Issues Affecting Career and Technical Education

In my application to become an ACTE Fellow I had to write an answer to what I thought to be the most pressing issues affecting Career and Technical Education. This is what I wrote…

The criterion requests a statement of issues affecting CTE at the LEA, state and national level. I suggest that there is one issue affecting all of these agencies which causes a stratification of affects. The issue is that the world is, in virtuality, becoming smaller and, therefore, more competitive. The speed at which ideas can be shared and spread around the world makes the proximity to resources and human capital less of a concern to industry and, along with the advent of digital automation which operates at the same speed, the need of unskilled labor is being diminished. We now live in a world where the sovereignty of nations is being threatened by this speed. So now, here in the U.S., we have established a national learning objective - No Child Left Behind, to ensure that our nation is not left behind. This has profoundly affected Career and Technical Education at the federal, state and local level.

At the federal level, CTE is affected by the perception that a skilled labor force is declining due to the low performance measures developed in response to NCLB. This is further complicated by the fact that ideas and processes that generate product are able to move around the nation and the world faster than any legislation that might impede them. Furthermore, our capitalist ideals supported by the United States government would not be thwarted in such a way to impede this sort of progress. The United States is fertile ground for capitalist ideas to be germinated within, but other countries are cheaper to produce within. This leaves the low-skilled American worker with little choice for employment, therefore increasing the need to learn skills that require advanced abilities in Math, Science and Literacy. The federal government wants to develop a skilled and motivated workforce that generates these novel processes and ideas but the instructional delivery system, nationwide, is archaic.

Motivated by federal mandates, the states are in motion to develop national standards that address the development of a skilled workforce in both academic and Career and Technical fields. Therefore, the states' sovereignty has been diminished. States' Career and Technical policies and procedures must be connected to the Carl D. Perkins act of 2006 in order to receive federal funding, which is substantial. Up until recently, the states had their own individual plans and methods to address Career and Technical Education but these plans each have their individual flaws where federal mandates are concerned. This has created the need and the monumental task of grouping standards together that all of the states may use as a guide towards the federal goals for Career and Technical Education. This is further complicated by the regional needs and resources that exist within the United States. These differences complicate matters and create dissension and disagreement among the states on how differing goals may be achieved and how federal funds should be allocated. Leadership is needed to bring all Career and Technical educators together to accomplish this task.

The LEA is the most affected agency because it is the furthest removed from the central issue. This may be because of long-held traditions for classes and schedules within the schools that no longer match the speed of the world and that local leaders are unwilling to relinquish. Or, it may be because the school lacks the infrastructure needed to be connected to the outside world at an efficient level. Thirdly, the amount of money available that is generated by local tax dollars falls short of the expectations set forth by federal and state standards or only meet the minimum. At last, the instructors in the schools have the same limitations and therefore are unable to offer up the instruction needed to develop a globally competitive worker.

Once schools and their Career and Technical programs have the same standards for curriculum, dollars and megabits, our nation will be able to move forward with a united vision to remain globally competitive in a smaller world.

Sharing

This is for my fellow coordinators out there…

Blogging is a great way to communicate and share ideas and journal. I think we all have fleeting thoughts that are astounding and potentially groundbreaking or motivational. Don't let those thoughts disappear in the background of your daily bog of work.

Today I'm sharing a tutorial video that I did yesterday for Maud King in Rogers. It shows how I've formulated and organized my Perkins spreadsheet so that I had a fairly accurate account of my running balance within Perkins throughout the fiscal year. This was a good thing to compare to the audit trails that my bookkeeper provides me.

If you select to follow this blog or visit here periodically to check out any of the tutorial videos that relate to any other sort of professional development. Please leave comments or ask questions for clarification. I still like to teach and I want to improve my craft.

Literacy in Career and Technical Education

It seems like an odd question to ask… "How do we best teach literacy in CTE?". That's the question I'm dealing with right now and I think as I contemplate answering this question it fits very well with the theme of this blog.

Literacy in CTE has been conceptualized because workplace expectations and duties have become more complex. We must now teach students to read and understand highly complex material. We must also teach students to write more complex thoughts. This is all necessary to communicate in a more collaborative workplace that no longer involves standing on the line and being part of a simplistic piecing together of a manufactured good. Now, to teach, as it were, is a more complex process because of this. In fact, educators shouldn't really be using the word teach at all. That is, until after a student is able to read and write. Teachers have become more like script writers or directors who develop short-term roles for their students as whatever sort of character that pertains to a lesson that involves higher-order thinking skills. These lessons have become a microcosm of the real world. Or, at least, I'd like to think this is how school is evolving.

Much is learned by pretending and imagining ourselves in the shoes of another. When I was growing up movies, books or television shows that I was involved with in the evenings would direct my playtime during the following day. I try to use this idea in combination with the thoughts I wrote in the preceding paragraph to help teachers right these scripts.

I had a discussion today with a couple of literacy specialists that concerned improving literacy scores because our Consortium is in year one of school improvement for literacy. This school improvement status is only for career and technical programs. Here are some outcomes from that discussion that include the concepts at the beginning of this blog:

• The use of selected pieces of literature that in one way or another incorporate specific Career and Technical programs. Selected chapters within these books will be added to Accelerated Reader programs at the high schools. This way, CTE students will be earning whatever incentives or credits that are available through their Accelerated Reader program as part of their Career and Technical learning.

• Both specialists said that Battle of the Books was very popular and fun. We discussed a sort of Battle of the Writers contest that would be similar and that would be carried out through the Career and Technical programs. Literacy teachers would assist in evaluating preliminary rounds that took place at the schools. Subjects or topics would be announced prior. The writing would have a technical flair and would be counted toward credit in both Career and Technical and literacy classes. Final rounds would take place at the educational cooperative. The final round would include oral presentations as part of the competition.Winners would be recognized at a banquet and be given prizes and/or other awards.

• Teams of students in Career and Technical courses could write children books with content provided from what they had learned in their CTE courses. Drafts would be evaluated by literacy and elementary specialists. Finished products would be graded in submitted for publishing and binding. the reward would be having the finished product on the shelf of any school or public library.

 I hope to continually develop these "screenplays" into something that becomes real and by doing this I hope that these modified, real-life activities might increase a student's, or even a teacher's, ability to think creatively, solve complex problems, explain themselves well, and have a good time while doing it all with a teammate.

I created this blog several days ago and have been struggling to come up with my first post mainly because my thoughts are random. I even considered creating a different post just for random thoughts until I read some suggestions on creating a blog. The best suggestion I read was to determine a title or theme and to stick with it.

I chose College and Career Ready as the title for this blog because I feel that my day-to-day duties fit this ideal even though it is a bit cliché and part of the political/educational mantra that I am a bit antagonistic towards but, hey, sometimes you have to play with the hand that you're dealt. Now, I feel it is my purpose to detach College and Career Ready from what is or what has become cliché and to give it some personal thought and feeling.

First, I would define College and Career Ready just simply as life ready. From this point of view I would tell students to learn to make a living, not an 'A'. To be ready in this way, a student must have some career goals in mind in order to understand what skills and academic abilities are necessary. This takes good guidance counseling, good parenting, good awareness on the part of all interested parties, which include building principles and all instructors.

College and Career Ready curriculum begins with every principal and teacher having a simple profile of each student and this profile would be a mental picture of that student, within the minds of the adults that shape his or her future, as that graduate, employee, entrepreneur, self – directed individual that the student wants to be. If we share the same vision as our students, we know how to help them achieve. All academic achievement will be founded upon this vision. Creating the type of school community that would fit this synergistic profile would solve so many other problems too.