Tech Directions - January 2008 - (Page 6)

colleges and universities. The revived CTE program was kicked off with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Economic Development and Career Technical Education Pathways Initiative, which funds CTE programs beginning in the middle grades. It also improves articulation between the CTE curricula of high schools and of community colleges. Business leadership helped set the standards for California’s CTE Education systems must be more responsive to the changing economy. programs and also is involved with the California Partnership Academies, career-focused schoolswithin-a-school, which have proved very successful at improving graduation rates and the number of students taking the core subjects. The biggest problem faced by the state is the shortage of qualified CTE teachers, especially because about 10,000 CTE courses statewide qualify for engineering, science, or math credit for high school graduation. Maryland also has seen a growth in CTE enrollment, with 25 percent of the 2006 high school graduates completing a CTE program of study. More than 350 business partners helped identify career clusters for the state’s “new CTE” and move instruction toward problem solving and critical thinking. Students enrolled in the “new CTE” pre-engineering program take a college preparatory curriculum and a focused career pathway program. Their high school credits are articulated with postsecondary credits. Teachers must participate in high-quality professional development. These students had higher rates of academic achievement, technical skills, high school completion, and dual completion compared with all CTE students. Maryland is developing 48 similar career pathway programs. Turning to local programs, the AYPF forums highlighted successful efforts at CTE reforms in California, Georgia, and Delaware. Collaborating over many years with the University of California/Riverside, the East San Gabriel Valley Regional Occupational Program and Technical Center has longitudinal data on center programs throughout the state. The data show that the centers are responding to labor market demands and their coursework is aligned to college requirements. CTE students have higher grade-point averages than comparison groups and earn higher wages 18 months after graduation. Among the problems faced, however, is the lack of enough qualified teachers under the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. Complementing CTE efforts in California is the California Center for College and Career, or ConnectEd. It provides technical advice on connecting academic and technical instruction and has four components: academic core, technical core, workbased learning, and support services. A model ConnectEd program is the Health Careers Academy at Palmdale High School, which serves students from throughout the Antelope Valley area. Students in the four-year program, predominantly minority, move from field trips as freshmen to internships with doctors and nurses as seniors and score higher on state tests than nonacademy students. The curriculum of the Central Education Center, a charter school in Newnan, GA, breaks down the “silos” of academic and technical content so that science principles, for example, are learned as students design a building. Students attend the school half day for the integrated, applied learning, and attend their regular school the rest of the day. Research shows that 98 percent of the graduates of the dual-enrollment program are earning above the minimum wage or are in postsecondary education, or doing both. Delaware has moved from sharedtime vocational schools to comprehensive technical high schools and now has 3 of its 19 school districts organized as Vocational Technical School Districts. It has developed “curriculum crosswalks” to integrate core and technical subjects and implemented plans for 8th and 9th graders that map out career preparation in the high school years. A problem cited by officials is getting more core academic teachers and CTE teachers in the comprehensive high schools to work together. Equal Access for Girls Making sure girls have equal access to career and technical education for high-skill, high-wage jobs is one of the strategies a new report recommends to stem the high number of girls who are dropping out of high school. The economic risks to females who drop out are much worse than for boys who do so. They make lower wages, are at greater risk of unemployment, and are more likely to rely on public support programs than male dropouts. The report, published by the National Women’s Law Center, said that almost half of the estimated dropouts from the high school class of 2007 were girls, and one in four girls will not graduate with a regular high school diploma in the standard fouryear period. Among girls of color, the statistics are even grimmer. Nationally, 37 percent of Hispanic, 40 percent of black, and 50 percent of American Indian or Alaskan native female students failed to graduate on time in 2004. Girls in all of the racial categories, however, do better on graduation rates than boys. Males earn more than females generally, but the wage gap is greatest among high school dropouts, with girls earning about $9,100 a year less than male dropouts. According to a survey by the Gates Foundation, one-third of female dropouts said that becoming a parent had played a significant role in their decision to drop out of school. Other reasons given included falling behind because of lack of attendance, the impact of sexual harassment, and academic concerns, as well as the lack of family support. (When Girls Don’t Graduate, We All Fail: A Call to Improve High School Graduation Rates for Girls, www.nwlc.org) 6 techdirections ◆ JANUARY 2008 http://www.nwlc.org

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Tech Directions - January 2008

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