Keeping It Real
An award-winning Idaho Career and Technical Education Center combines academic rigor and occupational training.
BOISE, Idaho—Gearheads, they were called—the kids who took auto shop every semester in high school. By the time they were seniors, most of them had their own tricked out muscle cars or jacked up trucks with mag wheels, aftermarket shocks, and custom paint jobs. Most also had little interest in regular academics. They took as many “shop” classes as they could—woodshop, welding, metal shop, whatever was available—and muddled through the rest, bored and disconnected. Sound familiar?
“There’s a picture people have in mind of the typical vo-tech student,” acknowledges Jim Marconi, the principal of Boise’s Dehryl A. Dennis Professional Technical Education Center. “In my generation it was the kids who had hopped-up cars and either dropped out of high school or went and worked at dead-end jobs after graduation. There was the perception that if a kid couldn’t succeed in an academic environment, put them in woodworking or auto shop where they could work with their hands, and they’d get by.”
But times have changed. If your idea of high school vocational programs goes back a decade or more, you may be surprised by the current trends in what is now commonly referred to as career and technical education (CTE).
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 98 percent of all high school students will take at least one CTE course before graduation. One in four students will take three or more CTE courses in a single program area. And CTE courses represent the second highest number of credits earned by high school students, ahead of both math and science. Given those numbers, it was only a matter of time before CTE caught the attention of the standards-based reform movement.
The idea of “readiness” has been central to the CTE debate, with critics claiming that students who take CTE courses are leaving high school without the skills to enter either college or the workplace. The image of CTE programs as a way of “tracking” at-risk students—pushing them toward a vocational path requiring little academic knowledge and away from postsecondary opportunities—persists. But perhaps worse are the claims that CTE programs have also lost touch with the real job market and the skills needed to thrive there, essentially training students halfheartedly for jobs that no longer exist.
With these criticisms in mind, many have called for a complete restructuring of CTE programs, and a new vision of their role in a 21st century education. As a 2005 study published jointly by Jobs for the Future and the Aspen Institute put it, “CTE at the high school level must either change or die.”
A New Vision
The current reforms are not entirely new, of course. Since the 1980s, efforts such as the school-to-work movement and career academies have attempted many of the same things, some with great success. The difference is that those efforts were isolated examples, while the current movement seeks a complete national overhaul, driven by the demands of a high-tech world. The “change or die” opinion is widespread and speaks to a new national urgency.
In a 2003 white paper, Betsy Brand, current director of the American Youth Policy Forum in Washington, D.C., wrote: “The past division between preparation for college and preparation for work has become a false dichotomy. The skill demands for work and postsecondary education are converging, and increasingly, there will be one set of skills needed both for success in careers and postsecondary education.”
That convergence is at the heart of the new vision, which calls for greater academic rigor, relevance to the skills required in today’s economy, and improved relationships with the regular high school, postsecondary institutions of all kinds, and local industries.
Professor Richard Lynch, a longtime advocate of improved CTE programs, wrote a virtual manifesto for this movement in the introduction to his 2000 paper called New Directions for High School Career and Technical Education in the 21st Century: “This is the essence of the ‘new’ vocational education. It is academically rigorous. It is career relevant. It combines academics and career applications. It teaches students about all aspects of the industry. It teaches them how to apply high-level math, science, technology, and languages in workplaces and communities. It prepares them with education and technical skills they will need for successful employment in various careers or professions ... It does not replace or substitute for academics; rather it enhances academics by bringing real-world context and application—especially targeted to workplaces—to education.”
Others, such as Brand, have put additional emphasis on the idea of transitions—providing college and career guidance, counseling, internships, and a clear “pathway to postsecondary education and a career by detailing academic and occupational competencies needed for advancement ....”
Clearly, such policy experts as Brand and Lynch see a continued role for CTE in today’s secondary schools. The real world, hands-on, “applied” or “contextual” approach to learning that is central to CTE has in fact drawn attention as a more effective instructional model than the traditional classroom’s read-and-lecture approach. Several research studies have shown positive outcomes associated with CTE programs, such as increased school attendance, reduced dropout rates, improved grades, higher postsecondary enrollment, and an increase in students’ short and medium-term earnings. Typically, students who attend career academies or full-time CTE-based schools graduate at a higher rate, take more math classes, and raise their reading levels more than students at traditional high schools. Students also have fewer disciplinary problems.
It’s these kinds of positive results—especially with underprivileged and at-risk students—that have kept CTE programs off the cutting block and in fact on the rise in many states. Idaho is a prime example.
Work in Progress
The Dehryl A. Dennis Professional Technical Education Center is a testament to the popularity of CTE programs in the state of Idaho. Built in 1998–1999 and opened in 2000, the school boasts pristine workshops and state-of-the-art equipment, including two 14,000 square foot auto shops.
Winner of the 2002 Exemplary Worksite Learning Award, given by the National Tech Prep Network, the school serves 12 high schools in three districts (Boise, Meridian, and Kuna), including two private Christian high schools, and a number of homesschooled students. The school also includes separate Information Technology (IT) and Health Professions centers, both located a few miles from the main campus.
As the two massive shops attest, auto-related courses are the foundation of the school, but a total of 11 programs are available: digital photography, graphic design, health professions, fish and wildlife, construction trades with “smart home technology,” precision machining, welding, electronics, IT, auto technology, and collision repair.
The school is adjacent to the Boise School District headquarters, in the southwest part of the city, which puts it within commuting distance for both the Meridian and Kuna students. Without the Meridian connection, in fact, the school might never have been built. The former Boise superintendent for whom the school is named worked out a deal in which Meridian would pay 30 percent of the instruction costs and fill 30 percent of the enrollment. That arrangement continues despite the fact that Meridian’s explosive growth has resulted in a separate CTE program of its own, including two CTE-focused charter high schools, and center-based programs in several of the district’s regular high schools.
No matter which district they come from, students have to make a sacrifice to take classes here. The school operates on a block schedule, with 85-minute class periods, but transportation to and from the campus means students must give up two full class periods at their home high school. Despite those logistical challenges, student enrollment is up. The center has the capacity for 1,400 students, if every course were filled during each block. Today, they serve about 950 to 1,000 students each semester, with some programs greatly overenrolled and others a little shy of capacity.
The school’s still-new sparkle is an apt metaphor for what’s taking place within its walls. Opening at the beginning of the new millennium, it has developed in tandem with the national call for a new approach to technical education, and it shows. Rigor, relevance, relationships, and an emphasis on helping students transition both into the workplace and into postsecondary education are all readily apparent here—some efforts are well established, some still under construction.
When it comes to rigor, for instance, the school has recently implemented a small grant from the state to conduct a curriculum audit of each program. “We’ve asked some master math teachers to review all of our curriculum,” says Marconi, who’s in his first year as principal. “Essentially they’re taking the state math competencies and comparing them against what we deliver in each of our programs.”
One goal of the audit, says Marconi, is to embed enough math into the CTE curriculum so that students can fulfill math credits at the same time. Similarly, programs such as fish and wildlife can meet science credits. “These are elective classes,” says Marconi, “but in order to keep the opportunities open for our students, and to help them meet graduation requirements, we’d like to give them the capability to earn math or science credits in our classes. We’re working hard on that.”
Another work-in-progress is a proposed integration academy, which will include teachers from the tech center and the regular high schools working together to integrate core subject matter into the technical school curriculum. A new alternative high school is being built next to the tech center, and Marconi sees that as an ideal opportunity for such an integration project. “The goal is to make sure that when these kids leave the center they have the technical skills, the people skills, and the core academic background that they need to succeed. They’re never going to get their entire curriculum here—the center-based approach is not meant to work that way—but the two should be directly linked.”
A Real World Focus
Relevance is also a major theme at the school. Every program includes an industry advisory committee that helps ensure that coursework is aligned not only to state standards but to what employers are actually looking for. “We definitely listen to them,” says Marconi. “We count on them to help keep us in line, in terms of ‘What do we need to teach to make this relevant?’ We want to make sure that we’re headed in the right direction and not just doing something because that’s how it was done a generation ago. If you don’t do that then you have kids walking out the door with dead-end skills.”
Marconi points to a recent meeting held at Boise State University, which included representatives from the nearly 300 software development companies located in the Boise area. “They’re crying out for skilled workers, at several different levels,” he says. “And that’s something we try to tap into. What do they need and how can we prepare our students to meet those needs?”
One way the school accomplishes that goal is by helping students get internships, whether it’s at a car dealership, a nearby National Guard diesel shop, a local hospital, a machine shop, or with a graphic design company. In some cases, such as welding, students are able to earn industry certification even before graduating.
Another example, while not technically an internship, takes the idea to an extreme. Each year the district buys a plot of land and with the help of local contractors builds a new home. Students in the construction trades program get invaluable hands-on experience working on the house, which is eventually sold by a local realtor. As one of the fastest growing areas in the country, the program is a model of how CTE can respond to the demands of the local labor market.
Marconi points to the school’s quality teaching staff as an example of rigor, relevance, and relationship building all rolled into one. Of the school’s 21 teachers, all but two came directly from industry and still maintain industry certification in their specialty area. The relationships they have in the community are integral to the school’s internship program.
The school also maintains strong relationships with postsecondary programs in the state. Articulation agreements and curriculum alignment allow students to earn up to a full year of technical college credit while taking the CTE courses. “That provides a lot of incentive for kids to stay in the program, and also to enroll in a postsecondary program in one of those technical areas,” says Marconi.
State policy requires evaluation of all CTE programs, including tracking whether students continue on in the same field of study after graduation. The school tracks only those students who have taken two or more years of classes at the tech center. Of those students, approximately 50 percent go on to postsecondary education, with a majority continuing to study the same technical subject. Another 40 percent go into the workforce in their specialty area, making for a 90 percent “positive placement” rate. “If you compare that to a typical high school graduate—what they’re doing after high school—it’s a much higher rate,” says Marconi. “And that’s not just at this school. That’s typical of career and technical education in general.”
Much of that success is due to the district’s commitment to career planning and counseling. “Our first principal, Jim Schmidt, was the supervisor of the counseling department before coming here,” says Marconi, “so we’ve had a very strong relationship with counselors from day one.” An annual meeting with all high school counselors in the Boise District keeps them up to date on what’s being offered at the tech center.
The district also has career centers in every high school, and the tech center’s student organization, SkillsUSA®, emphasizes the development of “soft skills”—the ability to communicate, to know how to dress appropriately, to shake hands and look adults in the eye, and to develop leadership abilities and an awareness of good citizenship. SkillsUSA also sponsors state and national competitions in which many of the students compete. At the national SkillsUSA level, students from the school have earned first place in precision machining, CNC milling, and Internetworking.
The national competitions are in line with the school’s approach to authentic assessments. “We give two kinds of assessment here,” says Marconi. “One is the multiple-choice, standards-based type, and the other is hands-on—the student has to identify parts or perform certain procedures.”
All these efforts make it clear that career and technical education has come a long way from the “shop” classes of two decades ago. Faced with “change or die” prospects, CTE programs such as Boise’s are closing the gap between academic and occupation-based knowledge. But they aren’t giving up on what has worked.
“The project-based, applied learning approach is so successful,” he says. “Kids get hooked into it. We can’t get them out of here at the end of the day. They’re back in the auto shop working on their car or they’re rebuilding something in the welding shop or they’re in the photo lab editing something they’re excited about. They’re motivated and they’re learning. And one thing I can tell you: They never ask the question, ‘When am I going to use this?’, because they’re already using it. How many programs can say that?” 