Career Programs Fighting for Relevance
By Arthur Kimball-Stanley; Journal Staff Writer
With more focus on college preparatory education at public high schools, career and technical education must prove its worth, but some say such programs are very valuable.
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Melissa Hoyle is a senior enrolled in the three-year health occupation program at the Warwick Area Career and Technical Center in Warwick.
Hoyle, 17, and her classmates take courses that not only go over anatomy and physiology, but prepare them to become certified nursing assistants.
Students usually enroll in the program at the beginning of their sophomore year, but Hoyle said she wasn’t able to get in until she was a junior.
“My guidance counselor wasn’t very helpful,” Hoyle said. “They didn’t even tell me it was an option.”
Career and technical education is getting a bad rap, teachers, students, and administrators say.
Extreme focus on college preparatory education at public high schools means career and technical programs are being forced more and more often to prove their relevance.
But, according to some employers and educators, career and technical training can be a big advantage for young people, and at the same time, keep them in school.
“Kids who are exceedingly bright when they attempt to get into career tech are talked out of it by teachers and guidance counselors,” said Paul Williams, career and technology education specialist at the state Department of Education. “There is a stigma out there against what they still often call vocational schools.”
Hoyle and her classmates in health occupation have similar stories about having been discouraged from taking career and technical education classes. Some were told they wouldn’t be able to graduate on time, others that it would affect their ability to get into college, and a few were told that they were taking the easy way out.
“People don’t understand why the program exists,” said Jane Hill, 16, a junior in the same class as Hoyle. “They don’t understand that it lets us focus on what we want to do.”
Hoyle and Hill also participate in an organization called SkillsUSA.
Formerly the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America, Skills USA brings students from all over the country to show off what they have learned in career and technical classes. Every year the organization runs regional, state and national contests, where tens of thousands of students compete, in everything from automotive service technology to Web design.
Over the past few months Hoyle and Hill have been preparing for different competitions in the health-care category. They practice during class, working on skills such as taking a patient’s blood pressure and height and weight measurements. The competition keeps them excited about learning, their teacher, Sharon Galloway, said, and hammers in a variety of valuable skills.
“They really get involved in the preparation,” Galloway said. “It’s a real confidence builder for them to get out there and realize they can actually professionally perform these highly demanding skills.”
At technical and career training programs across Rhode Island over the past few months students have been preparing for similar contests.
“It’s giving students an opportunity to showcase their skills,” said Josh Klemp, program manager for the state’s Skills USA chapter. “But I think it’s also important because it gives the outside world an opportunity to see what these kids can do. They are not just in a room baking cookies. They are making wedding cakes, putting together five-course meals, fundraising. It’s stuff that a typical 16- or 17-year-old doesn’t do.”
Klemp travels to schools across the state to help students prepare for the Skills USA contests. Almost everywhere he goes, Klemp said, training courses are having a difficult time justifying their existence, despite the enthusiasm of students.
“I think as we continue to increase graduation requirements, more and more students will be turned away from career and tech ed because they won’t have the time in their schedules to take the courses. I think those students will be more likely to drop out or not operate at their full potential.”
Klemp points to a study by the Association for Career and Technical Education that highlights the benefits of career courses. Career and technical education students take more higher level math courses than other students do, according to a 2002 National Center for Career and Technical Education Study.
Moreover, the association reports that students who complete a rigorous academic core coupled with a career concentration have test scores that equal or exceed “college prep” students. These dual- concentrators are more likely to pursue post-secondary education, have a higher grade point average in college and are less likely to drop out in their first year.
During their time in college, according to the association, students who have graduated with a concentration in career and technical education are more than twice as likely to be employed.
Rhode Island employers also say that career and technical education in public schools is vital to maintaining the quality of the state’s work force.
“We are trying very hard to get the state to recognize the value of these education programs,” Roger Warren, president of the Rhode Island Home Builders Association, said. “There is a lot of opportunity in the construction trades and vocational training plays an incredibly important role in helping to make sure that opportunity is really available to students.”
Being able to read a tape measure or handle power tools are a huge plus when applying to entry level entry-leveljobs, Warren said. For those who don’t want to go to college, career and technical training means the last few years of high school are not wasted.
According to Marilyn Walsh, senior vice-president for Human Resources at Care New England, career training is a great way to introduce young people to the daunting health-care industry.
“From my perspective, if these programs are done right, there is tremendous value for these kids to come into the health-care services and get some experience,” she said. “They produce tremendous value.”
Walsh said she thinks employers and educators should do more to tell each other how to make career and technical courses fit with the demands of the labor market.
Despite the attitude of employers, veteran career and technical school educators say their programs are being squeezed by the pressure for students to go through traditional college preparatory courses.
Joseph Crowley, director of the Warwick Area Career and Technical Center, said, “Kids don’t see the relevance in many cases of college preparatory programs. If you are not planning on going to a four- year college, you ask yourself ‘what am I doing here?’ By trying to send everyone through the same system they are not serving the kids who drop out of high school, and they are not serving the kids who go to college and then drop out after one year or so. You have to ask yourself, ‘who are they serving? What skills have these kids learned?’.”
Crowley said he and his teachers have been doing more to emphasize the basic academic skills students learn as a matter of course in career and technical programs. Geometry in carpentry classes, algebra in cooking classes, and chemistry in health occupation are all emphasized. The point they argue is that students can learn these subjects, and learn them well, in nontraditional ways.
Martha Sylvestre, who runs the culinary program at the Cranston Career and Technical Center, said her program offers students a chance to learn something they can put to use outside of an academic setting and still have fun doing it.
Whether they’re doing precision cuts with vegetables or creating and serving a five-course meal, her students enjoy the class because they get to do something they truly want to learn about, she said.
“You’re better off putting time in a program like this for a few years and learning you don’t want to cook for the rest of your life, than spending thousands of dollars at Johnston & Wales to figure out you want to do something else,” she said. “At a class like this you learn skills you will have for the rest of your life.”
akstanle@projo.com / (401) 277-7330
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Samantha Franco, left, a junior and Melissa Hoyle, a senior, at the Warwick Area Career and Technical Center, practice the steps in giving CPR to an infant.
The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski
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Aaron Panneton and Jane Hill, both juniors at the Warwick Area Career and Technical Center, practice health-care procedures with Jocelyn Legare, a junior, laying in bed as a patient.
The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski
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