High Schools Make Curriculum Career-Friendly

By Ashley Meeks, Las Cruces Sun-News, N.M.

Apr. 7–LAS CRUCES — “How am I ever going to use this in the real world?” Every student says it — or at least thinks it — at least once.

But not an aspiring firefighter riding along on the engine, the would-be surgeon learning about wounds at the hospital, the future engineer shadowing a NASA employee or the ag student learning the latest in bird’s eye infrared detection of crop infestation.

To some, vocational education still conjures up memories of the wood shop teacher with the abbreviated digit and the cautionary tale about the table saw. But several national programs focused on career prep and restoring what some call “the broken promise of the high school diploma” aim to keep local students out of the ranks of grocery-baggers and seventh-year college seniors.

These initiatives come at a vital time, with the Labor Department on Friday reporting three consecutive months of job losses and nationwide unemployment rising to 5.1 percent, according to the Los Angeles Times.

At Oñate High School, an entire classroom is being transformed into a hospital room for the students who want to pursue medicine — one of 16 “pathways,” ways of rearranging areas of study.

“It’s going to be a college classroom with a college teacher located in a high school,” said Principal David Del Toro — and it will be the first in any Las Cruces high school. “Back in the day, you had a pathway for a kid that was going to work and one for the kid going to college … Getting college-ready now is also getting work force ready.”

Sherry Hulsey, a former teacher who’s been in career education for 30 years, says the process will start with an elementary school look at “what’s the world of work and how do I fit in?”

That doesn’t mean locking kindergartners into microbiology, though: “At no time do we want to put a door in front of a kid that they can not open,” Hulsey said. “We want to build a happy work force.”

In the upcoming school year, sixth-graders will start being introduced to the career clusters, now introduced in seventh-grade. Seventh-graders take the John Holland Self-Directed Search, to match careers to interests.

In eighth-grade, students will complete interest inventories to help pick a track to pursue in high school. Oñate has begun to offer the free EXPLORE test to those students coming in to their freshmen year — a career-assessment test like the ACT that also indicates shaky areas of study.

Incoming freshmen pick a flexible area of interest from clusters they’ve been shown in seventh- and eighth grade — something broad like “creative media technology.” Like in college, their courses become more specialized by senior year, as they decide whether they want to pursue digital graphics (and enroll in computer illustration and print media classes) or as a Web master (with classes like Web page development and digital video editing).

“We’ve forced the issue. We need to get the kids to understand the big picture,” Del Toro said — that includes going beyond the three years of math and science required by the state. “We used to give the kids a lot of choice, but they were signing up for these Mickey Mouse courses that are not very hard.”

Students graduating in 2015 will be required to take a dual credit, advanced placement or online course to graduate high school. Currently, the district foots the bill — $80,000 this year — for dual-credit classes and books, through DACC and NMSU. This year, enrollment in those classes has doubled — 78 seniors graduated last year with 15 or more DACC credits, according to Jennifer Amis, director of secondary education with LCPS.

Amis says with 13.5 electives in the 29 credits required for high school graduation, there’s plenty of room for those career and dual-credit classes, the latter available to all juniors and seniors who meet enrollment criteria. Engaging and relevant classes in career and technical education, like the pre-engineering curriculum Project Lead the Way, is “where you really do connect,” Amis said.

“We have students who have exhausted the high school curriculum and enroll at NMSU for advanced studies,” Amis said, since students can take eight credits per semester. “The long-term goal is to have all students participate in this program.” First, of course, students have to be in class — enter this year’s new truancy task force and an attendance policy to be fully implemented this fall that requires 90 percent attendance for credit. There’s special emphasis on promoting all freshmen to their sophomore year, a critical time.

It’s a slippery slope from constant ditching (on any given day, 500 high schoolers miss one or more classes, Amis said) to dropping out.

Wes Baker, LCPS assessment and research coordinator, says high school students have an 8 percent to 12 percent chance of dropping out — and that number is getting better. Last year, 57 sophomores dropped out, but Baker says “the big story is there’s more and more attention being paid to this problem.” But kids attend when they’re engaged, and kids are engaged when they connect with what they see as their future.

“Teachers will tell us time and time again that many of the failures are due to lack of attendance, not lack of skills or ability,” Amis said.

So where’s the physical room for all this? A dual-credit center is being planned for the Workforce Development Center — with expanded studies in areas like Aerospace Technology. Planning for an early-college high school, with work-based learning and mentorships, is also underway, Amis said. Such a site would cost $10 million and enroll 500 students who would graduate with a diploma and an associate’s degree.

“They’re trying to set up new programs and have the district take them over, then it has to be self-sustaining,” Hulsey said. “High school students want to know what professions they can look at. We tell them almost everything.

If they want to study brain surgery (in person) they can’t do that, but … they have kids in the ER, in both hospitals.” Then, with a good work force built, Las Cruces will draw in good employers, she said. “Some of these kids are going to have to go to work pretty early in life, but we don’t want them to see that as the last job they ever have. Burger-flipping needs to be seen as very temporary.”

Drop-out rates

High school drop out rates, 2006-07

Freshman year: 2.73 percent

Sophomore year: 3.22 percent

Junior year: 1.79 percent

Senior year: .75 percent

Source: LCPS assessment and research office

Education

Educational Attainment of 43,908 residents 25 and older

No high school diploma: 20 percent

High school diploma: 23 percent

Some college or associate’s degree: 29 percent

Bachelor’s degree or higher: 28 percent

Source: Las Cruces MainStreet Community Economic Assessment

Career paths

Most popular “pathways” for high school students

1. Health science

2. Law, public safety, corrections and security

3. Education and training

4. Arts, A/V technology and communication

5. Human services

6. Transportation, distribution and logistics

7. Hospitality and tourism 8. Science, technology, engineering and math

9. Business, management and administration

10. Architecture and construction

11. Agriculture, food and natural resources

12. Finance

13. Government and public administration

14. Information technology

15. Marketing, sales and service

16. Manufacturing

Source: 2006-07 survey of requests of 1,200 Experience-based Career Education and Learning students

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Copyright (c) 2008, Las Cruces Sun-News, N.M.

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