Schools Set New Course in Career Education

By Joe Robertson, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Oct. 6–Warming people to the idea of reforming high schools around career and technical education hasn’t been easy.

Too many smelled the “vo-tech” programs popular 20 years ago for students bound someplace other than college. Not enough saw how career dreams and a relevant curriculum might motivate more students in core classes, no matter where they went after high school.

Just give our children college prep, parents said.

But more and more high schools are taking a look at a new kind of career education. Proponents assure suspicious parents that the reform does not channel students down one-way paths. They are not asking teenagers to predetermine their futures.

They want teenagers to find their interests. They want to spark their curiosity and give all that math, science and reading something to latch on to.

A rapidly changing work world demands that schools prepare more students for higher-level training, said Linda Oborny, who oversees career and technical education for the Kansas Department of Education.

Most jobs may not require four years of college, but most will require high-level technical skills, she said. Oborny just returned from a national conference of state directors of career and technical education last week, where she saw the national scope of the changes.

“There is so much similarity in what’s going on around the country,” she said. “Technical advances (in the workplace) have transformed the work we have to do.”

Districts are responding. In the Kansas City area, the Career Consortium coordinates efforts between six school districts and the Metropolitan Community Colleges to guide students through “career pathways.” The goal is to give curriculum more meaning and to get students thinking of life after high school.

Students in the Kansas City and the Kansas City, Kan., school districts are choosing among themed academies within their high schools that emphasize career interests.

Schools throughout the country are simply dealing with reality, said Bob Wise, president of the nonprofit Alliance for Excellent Education, which is based in Washington.

More than half of all high school students either drop out or are not ready for college or the workplace when they graduate, he said. National studies show that 25 percent to 50 percent of students entering college must take at least one remedial course.

Students drop out at the highest rates in the ninth and the 10th grades, Wise said.

Students need to be in class and to be more rigorous in their studies, he said. Prodding students early into areas that interest them may be the way.

“The alternative is that you lose a lot of students who never make any decision,” Wise said.

Tables of 1′s and 0′s raced across the wipe board in a crowded classroom along Grandview High School’s industrial engineering and technology career path.

Something called Boolean algebra held the attention of some 20 juniors and seniors.

Ryan Shipman was there because in the eighth grade he had seen a video from Project Lead the Way — a nonprofit program created by the high-tech industry to inspire students to high-tech careers. Three years into it, he is still hooked.

Paolo Geroche, the son of a mechanical engineer, had always reveled in engineering design and picked this career path from the beginning. Three years later, he says, he is surer than ever.

And Kaeisha Akinmoladun, whose mother urged her into the pathway, was dubious. But early career explorations in the program fascinated her with fields like the design and engineering of ocean-going ships.

“I saw what I could actually do with it — things I never knew existed,” she said.

They have taken apart electronics, designed computer programs and learned something about where all this math and science is headed.

Now they are racing beyond regular math into this Boolean abstraction, stretching cognitive thinking in the curious equations of circuitry.

“Any way I go,” Shipman said, “these classes will help me.”

Many students in the various career paths are going to change their minds, said Debbie Goodall, director of the Career Consortium. That’s OK. That’s expected.

“But think of the foundation they’ve got,” she said. “Think of the work ethic. You learn how to learn. You work hard because you’re fired up.”

Schools using career education do not intend to divert students from the curriculum but to embed them in it, said Jack Bitzenburg, an administrator charged with strengthening career training in the Kansas City School District.

A graduate from a school’s medicine and health academy should be prepared to pursue a career as a doctor or a medical assistant or a corporate accountant.

“Coming out of high school,” he said, “they need to learn the same content areas at the same level of mastery.”

Years ago, “vocational” in education meant “not going to college,” he said. Now, “it’s how students begin to see the ‘why’ in education.”

At times, school boards have been unimpressed, teachers suspicious and parents troubled by old fears about career education.

Last year, a crowd of nervous parents in Independence shared horror stories emerging from a new career explorations class. A certain skills and interests survey apparently got a bit too specific, telling some students they would make ideal bartenders.

Larna Constance was one of those uncomfortable parents.

Her biggest concern was the career explorations class — not so much because of the disturbing outputs of the particular skills and interests survey (which the district quickly abandoned), but because the class eliminated a chance for another elective course that might be enriching for her college-bound son.

“It seems education is in a big upheaval,” she said. “(Career education) makes sense for most students, but traditional college prep has to be an option.”

Raytown South High School parent Sandy Thode and one of her sons also resisted a career explorations class.

He knew what he wanted to do in school, and he did not want to restrict his elective choices. The Thodes were preparing to fight the requirement when her son decided he would take the class, Thode said.

“And he loved it.”

He learned of areas of study that would complement his chosen career path as an athletic coach, “and things that would interest him if Plan A didn’t work.”

Tests of skills and academic progress used in Independence aren’t meant to discourage students from college, assistant superintendent Ed Streich said.

Instead, many students who didn’t imagine themselves pursuing a career in college are learning what they need to do to get there.

“The message they’re getting,” he said, “is that they are good enough to go to college.”

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