Skills Development Scotland is a second channel of quality control. It's a public agency that provides quality standards and funding to training providers. And all providers, regardless whether they are private or public, they have to comply at all times with exactly the same standards. In many countries, the results of the quality assurance are made public to inform students' choice and to increase the level of transparency. And this is, for example, done systematically in countries such as Denmark, Sweden, the UK and some provinces in Canada. Now, how does quality assurance in the US compares to quality assurance in other countries? The US has many rules on quality. There are federal rules on Title IV. Each state has its own regulations on post-secondary provision. And in addition to that, there are rules set up by the wide range of accreditation agencies. With 39 such agencies recognized federally. So overall, the US has more bodies involved in quality assurance than many other countries. But compared to other countries, it's striking that the accountability requirements are both relatively limited and fragmented given the amount of public money pulled into the system through Title IV alongside direct support to institutions through states. And for example, in the UK, all providers receiving public money are subjects to various quality checks. That can mean, for example, compulsory inspections at 48 hours notice leading to a report that will be published on the web. Another feature of the US quality assurance in post-secondary CTE is that current rules do not focus enough on carrier aspects of CTE provision, such as whether there are work placements for students and whether teachers have relevant work experience. In Denmark and Sweden, for example, the provision of work-based training with employers is one of the main quality criteria used to apprise CTE programs. And in Sweden, the rule is very simple. Training providers do not receive funding and the permission to run the program unless all the students have work-based training built into their program. One can argue about who should pay for post-secondary education. When students pay all or most of the costs of their education and training, as in some programs in the US and particularly those provided by the for-profit sector, then the students may be running a substantial risk of not being able to pay back loans taken to fund the studies. And these really underlines the importance of strong guarantee of quality in the program so that the students can invest in learning. In recent years in the US, more and more students and families have taken out loans to pay for education and training. And in 2012, student loan debt reached nearly a trillion dollars. One would like to think that this huge investment in the future is a good investment. To look at average wages and returns to post-secondary education, including in CTE, this investment indeed looks valuable. But these good average wages and returns can hide big differences and why some programs lead to well-paid and secure employment, some others unfortunately don't. So not all CTE programs are of good quality and not all investment in education and training is worthwhile. So the big potential price here is this. If we could strengthen quality overall and provide a robust system to ensure that even the weakest programs reach a minimum quality standard, then this would provide a really robust assurance to students that they could invest in their own skills. And a really robust assurance to employers that the credentials signals the skill that they need. So that would provide a powerful support for continued and indeed enhanced investment in the workforce skills that are so clearly needed by the U.S. economy. And to conclude, I can only say that this is a very powerful argument for more quality and accountability. Thank you. If anybody has any questions now, we can ask questions now or ask questions throughout the course of the panel. But if you have a few questions folks want to ask now, also the two authors will be available throughout the regular panels to answer questions. I see one in the back. Yeah, Bob Lerman, Urban Institute of American U. I noticed that the one example that you used was about apprenticeship in Scotland. And yet the report and your opening comments say very little about the minimal level of apprenticeship in the United States. And I wondered why. Does this microphone live? Yes, I need to start up. The apprenticeship in the United States relatively small numbers, a lot of it in the construction industry. I mean one of the factors in the U.S. which is alluded to actually in chapter one is the level of, there's a highly deregulated labor market here. And that may be one factor which makes it harder for apprenticeship to get a grip in the United States. I mean I think apprenticeship is a great system but when you have a highly deregulated labor market employers can do something which for example they can't do in Germany. What they can do is take on someone at a relatively low wage and try them out and let them go if it doesn't work out and train them up informally if it does work out. Now that's, you can regard that as an informal apprenticeship. In Germany you can't do that because there's very rather strict employment protection and that means that for the employer the employer really needs a rather strong guarantee that this person is really going to be productive before they're recruited and actually there is no stronger guarantee than the fact that you've employed that apprenticeship had that apprentice on the and you've trained them up yourself over three or four years. So that's one of the factors involved in apprenticeship. Another question? If you could wait for the microphone because we actually have so many people who are interested in this today that we have several overflow rooms just to make sure that they can hear. Thank you very much. I'm interested in your elaborating on a challenge that you point out as that of quality and relevance together. Would you comment on whether this new way to look at quality more emphasis on relevance and outcomes is a trend that you observe worldwide moving away from accreditation of institutions based on inputs towards assessing quality based on outcomes in the labour market? The response is yes. And actually in countries such as Denmark or Sweden providers of city post-secondary city have to prove that there is demand for their programs. And also one of the elements in which you can adjust, supply and demand for skills is through provision of work placements with employers. So that's why in some other countries maybe it's a little bit better adjusted than in the US. And maybe just the last point it's also about data, you know whether data on labour market outcomes are available. So whether students know how much they are going to earn in the future. So that's quite important. And maybe if, is there one more question? We'll take maybe one more question now and then if we can get to the panels and then is there are questions for the authors about the specific topic areas we can incorporate those into the Q&As for each panel discussion. Roy Swift from the American National Standards Institute. I know there's been a lot of talk around the world about using ISO 9000 quality management systems as a component and ISO has been discussing having a sector, an educational sector specific standard that could be used for quality. In your visiting of the various countries did you find any systems using quality management systems as a way to look at quality outcomes? Very easy answer. No. Very easy answer. Alright, Lola Vett. Thank you so much to the authors.