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Obama: Educate for high-tech economy

February 14, 2013 by

High schools should put “our kids on a path to a good job,” said President Obama in the State of the Union speech.

Right now, countries like Germany focus on graduating their high school students with the equivalent of a technical degree from one of our community colleges, so that they’re ready for a job. At schools like P-Tech in Brooklyn, a collaboration between New York Public Schools, the City University of New York, and IBM, students will graduate with a high school diploma and an associate degree in computers or engineering.

We need to give every American student opportunities like this. Four years ago, we started Race to the Top – a competition that convinced almost every state to develop smarter curricula and higher standards, for about 1 percent of what we spend on education each year. Tonight, I’m announcing a new challenge to redesign America’s high schools so they better equip graduates for the demands of a high-tech economy. We’ll reward schools that develop new partnerships with colleges and employers, and create classes that focus on science, technology, engineering, and math – the skills today’s employers are looking for to fill jobs right now and in the future.

Many high schools offer “dual enrollment” courses that let students earn college credits — usually through a local community college — while completing high school. (The sinister Gates Foundation has been a major funder of dual enrollment.) Moving to a German-style apprenticeship system, which explicitly prepares students for skilled jobs, not for higher education, will take a lot more than money. It will take a major attitude change from college for all to competency for all. (Competency for most?) President Obama, whose administration cut funds for career tech programs, could lead the way.

“A Race to the Top-style grant program for high school curriculum” may raise hackles, notes Ed Week. Conservatives — and some liberals — are unhappy with the administration’s use of funding power to push states to adopt Common Core standards, which was supposed to be a state initiative.   Now Obama’s admitting that’s what Race to the Top did and asking for more money and power over curriculum.

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Swiss choose apprenticeship over college

October 6, 2012 by

University education is free in Switzerland, but most students choose vocational training, Time reports.

Take Jonathan Bove. This spring, after he completed his three-year business training at an insurance company, the 19-year-old was hired by a telecommunications firm; his job as a customer care representative offers a starting salary of $52,000 a year, a generous annual bonus, and a four-week paid vacation – no small potatoes for the teenager who is still living at home and has no plans to move out. “The idea of university never appealed to me,” he says. “The vocational training is more hands-on and the path to a good job is shorter.”

After completing nine years of required schooling, two-thirds of 15 and 16 year olds choose Vocational Education and Training (VET), which combines three years of part-time classroom instruction with training at a company. The youth unemployment rate in Switzerland is less than 3 percent.

VET apprentices generate more revenues than they cost in salaries and instruction, so most companies profit from VET participation, even if they train more apprentices than they need. On average, VET graduates start at $50,000 a year.

Most young Americans won’t earn a college degree, says Nancy Hoffman of Jobs for the Future in a Nation interview with Dana Goldstein. A Swiss-style apprenticeship system would motivate young people and qualify them for good jobs, she argues.

Volkswagon is starting a European-style apprenticeship program in Tennessee, but for high school graduates. . . . You probably have to start with more internships and apprenticeships at the community college level than in high school, because most people in this country just don’t believe that 16-year-olds can be productive workers—though there is plenty of evidence they certainly can be.

Goldstein asks: Should we worry if the vocational track really is the track for working-class kids?

America’s system — College for all but failure for most — provides less economic mobility than the apprenticeship model, Hoffman argues. “The really strong countries have pathways from vocational education straight through to technical colleges,” she adds. In Switzerland, 42 percent of the highest-scoring students enter the vocational system. “If you want to be an engineer, work in IT or any of these high-tech jobs, you’re going to be much more likely to get a job after real work experience.”

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Career-tech ed boosts reading

August 23, 2012 by

Career tech motivates students to improve their reading skills, writes Randall Garton on Shanker Blog.

It seems commonsensical that kids who are not academically oriented (not a crime, by the way) could be motivated to learn if they see and understand the relationship of that learning to their real world aspirations.  This is one of the reasons that kids in CTE programs tend to complete high school and enjoy post-secondary success in occupations, training, and education at greater rates than their comparable peers.

CTE students will need strong reading skills to “read and absorb technical manuals, understand and program computers, write and respond to memos on technical and professional matters, and interpret tables of instructions,” Garton writes.

. . . the learning of CTE students is “contextualized” – students who are interested in a subject are taught about it, and the more they learn the more complex the text the are able to read about it.

CTE is incorporating literacy and training teachers, but research on what works is in the early stages, Garton writes.

Instead of “the failed mantra of  college for all,” education reformers should promote  ”multiple pathways to success,” he writes. The literacy strategies being field tested in CTE “will extend to the broader population of struggling students who need them desperately.”

 

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Amazon offers college aid to warehouse workers

July 25, 2012 by

Amazon will give warehouse workers up to $2,000 in annual scholarships to pursue associate degrees in high-wage, high-demand careers, such as aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technologies, medical lab technologies and nursing.

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Low-cost, ‘high-value’ certificates rise in popularity

June 8, 2012 by

Vocational certificates, which promise a low-cost fast track to a better job, are rising in popularity. The average worker whose education ended with a certificate earns 20 percent more than a worker with only a high school diploma. Some certificate-holders — especially men in technical fields — earn more than graduates with associate or bachelor’s degrees.

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Academic or vocational skills?

May 23, 2012 by

For the first time ever, a majority of jobless Americans 25 and older are college graduates or people with “some college.”  Should our educational system focus less on academics and more on teaching workforce skills?

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Make high school matter for non-collegebound

March 15, 2012 by

We must make high school matter for students who aren’t collegebound, writes James Stone on Shanker Blog, weighing in on the “snob” debate.

Instead of ever-increasing academic requirements, disengaged students need “rigorous, world-class technical education” linked to the labor market.

. . .  in Georgetown, KY, Toyota has worked with local education systems to create a compelling, rigorous and relevant manufacturing career pathway—one that takes students from high school to the local community college to four-year college programs in engineering or manufacturing management and the promise of employment with Toyota.

Retooled  Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs should “include intensive career development opportunities that begin no later than middle school,” internships, apprenticeships and “curricula that integrate academic knowledge with technical skills,”  Stone writes.

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‘Stupiphanies’

March 9, 2011 by

At an innovation conference, Community College Dean has a “stupiphany” — the sudden realization that you were an idiot for not knowing something before. The more classes a remedial student must take, the more likely the student will give up. Each class is an exit point.

Another stupiphany:  Remedial students are much more likely to succeed when basic skills are taught along with vocational skills. Yet California’s community college system eliminated many “contextualized” classes that help students earn an occupational certificate in favor of traditional remedial classes geared toward associate degrees.

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Rethinking remediation

January 27, 2011 by

Overwhelmed with students who need years of remediation, some Texas community colleges are sending very low-skilled students to adult education or vocational programs.

Also on Community College Spotlight:  North Carolina will let community colleges bar “threatening” students, but identifying who’s dangerous and figuring out what to about it are huge challenges for college staffers.

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New construction workers need math skills

January 7, 2011 by

When construction comes back, skilled workers will be needed to replace those pushed into early retirement by the long slump. But many young people don’t have the math skills to learn construction jobs, contractors fear.

Associated General Contractors of America’s regional chapters are supporting about a dozen construction charter schools or construction career academies across the nation, reports McClatchy Newspapers.  “In addition, many are involved in high schools and outreach programs designed to teach basic math skills to young men and women.”

Even if students get passing grades in math — and that’s a fairly big if — they’re not being taught how math applies to the work site.

And construction is all about math. Everything from carpentry and brickwork to grading and sloping involves math.

Construction veterans are shocked at how few graduating students have functional math abilities. That’s why associations and contractors are trying to teach applied math skills.

“If it’s just a page in a book, and here’s the formula and here’s how you put it together, there is no understanding of what it does for you,” (Ted) Aadland, (president of the contractors’ group) said. “Why would you, how would you figure the volume and area? That’s what really clicks with people.”

Joe Youcha, executive director of the Alexandria Seaport Foundation, works in schools and with courts and community groups to teach applied math across all grade levels. He also runs a boat-building apprenticeship program.

Youcha’s program starts with basic math. In fact, he wrote an instructional book for a Virginia carpenter’s union that requires a high school diploma or GED. When he was first approached, Youcha assumed that it would involve everything from advanced ruler reading to trigonometry.”They were like, ‘No. You have to start with place-value charts, whole numbers and addition and subtraction,’ ” said Youcha, who has an Ivy League degree in history but found his calling teaching applied math. “They come out of school not being able to name the number in front of them. They can’t tell you that 1,075 is one thousand and seventy-five. And they come with a degree.”

Increasingly, construction jobs require the ability to run computerized equipment, says  Aadland.  “All our grading now with heavy equipment is all computerized, and everything is done by satellite in bringing down grades. The industry is really reacting and training the craftspeople as we go.”

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