This quote comes from Sarah Fine, postdoctoral student at Harvard Graduate School of Education. It came from an article @MindShiftKQED, The original Mindshift article on CTE and extra-curricular ativities can be found here. This is the real work, the hands-on, authentic, experiential learning that is put forth daily in an ASaP classroom. This article, amongst a score of others on education reform, inspired me to post this -
North Carolina has the framework of an excellent Career and Technical Education model (CTE). From top to bottom, all the standards and measures are in place to develop outstanding youth leadership. As is often the case in large institutions, successful results can often be attributed to the the people who are on the front lines. The most critical links are those closest to the subjects. In the case of education, the subjects are the students, and those closest to them are the teachers and school administrators. The purpose of this treatise is to coalesce the CTE pathway linkages, to describe some of the motives and history, and to suggest how North Carolina can improve experiential education for all. I first became interested in North Carolina CTE after my mother died in February of 2014. While cleaning out her apartment on a cold, dreary March day in New York City with my wife and two older sisters, it occurred to me, “I don’t want to stay in Indiana.” My wife agreed. That fall we scoped out Cary and Apex, North Carolina. It had received high marks for quality of life in the annual survey published by Money Magazine. One trip to the area and we fell in love. The timing was perfect because Wake County (WCPSS) was about to bring online its twenty-sixth high school. Award winning principal Matt Wight was to be at the helm. After numerous inquiries, three visits, two interviews, Matt offered me a job as a DECA co-advisor and Marketing/Entrepreneurship Educator. After eleven years, I resigned my position at the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township and moved my family back south. North Carolina’s Career and Technical Initiative Prior to applying to Apex Friendship I conducted research on North Carolina Career and Technical Education (CTE). It was promising. In April of 2010 North Carolina State superintendent June St. Clair Atkinson published A Crisis in Relevance: How NC must innovate to graduate all students career-and college-ready. A Crisis of Relevance, included strategies for improving overall student achievement through better utilization of Career and Technical Education. The fifth objective was to, “Connect business leaders with educators in a unified effort to help students understand the relevance of their education to their future goals and prepare them with the knowledge, talent and skills valued and needed in today’s workplace.” In February of 2011 Harvard Graduate School of Education published Pathways To Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans For The 21st Century. The report stated its purpose was in response to a study that indicated, “Far too many young people are inadequately prepared to be successful. . . more than half were ‘deficient’ in such skills as oral and written communication, critical thinking and professionalism.” In June of 2011 the North Carolina Board of Education published The CTE Career Cluster and Course Planning Guide. The purpose of the guide was to establish programs of study that would address the needs of universities and employers. Beginning in 2012 many CTE classes underwent an overhaul to adapt the curriculums to be more relevant and rigorous. Entrepreneurship I, my primary focus each fall, adopted a new curriculum for the 2013-2014 academic year. It was over 500 pages long, I kid you not. (More on that on another date.) The NCDPI addressed engagement with the community and the development of skills critical for success through the Honors requirement that, “Student work will be assessed through both written and performance-based processes . . [including] an oral presentation summarizing their work to be presented to a panel selected by the teacher.” In February of 2016 WCPSS published its Strategic Plan. A part of the strategic plan was the 2020 vision, “Students will be successful communicators, collaborators, creative and critical thinkers who have mastered the NC State Standards and 4Cs. This will make them ready to graduate as productive citizens and for success in higher education and careers.” (Italics added by author.) Proof of the Possibilities; Patriots in Action The potential of career pathways can be found at Apex Friendship High School. According to data provided by Peter Destabler, AFHS’s ICM, in its first graduating class of about 450, there are a total of 131 students that completed at least one CTE pathway. Nearly 50% of these students completed two pathways. Fifteen students completed three pathways. Health Sciences’ completers narrowly beat the combined total of Marketing and Business Management, 47 to 45. To be a completer in a Business or Marketing pathway, you must have completed Entrepreneurship I Honors. The goals of Applied Synergy Partnership and its Entrepreneurship classes are aligned with the state’s and county’s education mission and achieve the requirements of an Honors level Capstone course. The students are actively engaged with the business and university community. The students work hard to develop critical transferable skills and are challenged to think for themselves in an authentic, creative, experiential learning environment. (More on ASaP at a later date.) I can say, with a high level of confidence that the state, DPI, WCPSS and Matt Wight have effectively put in place the pieces that, when executed faithfully, can develop outstanding youth leadership and prepare our students for a dynamic, competitive work environment. There is still more to be done; improved implementation in the classrooms and broader execution at more schools of all levels. What would the employers say? Have the North Carolina objectives listed in the Crisis in Relevance study been achieved? Who is to be the final judge? Recall the original catalyst for emphasis on CTE stated in Pathways, “U.S. employers complain that today’s young adults are not equipped with the skills they need to succeed in the 21st century workforce. . .” Employers’ satisfaction with the next generation of high school graduates and those graduates demonstrated abilities, are the true measure of success. How do you measure achievement such as this? Presently, student proficiency on a state mandated 100 question multiple choice final exam is what determines “student mastery of entrepreneurial concepts.” They are deemed proficient if they score 70% or higher after the curve. But are institutions of higher learning and employers looking for “masters of concepts” and “proficient test takers”, or does our economic future demand “thinkers” and “doers”. (As an aside, as a result of a NCCTE mandate, (As an aside, as a result of a NC CTE mandate, I spent three hours this past weekend examining “standard based assessment data” to see where I could improve my test scores. Should I not have spent this time thinking of how I can improve my students’ leadership competencies that are in demand by universities and employers? I was not made aware of a mandate to deliver honors portfolios of my 46 entrepreneurship students, just to make them available “in case we are audited.”) 2017 ASaP by the numbers - Students 57 EOC Proficient 100% Average Score 90% Honors Portfolios 100% NC DECA Plans 19 out of 24 teams Professionals engaged 21 In early 2017 Lisa Conger and Carol F. Short delivered a presentation to the NC DPI CTE, NC Works Pathways Conference. One of the first slides stated, “The purpose of this session is to increase the awareness of policy and practice that results in increasing the partners understanding of career pathways and the value of the completion of a career pathway.” (Italics added by the author) The presentation went on to discuss how successful implementation of CTE as a platform for career readiness is determined, districts and schools. These entities need to capitalize on
How will we be held to a higher standard? The above prescription lays at the feet of educators and school administrators a lot of responsibility; the whole team is challenged, as well we should be. While the state and LEA’s are contributing to the advancement of an outstanding CTE pathway, my concern is the synthesis of strategic partnerships across industry, higher education and secondary classrooms, grades 6-12. Institutions of higher learning and employers are the customers of the public education system. How do we assure that the instructors on the ground are fostering the requisite skills of the students, the product these customers are receiving from us? A cross-section of the community that involves multiple stakeholders should help develop “Career focused accountability system(s)” within the individual schools. (More later on the education value chain) The aforementioned Conger and Short presentation stated, “Better alignment of education, workforce & economic development is needed to meet the future needs of both employees and employers”. It can be implied through an earlier slide that, this “Start[s] with industry partners.” Some of the credit for ASaP’s success can be attributed to AFHS Career Development Coordinator (CDC) Lane Tomey. She is in place as a resource to assist with community and classroom alignment. Each high school has a CDC who is responsible for liaising with the business community and the classroom. What if instructors do not take advantage of the CDC’s connections? How do we make certain that classroom instructors are engaging the community as collaborative partners to develop our emerging leaders (and not just the rare guest speaker)? AFHS students are direct beneficiaries of the efforts of Lane Tomey who provides regular opportunities for AFHS CTE staff to be actively involved in the community. Moving Forward It will take an undetermined amount of time and, likely, a longitudinal study to determine if the state can improve upon the “more than half [that are] ‘deficient’ in such skills as oral and written communication, critical thinking and professionalism.” If we hold ourselves to the timeline established by WCPSS’s 2020 Vision this will be the university class of 2024. That will be nearly fifteen years from the time North Carolina published A Crisis in Relevance. The time will come when students will become employees. They will be asked to apply technical and non-technical skills to advance the goals of their selected organizations. How will it be determined if the current decade of instructors improved our students foundational and leadership skills? What if the needle has not moved? Standards and curriculum come from the top down. Success is built from the ground up. The most important pieces are the instructors in the classroom; do they effectively develop the skills necessary for our students to thrive? To determine an answer to this would require high school and LEA administrators to put in place controls that assure our youth’s classrooms are meeting the needs of today’s competitive, dynamic global economy. All stakeholders, students, parents, et al, are encouraged to inspect closely what is going on in the classroom. What evidence do we have of the successes and failures? What mechanisms are in place for others to learn from these experiences? I know there are good things going on out there. I also am not so naive to think that everything is hunky dory. I’d like for you to be a part of the conversation. Please comment. Leave a Reply. |
Author: Dan Jackson
Experienced Reflective Learner and Strategic Thinker with an ongoing track record of of innovative, adaptive leadership in education and business management. Archives
December 2019
Categories |