January
9, 2017
Published by the
Colorado Department of Workforce Development and Training (once known as the
Colorado Department of Education), January 2071. (See NOTE to reader.)
Looking
back, it is clear when our country made the transition from educating to
training, from outdated notions about the liberal arts to the practical world
of career-readiness. A series of articles between 2012 and 2016 shows we took
our first steps then toward today’s Brave New World, where we are happy to
report that all 3,000,000 K-12 future workers attend 4,500 Career Training
Centers across the great state of Colorado.
We are equally thrilled to add that, while it took until 2060 to redesign
ECE, we now ensure every child between ages 3-5 can participate in Early Career
Exercises.
The following is from the
chapter on five years, 2012–2016, in reverse chronological order (as some
readers will find 2016 stories most relevant). But the seeds were clearly being sown before
then.
To help readers inclined to skim through much of this, see
passages I have put in bold. Or simply note the frequent use of two words: workforce (51 times) and training (47 times).
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2016
Congress
Faces Range of Education* Issues in
Next Session
Andrew Ujifusa, Education Week, Dec. 12, 2016
*2071 Update – By
2016 we were on our way to strike that antiquated term, “education,” from all
Congressional committees. Today, they are
simply called: “Workforce Training.”
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With President-elect
Donald Trump waiting in the wings, the Republican majority in Congress will
have the opportunity to tackle a host of education* issues when its next
session begins in 2017…. there will be significant turnover in some key
positions: In addition to Trump's selection of school choice advocate Betsy
DeVos to be education* secretary, the House education committee will have a
new leader, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C. … Fox leads the subcommittee on
higher education* and workforce training. In 2014 she helped shepherd
through a reauthorization of the
Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.
Workforce
Development
CA - Growth of Career Programs
Emphasizing Hands-On Learning Offer Students New Opportunities
The Orange County Department of Education received a $15 million grant from the trust that it used to create the OC Pathways program, which includes 14 school districts, nine community colleges and dozens of business and other partners. Tim Buzza, vice president of program development at Virgin Galactic, told students that companies such as his now rely on pathway programs for their next generation of workers. “We really need these feeder programs in place ….” (Ed Source, Dec. 1)
The Orange County Department of Education received a $15 million grant from the trust that it used to create the OC Pathways program, which includes 14 school districts, nine community colleges and dozens of business and other partners. Tim Buzza, vice president of program development at Virgin Galactic, told students that companies such as his now rely on pathway programs for their next generation of workers. “We really need these feeder programs in place ….” (Ed Source, Dec. 1)
_____
Note to reader- For
AV#156—and “2071”—I acknowledge a debt to George Orwell.
He was writing his great dystopian novel in 1948.
Educational
Attainment
Higher-Ed Leaders Look to Boost Degrees, Certificates
The state Higher Education Coordinating Council on Monday set the preliminary 55 percent goal as part of a process to obtain a grant to help the state promote the alignment of the education levels of its workforce with the needs of Florida's future economy and employers. (Daily Commercial, Nov. 30)
Higher-Ed Leaders Look to Boost Degrees, Certificates
The state Higher Education Coordinating Council on Monday set the preliminary 55 percent goal as part of a process to obtain a grant to help the state promote the alignment of the education levels of its workforce with the needs of Florida's future economy and employers. (Daily Commercial, Nov. 30)
Colorado
workers, businesses need to be flexible to develop tomorrow's workforce, says
report
Caitlin
Hendee, Denver Business Journal, Oct.
3, 2016
The
key to success in today's business climate in Colorado is to be flexible, and
to understand that job skills will change as sectors continue to evolve. In
other words, job qualifications are shifting and increasingly require high
levels of technology literacy, requiring workers to have a "liquid skills
mindset," according to the 2016 Talent Pipeline Report, released Monday by
the Colorado Workforce Development Council (CWDC).
The
report takes an in-depth look at how the
state is performing when it comes to educating future workforces and working
with businesses to create skill-sets they'll need in real-world jobs.
The
CWDC also on Monday announced the launch of TalentFOUND, the "brand"
of the Colorado talent development network, which will launch in the spring.
The
network will be a one-stop shop for students, job seekers, workers and businesses
to access tools and resources needed to
participate in state programs like apprenticeships and internships.
Last
year's Talent Pipeline Report focused primarily on the need for state education systems and businesses to work together to
produce the kinds of workers who have the skills needed to survive in a
business climate that increasingly steers toward science, technology,
engineering and math.
Addendum – Dissenting Voices (2012-2016)
An objective report such as this is obliged to note that other perspectives were being published between 2012 and 2016. For your amusement, we include a few examples (Addendum). Happily, America ignored these “dire warnings.” By the 2020’s subversive views of this kind were in the minority, and nearly silenced. As of 2030 we had laid the foundations for our current structure.
Today we are confident that our new system is securely in place, and that we have eliminated education as one of our goals. No more murky mumbo jumbo about learning for life and finding meaning. That ancient world of “schools” was bound to fail, where they carried such a diffuse mission, so little of it measurable - “teaching” citizenship, values, inquiry ….
No more confusion. We now focus on what is most important: TRAINING for JOBS.
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Boeing
awards $6 million in grants for STEM education (and its future workforce)
Alan Boyle, GeekWire,
Sept. 21, 2016
Three universities and scores of other
educational programs stand to benefit from $6 million in grants from the Boeing
Co. – a bonanza that’s designed to boost
the company’s future workforce in Washington state.
Grants totaling
$1 million are going to the University of Washington, Washington State
University and Seattle University. The other $5 million will be divvied up
among about 50 nonprofit groups and educational institutions across the state.
Boeing said some of the largest grants
will support Thrive Washington,
which focuses on early learning; Washington STEM and its K-12 learning initiative;
and SkillUp Washington, which partners with community and technical
colleges on training for manufacturing
jobs.
The grants focus on STEM
education – science, technology, engineering and math – as well as workforce training, …
Bill McSherry,
vice president of government relations and global corporate citizenship for
Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said his company sees the grants as a long-range
investment in its own future.
“Our goal with
these grants and contributions is to make
sure that it’s Washington students who are
getting the skills they need to fill the jobs that we know are going to
come open at Boeing and the aerospace industry,” McSherry explained.
Colorado Unveils $9.5M
Youth Apprenticeship Program
Jenny
Brundin, Colorado Public Radio, Sept. 14, 2016
Colorado
took a major step in building a locally grown workforce on Wednesday by
launching a youth apprenticeship program modeled after one in Switzerland.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez was in Denver for the
announcement, which he says
makes Colorado a national leader at
transforming the way students move from high school into careers. "You’re going to have a lot of other
states wanting to come and visit you to figure out what you’re doing,"
Perez said.
The
apprenticeships of old were a way for young people to learn the
trades, like plumbing or welding. Traditionally trades companies would
train a young worker teaching them skills and then give them a job. But nowadays, countries like Switzerland use apprenticeship programs to fill jobs
in a bunch of areas – like finance, IT, engineering, and the biomedical
sciences.
"I am
confident this is going to be something
where you’re going to stimulate your economy," he said.
*2071 update –
In
fact, by 2027 1/3rd of our high school students were in
apprenticeship programs; 2/3 by 2040; and 100% by 2050. Last year (2070) most
3rd and 4th graders were in apprenticeship programs!
This year –2nd graders too!
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The program will
start next fall. Students in 11th grade
could spend up to three days a week at a company. The other two days they’re in
high school, getting the core classes in other areas that they need to
graduate. They’d also get paid for their time with the company and graduate
with some college credit. The goal for
2027 is to have one in 10 high school students in an apprentice program. (*See box.) Denver Public Schools has already laid the groundwork for an
apprenticeship program. This summer as
part of the district’s CareerConnect program, 7,000 kids participated in
internships in various technical fields. It was meant to be a stepping
stone to the apprenticeship program that the
district will pilot next fall across industries: information technology,
healthcare, advanced manufacturing and business and finance.
Students will get
paid, get trained, and by the time
they graduate high school, they will have earned half of a bachelor’s degree.
OPINION - “Giving Colorado’s youth the skills and education to
succeed”
By John Hickenlooper, Michael R.
Bloomberg and Jamie Dimon, Denver Post,
Sept. 14, 2016
… the economic future for young
Coloradans. Less than one in four students entering high school today will
obtain a college degree or post-secondary credential. Yet, college or formal training beyond high school is needed
for nearly nine out of 10 good, well-paying jobs.
“We
are in the process of building a real pipeline of talent that goes from the
school, the campus directly to the workplace,” Gov. John Hickenlooper said at
the kickoff event.
|
In
response to this, businesses, along with the public sector, are launching an
innovative statewide youth apprenticeship program called CareerWise Colorado.
These apprenticeships will provide high school students paid work
experience to gain essential skills in high-growth industries…
Bloomberg
Philanthropies and JPMorgan Chase are together investing $9.5 million in this
new business-led initiative, which will
prepare high school students for careers that both have growth potential
and pay a good wage. The funding will also support an ongoing, successful pilot
through Denver Public Schools’ CareerConnect and other districts statewide to equip students with the skills they need to
succeed.
Beginning
next fall, high school juniors
statewide will be able to choose apprenticeships that place them directly into paid, meaningful and productive positions
with committed employers. These employers will see them through three years
of training and prepare them
directly for good careers or, if they choose, to continue their education.
Students
will spend up to half of their time
on-site with employers while still earning credit toward high school
graduation and post-secondary credentials. A
third year of apprenticeship experience will further prepare students to enter
the workforce directly or continue their education — supported by the wages
they have earned along the way.
Colorado's 2016 workforce-development package now fully signed into law
Ed Sealover, Denver Business Journal, June 7, 2016
“Colorado
has thousands of good, high-paying jobs that require applicants who are well
educated and trained,” crowed Patricia Levesque, CEO of
the Florida-based Foundation for Excellence in Education about that bill …. “By rewarding schools for students who earn
an industry-recognized credential, and possibly for completing internships and
apprenticeships as well, Colorado is creating opportunities for its
students while laying the groundwork for
a more competitive workforce in the future.”
Gov. signs jobs bill to help high school
students get better prepared for workplace
John
Pompia, The Pueblo Chieftain, May 27,
2016
It’s a crucial
piece of this year’s jobs package, a bill that creates an incentives-based
pilot program that helps provide high
school students looking to enter the working world with the proper tools,
thereby creating a stronger and more
competitive workforce.
HB16-1289 —
Incentives to Complete Career Development Courses — will provide financial
incentives for school districts and charter schools to encourage high schoolers
to earn an industry certification tied to an in-demand job, finish a rigorous workplace training program tied
to key industry needs or successfully complete a computer science advance
placement course.
“Seventy percent
of our kids, not just in Colorado but across the country, aren’t going to get a college degree,”
Hickenlooper told the gallery. “I think it makes sense to do things like this
and provide some motivation and incentives for kids that don’t want to go to
college. Let them get out there earlier and begin to taste what it’s like to
work.”
The bill, he
added, will give a boost to schools “to
provide that kind of training that allows them to get skills specifically
directed toward work.”
“And it doesn’t
just have to be trades. I think ultimately this kind of a program will adapt itself
to the insurance industry,
the banking industry, all kinds of places.”
High school overhaul: New Virginia
plan all-in on job training in junior, senior years
Travis
Fain, Daily Press, April 4, 2016
Virginia high
school is going to look different for the freshmen who enroll in 2018.
Even the idea of high school will be different, according to architects of a plan that the
State Board of Education will flesh out over the next two years.
Many core classes
will be taught in those first two years. Then students will have a choice: A
path to a four-year college degree, preparations for a two-year community
college degree or the chance to leave high school with a certification that
says they're ready to go to work in one
of several industries, with the options
based partly on what local businesses say they need from the workforce.
Internships and
apprenticeships will be worth credit toward high school graduation. The push to emphasize job skills in high
school, already well underway on the Peninsula and around the state, will accelerate.
"This is a
game changer," said state Sen. John Miller, who carried legislation this
session laying out the basics of what he called a "very substantial redesign."
Two
Colorado districts' ideas of how school should work
Scott
Laband, Guest Column, The Denver Post,
March 4, 2016
At
Colorado Succeeds - a coalition of business leaders committed to improving our
state's education system - we want our
students to receive an education that prepares them for our workforce and
provides them with the skills to help our economy thrive. We work to shine
a light on disruptive innovation so it spreads to other schools. …
Another
district worth recognizing is St. Vrain Valley, which makes education relevant to both students and local industry by
connecting them in meaningful ways. The district created and hired a
director of innovation, Patty Quinones, and focused education on STEM. …
P-TECH,
developed in association with IBM in New York City, came to Colorado last year
and both Falcon and St. Vrain will open the state's first P-TECH schools for
the 2016-17 academic year. P-TECH brings mentoring
from local businesses, industry certifications in relevant skills and
internships at local firms. It's a program that often leads to job
opportunities, either before or after college, because companies and
students become so connected. At St. Vrain,
high school kids can earn $10 an hour working on projects for local businesses.
Even kindergarteners can tour local
businesses to see with their own eyes what the future might hold for them.
What’s cooking at Fruita
High
Katie Langford, The
Daily Sentinel, Feb.12, 2016
Students
at Fruita Monument and Palisade high schools who love the food service and
hospitality industries are receiving a much needed funding boost for
technology, competitions, professional experience and college credit.
ProStart
is a high school hospitality education
program focused on equipping students for jobs or further education in
restaurants, hotels or other businesses.
The
$340,000 grant from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment will
benefit ProStart programs at 29 Colorado
high schools as well as start new programs at four high schools.
Students
who take ProStart classes come away with tangible
and immediately applicable skills, said Mary Mino, state director of
ProStart and president of the Colorado
Restaurant Foundation Education Association. “It’s a program that delivers industry right into the classroom,
and what that means to a student is that industry
is providing them with real employability skills,” Mino said. “If they walk right out of our program and
into a business establishment, they will walk in with all the skills to get a
job. Everything from a how-to interview to skills for the front of house or
back of house in a restaurant or the front desk of a hotel.”
Starting
with fall 2016 classes, students in FMHS ProStart can earn between 12 and 15
college credits from Western Colorado Community College and Metropolitan State
University.
Effort aims to turn
Yampah Mountain High into a 'super school'
John Stroud, Post Independent, Feb. 6, 2016
Yampah
Mountain High School, an alternative high school in Glenwood Springs serving
students from Aspen to Parachute, is being proposed for a $10 million national
21st Century Super Schools grant.
Yampah
Mountain High School in Glenwood Springs is being pitched for a huge national
grant designating it as a model for what
high school education should be in preparing 21st century students for life and
career….
*2071 Update –
“Archaic.” Exactly. Tragic that it
took us so long to see this. But kudos to the brave pioneers, like Chuluun,
who led us down a better path—preparing our kids for jobs!
|
Altai
Chuluun, founder of the young professionals group GlenX, is spearheading the
effort along with Yampah school leaders and the valleywide Cradle to Career
initiative. “Kids learn best when they
can focus on what they are passionate about and what they are good at doing,”
Chuluun said. “Education should be about helping
students develop skills early and teaching them how to make a viable career out
of it.” “I think a lot of people
agree that the current school system is lacking in a lot of ways in preparing students, and is based on some
very archaic* purposes.” http://www.postindependent.com/news/20454318-113/effort-aims-to-turn-yampah-mountain-high-into
$1.5 billion helping career pathways take off in California's high schools
Fermin Leale, EdSource, Jan. 26, 2015
The program, the only one of its kind in the
state, is part of a career technical education boom across California. As
record numbers of high school students are applying to state colleges and
universities, more are
also receiving hands-on training in high-demand technical careers even
before they earn their diplomas. The students, many beginning in the 9th
grade, are in career pathways learning
job skills alongside professionals in fields including aviation, health
care, civil engineering, fashion design, tourism and new media.
“From a
historical perspective, it’s great that there is such an investment in career
technical education,” said Stephanie Houston, president of the California
Association of Regional Occupational Centers and Programs. “If we invest in a trained workforce, the
jobs will come. So the areas that better develop the pipeline are the ones that are going to have a thriving economy,” she said.
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2014
Metro
State curriculum is set to take off (see related story in 2013)
Laura Keeney, The Denver Post, Nov. 13, 2014
Metropolitan
State University of Denver is combining aerospace science and aviation,
industrial design, engineering, computer sciences and physics study into a
multidisciplinary advanced manufacturing curriculum designed to train the next generation of Colorado aerospace workers.
And
they’re doing it by working hand in hand with several of the state’s aerospace
and aviation giants, such as Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Jeppeson
Aviation.
“This is focused on the workforce. We’re
moving in to fill a niche that hasn’t been filled yet,” Metro State president
Stephen Jordan said.
Got
skills?
Schumpter, The
Economist, Aug. 23, 2014
Vocation, vocation, vocation - In a new
e-book Clayton Christensen, of Harvard Business School, and Michelle Weise, of
the Christensen Institute, argue that this presages a revolution: students will
be able to take courses that provide
them with essential skills quickly and cheaply. The great disrupter of
higher education will not be MOOCs (massive online open courses), they insist:
these mostly focus on delivering standard academic education over the internet
and suffer from drop-out rates of up to 95%. Rather, it will be a new approach
to learning which makes plenty of use of the internet but ties education more closely to work….
Governance,
Policy Feuds Roil Indiana k-12 Landscape
Andrew Ujifusa, Education Week, March 21, 2014
Looming Issues
(Gov. Mike Pence) last August created a new
agency, the Center for Education and Career Innovation, to foster greater cohesion between public schools, job training, and the
workforce.
Claire Fiddian-Green, the governor's special
assistant for education innovation, who leads the CECI, said (State
Superintendent Glenna) Ritz and Gov. Pence have developed a close partnership
to promote and support "works
councils" throughout the state to
improve regional career and technical education.
2071
Update - Historians will note how Pence was indeed “blazing a trail” in
2014. The nation was soon to follow
once he led a bipartisan initiative that made career and tech prep a priority.
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Blazing a Trail?
…
Ms. Fiddian-Green, the aide to Gov. Pence, said Indiana gets "a lot of
questions" from other states about the CECI's approach to workforce
development.
STEM
Academy's Reach Spans Illinois
Liana
Heitin, Education Week, Feb.
19, 2014
The
Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy was established nearly three decades
ago as an independent, state-run agency with two legislative charges: to offer
a challenging education for students gifted in Stem and to "stimulate
further excellence for all Illinois schools in mathematics and science." The goal was essentially an economic one—to
prepare a workforce of engineers, researchers, and computer programmers
that could serve Illinois.
Governors Pitch Early Education, Workforce Development Ideas
Training
students in the skills that industry needs and
expanding early childhood education could be the big winners in state funding
this year if governors get their way. After years of cuts to education,
governors are presenting lawmakers with long wish lists for schools.
WORKFORCE
SKILLS
Several governors pitched proposals or
expansions of existing programs to train
students in skills that are in demand. Their ideas include linking colleges
with private industry, providing scholarships or free tuition for community
college students and encouraging students to pursue science, technology,
engineering and math studies.
South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard said he will
spend at least $8.5 million to fund grants to help K-12 schools strengthen career and technical education
programs. These programs "are very closely aligned with our state's workforce needs from
welding and machining, to health care and information technology, to
engineering and biosciences," Daugaard said.
… fellow Republican state Sen. Ryan Maher said
it was encouraging to see some of the career and technical education issues he
and others have been working on for years get some attention. "It's nice
to see the governor step up and put some money toward those programs that are
so vitally important to our students," Maher told Dakota Radio Group. "I know we've heard from a lot of
businesses across the state that there is a skilled workforce shortage out
there, so hopefully this will help remedy some of those problems and help
get some of that new technology into our school systems."
Obama Uses Address to Push K-12
Agenda
Feb. 5, 2014
High
School Improvement and Worker Training - "We're working to redesign high schools and partner them with
colleges and employers that offer the real-world education and hands-on
training that can lead directly to a job and career." http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/02/05/20address.h33.html
Skills and youth - All
hands on deck
The Economist, Jan. 18, 2014
…
That reflects a mismatch between what
education systems provide and what employers need. Mechanisation and technological advances
mean the next generation will have to be better prepared for work. … The real shortage is of the right skills,
rather than of jobs.
Improving
matters means ditching the outdated
notion that education happens first and employment later, says Mona
Mourshed of McKinsey. Educators need to
get employers involved in course design, teaching and assessment, she says,
as well as in tracking and learning from the future career paths of students.
Switzerland offers careers advice and work experience to pupils as young as 12….
New
approaches will have to acknowledge young people’s worries about the cost of education. Some firms have
started to look for potential rather than polished new hires, and to sponsor the education of the most
promising. In Charlotte, North Carolina, Apprenticeship 2000 provides training courses for industry in fields
such as machine technology; employers
pay the fees, help to write the
curriculum—and guarantee a job afterwards.
2013
Metro State
University of Denver seeks to boost aerospace program
Anthony Cotton, The Denver Post, Aug. 28, 2013
Metro
has been reaching out to the industry, including Lockheed, to help determine
the scope of the curriculum — whether an advanced manufacturing program would
include a business component, or perhaps even accounting.
The
idea, said Joan Foster, dean of Metro’s School of Letters, Arts and Sciences,
and co-chair of the building committee, is to wed the critical thinking found
in traditional education with training
tailored towards specific jobs and skill sets.
“Someone
may want to be in the field but not take a straight industrial track,” she
said, “and the technology is changing so much anyway that we need to train students to be able to adapt to whatever may come
next in the field.”
[Joe
Rice, the director of government relations for Lockheed Martin, said the
company] “is intrigued” by Metro’s project and hopes to continue conversations
about partnering with the school. “Sometimes a research engineer may design a
part but can’t actually build it,” he said. “Possibly there’s room in the
middle where Metro could provide the
training for workers in an area that doesn’t currently exist.”
Back
to School: Colleges offer more help with career prep
Beth
Harpaz, Associated Press News Fuze,
July 18, 2013
While
some top-tier schools can still attract students by promising self-discovery
and intellectual pursuits, many colleges
have changed their emphasis in the years since the recession hit. Instead
of “Follow your passion,” the mantra has become more like, “We’ll help you get a job.”
Schools
have revamped career centers, expanded internship programs and pushed alumni to
serve as mentors. The changes are not only in response to a tough job market,
but because parents are demanding that
graduates be prepared for the workplace.
Detroit Training
Center, April 23, 2013
… With a conference room filled with educators,
business leaders and students, we set out to understand how we can best assist in closing the gap between the business sector,
education sector and students.
The major goal of the Education Summit was to
find better ways to match supply and demand in the state. The day kicked off with a panel of students
who spoke on what high school didn’t teach them about real world careers. Later, business leaders identified key
weaknesses that were selected from last month’s Economic Summit, where the
private sector and education system must work together to solve (including): Better
connectivity between businesses, education and talent.
The major
highlights that came from the breakout session include: “Instead of having to
retrain the workforce, let’s build systems within K-12 to give students all
their career options before leaving the first time.”
What is the
Detroit Training Center doing … ? We train our students knowing that there is a job in mind and that they
will have an employable license, certificate or skill-set that nearly
guarantees them a job in this economic climate. We can also identify greater
opportunities within our K-12 system for ushering students into our programs
and helping them to become train [sic] and employed post-graduation.
More
Colorado high schools cooking up recipe for culinary success
Kevin Simpson, The Denver Post, April 29, 2013
WESTMINSTER
— Valerie Baylie announced the menu specials at the kitchens in Room 235 of
Standley Lake High School: Top-loin steak with red-wine sauce; sweet Hawaiian
mini-burgers; beef, pepper and mushroom kabobs; and Szechuan beef stir-fry.
…
the program at Standley Lake, mirroring others across the state powered by industry partners, enjoys
wide popularity as culinary classes ride a wave of pop culture cachet and
economic opportunity.
Here,
students learn the basics of cooking and nutrition before moving on to more
complex culinary feats and the management process of costing out meals,
restaurant-style, to determine their price points. Introductory classes lead to participation in
something called ProStart, a national program that offers curriculum,
competitions and industry mentors through the Colorado Restaurant Association Education Foundation.
ProStart now reaches 29 Colorado high
schools and about 850 students. Some couple their academic efforts with
400 hours of paid work in the industry
to earn a national certificate that can translate into college credit and
scholarship opportunities.
Grant
Contest to Aid High Schools Still Work in Progress
Alyson Klein, Education Week, Feb. 27, 2013
Proponents
of better aligning high school improvement, postsecondary education, and the
workforce have high hopes for President Barack Obama's recent proposal to
create a Race to the Top-style competitive-grant program specifically for
secondary education.
Mr.
Obama in his Feb. 12 State of the Union speech floated the idea of offering a
new competitive-grant program for high school improvement that could help schools partner with businesses and
postsecondary institutions.
High
school graduation rates have been steadily rising, but there's a "missing
middle" when it comes to the
connections between postsecondary education and the workplace, Mr. Phillip Lovell
(vice president for advocacy at the Alliance for
Excellent Education) said.
*2071
Update–The transition was under way.
Formerly known as “schools,” then “career academies,” now career
training centers.
|
The
administration has also floated a similar, $8 billion to help community colleges partner with businesses to revamp their own
training programs.
Career Connections
Andrew
Rothstein, the special adviser to the National Academy Foundation in New York
City, which operates more than 500 "career
academies"* across the country that offer students opportunities to gain hands-on workplace experience, sees
a lot of potential in the high school improvement competition.
Fiscal
Realities Dog States
Andre Ujifusa, Education
Week, Jan. 16, 2013
The
best strategies to forge stronger
connections between education and states’ economies during lingering budget
difficulties is “the question of the day”
for many states,” Delaware Gov. Jack Markell said in the first “State of the
States” address on behalf of the National Governors Association ….
2071 Update – “Training pipeline”
Our research found some dissidents at the
time “appalled” at this phrase. Even “school-to-work opportunities” exasperated
a few. No more. We have a seamless
system now. In 2025 the Colorado Legislature
officially renamed the state’s 2,250 “school buildings,” as they were still known,
Career Training Centers.
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On
the issue of links between education and the workforce, [Gov. Mary] Fallin said
Oklahoma lawmakers are examining the extent to which degrees and certificates match what the actual needs in the labor market
are, and also trying to ensure that a high school diploma signifies that graduates have certain useful skills in the
economy. Markell asked that federal
lawmakers restore the 15 percent of federal funding in the Workforce Investment
Act that can be used at the discretion of states, for example, to set up a “training pipeline” between
public schools and manufacturing jobs.
State
of the States – summaries of annual addresses by governors - NEW HAMPSHIRE
Gov.
Maggie Hassan (D), Jan. 3, 2013
In
her inaugural address at her swearing-in ceremony, Gov. Maggie Hassan noted a
desire to reverse course on spending cuts affecting education over the past few
years. "It hurt our young people and, if not quickly addressed, will
impair our future economic prosperity," she said in prepared remarks.
Ms.
Hassan, the daughter of educators and the wife of the head of Phillips Exeter
Academy, a private, college-preparatory school, applauded the state's community college system for its adaptation
to the needs of New Hampshire residents who choose paths other than traditional
universities. "We must continue to support
their efforts to build the strong workforce that our businesses need,"
she said.
2012
Study
Pinpoints Educator-Employer Disconnects
“Education
to Employment: Designing a System That Works”
Sarah D. Sparks, Education Week, Dec. 12, 2012
Despite efforts to improve
college and career readiness, students, educators, and employers around the
world still largely exist in "parallel worlds," never really aligning
the skills students learn in class with the ones they need after graduation,
according to a new study by the McKinsey Center for Government. …
Effective training
programs around the world had two common traits, the study found. First, educators and employers worked together
with businesspeople helping to design curricula and place students in
internships. Second, teachers and
employers worked with students "early and intensely" to prepare them
for a job. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/12/12/14report-b1.h32.html
If
You’ve Got the Skills, She’s Got the Job
Thomas L. Freidman, The New York Times, Nov. 18, 2012
RACI
TAPANI is not your usual C.E.O. For the last 19 years, she and her sister have
been co-presidents of Wyoming Machine, a sheet metal company they inherited
from their father in Stacy, Minn.
…
“we solved the problem by training
our own people,” said Tapani, adding that while schools are trying hard, training your own workers is often
the only way for many employers to adapt to “the quick response time” demanded
for “changing skills.”…
Many
community colleges and universities simply can’t keep pace and teach to the new
skill requirements, especially with
their budgets being cut. We need a new “Race to the Top” that will hugely incentivize businesses to embed workers in
universities to teach — and universities to embed professors inside
businesses to learn — so we get a much
better match between schooling and the job markets….
Eduardo
Padrón, the president of Miami Dade College, the acclaimed pioneer in education-for-work, [stated]: “The skill shortage is real…. The big
issue in America is not the fiscal deficit, but the deficit in understanding about education and the role
it plays in the knowledge economy.”
Putting
Brands to Work for Public Schools
Commentary, Education Week, Nov. 7, 2012
Mickey Freeman, President, and CEO of
Education Funding Partners (based in Golden, Colorado)
2071
Update - The ever-growing role of businesses in schools was apparent by 2012.
Happily, it never stopped. By 2040 or
2045, men and women calling themselves “educators” were largely eliminated.
We are pleased now to see our Career Training Centers are designed and run by
the business community—to whom they are accountable.
|
Today,
leading corporations have an unprecedented opportunity to shape the future of their workforces and enhance the economic
security of the United States through marketing sponsorships in public school
districts. The confluence of market conditions and corporate community-investment
programs, along with inspired marketing initiatives, has given rise to
more-sophisticated programs that allow
companies to invest in areas that matter to both corporate survival and the
nation's success.
It's a critical period in American education—and a
strategic, well-orchestrated, and broad approach is required to support public
education at its time of greatest need. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/11/07/11freeman.h32.html
The
Economy's New Rules: Go Global
Rana ,
Time, Aug. 20, 2012
2071
Update – The United States was indeed slow to catch up with other countries
in establishing an industrial policy dependent on our K-12 Career Training Centers.
But by 2030 we had made this a priority.
Today we celebrate our current status as the number one country in the
world devoting the entire K-12 system to job training.
|
"Manufacturing
is thriving in China, Germany, Sweden and Singapore only because their governments set up specific vocational
institutes to prepare workers for new industries,"
wrote Kishore Mahbubani, head of the Lee
Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, in a Financial
Times op-ed. "China has rapidly overtaken the U.S. in green technology
because of a coordinated national response, not because Chinese businesses
alone invested in green technology."…
In
the U.S., industrial policy remains a third-rail notion…
Aurora
‘Pathways’ students get head start
Rebecca Jones, Chalkbeat Colorado, April 27, 2012
Lt.
Gov. Joe Garcia praised the district for advancing the notion of “P-20”
education, shorthand for an integrated education system that extends from
preschool through graduate school. In
Aurora, students can start taking career pathways classes as early as
elementary school.
“Colorado
does have a national reputation as a leader in P-20, and Aurora is one of the
leading districts in the state in demonstrating what’s possible,” he said. “Schools need to partner with the business
community so we’re not just handing kids off, not knowing if they’re really prepared to be successful in the
workforce.”
Overhaul
Proposed for Career, Tech. Ed. Program
Alyson
Klein, Education Week, April 24, 2012
The
largest federal program for high schools—the Carl D. Perkins Career and
Technical Education program—would get a major makeover under a proposal
unveiled by the U.S. Department of Education last week. The proposal outlines
the administration's vision for reauthorizing the Perkins law, which was funded
at $1.14 billion in fiscal 2012. The Obama administration is seeking to ensure
the program, last reauthorized in 2006, does a better job of preparing students to join the labor market. The
administration also wants to boost
collaboration among high school programs, postsecondary institutions, and
business partners.
…
The idea is to make "business and
industry really feel like they have some skin in the game," said
Brenda Dann-Messier, the assistant secretary for the office of vocational and
adult education….
The
proposal would also give states a bigger
role in deciding what sort of career and technical education programs get
funded, by empowering them to pinpoint "high growth" jobs and
industries on which to focus Perkins dollars. And it calls for diverting 10
percent of Perkins funds to a new, competitive "innovation" fund to improve career and technical programs at
the state and federal levels.
Workforce
projections bill gets Hickenlooper’s signature
BizWest Staff, BizWest, April 2, 2012
DENVER – Gov. John Hickenlooper has signed into law a bill that
seeks to help colleges offer courses
that align with the job market. The
law will direct state agencies to report on projections of Colorado’s workforce needs. … Using the information, schools can
determine what jobs are in demand and companies can learn more about
educational programs. The bill could help students make informed decisions
about jobs and colleges adjust to job market changes.
“I am very pleased to have this bill signed that will ensure we have an education system more in
tune with the marketplace and a workforce better trained for the jobs that are
in demand,” state Rep. Daniel Kagan, D-Englewood, said in a statement.
“This bill will connect Coloradans with training
and education for jobs in need, and that’s something that is crucial in
continuing to grow Colorado’s economy.”
Johns
Hopkins Forges Ed. Industry Partnership
Jason Tomassini, Education Week, March 7, 2012
The
Johns Hopkins University School of Education and the Education Industry
Association, a trade group, are partnering to develop curriculum, research, and
business-development programs around education
entrepreneurship. The goal is to help prepare
the next generation of business leaders in education and improve the
relationship between the public and private sectors, leaders of the two
entities said.
2071
Update – Looking back we now see when universities began to transform the
very purpose of “higher education.” Once that conversion took place, the K-12
system soon followed.
|
"We
have to leverage every sector of the [education] business,"
Henry
Smith, the executive director of the office of partnerships for educational transformation at Johns
Hopkins, said in an interview.
"There's a $4 billion business here
that's been ignored by the education industry. We are no longer ignoring
it."
Rural
Students – “Designing Connections Between Science Content and Future Careers”
Diette Courrege, Report Roundup, Education Week, Feb. 1, 2012
2071
Update – Yes, research on the value of the school-to-career work was
primitive back then. Still, no matter how paltry the data, such studies helped
make the case: focus on jobs!
|
Purposeful
field trips can be a good way of helping at-risk rural high school students connect the classroom to the real world,
according to a new study.
Published
in the fall issue of The Rural Educator, the peer-reviewed publication of the
National Rural Education Association, the study was conducted in Texas, where
some high school science courses require students to be able to link the content they're learning with
future jobs or training.
From
a pool of 37 high school seniors in a small, rural Texas high school, the
researchers focused on four low-performing students who could not make the kind
of classroom-to-real-world connections required by the state. After a
career-focused field trip to a nearby vocational training center, however, all four could articulate a content-career
connection.
White
House Panel Hammering Home Jobs, Education Ties
Alyson
Klein, Education Week, Jan. 25, 2012
…
a report released last week by the White House Jobs Council, a group of
business and labor leaders and academics tasked with making long-term
recommendations to improve the nation's
economic future [made several recommendations, including:]
…
providing clear performance data for all educational institutions and improving
education in the stem subjects of science, technology, engineering, and math.
The
recommendations may sound familiar, but come from a unique set of individuals
asking a new set of questions, said Michael Parr, a senior manager of federal
affairs for the DuPont Company. Its chief executive officer, Ellen Kullman,
served on the commission, as did Penny Pritzker, the chairwoman of the board of
TransUnion and the chairwoman and CEO of Pritzker Realty Group.
Mr.
Parr said the group examined how
education fits into the nation's long-term economic health. "It isn't
just about whether your kid beats a kid in Finland on a math score, but whether the U.S. economy will have the
tools it needs to thrive" over the long haul, he said.
U.S. Department of Education – 2012
2071 Update – Today’s U.S.
Department of Workforce Development still uses this one meaningful phrase
from the mission statement of the long-since eliminated Education
Department. A phrase that shows,
almost 50 years, even “educators” in the nation’s capital were beginning to
see the light.
|
Mission
ED's mission is to promote student achievement
and preparation for global
competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal
access.
https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/mission/mission.html
End main text AV#156
Addendum
There were dissenting voices. Over time, they
were silenced. For the record, a few examples.
From 2016
Is education's foremost mission to
train the state's workforce?
Steven Fesmire, Letter to the
Editor, Education Week, Jan. 20, 2016
Is education's foremost mission to train the
state's workforce? Or is it to help us improve our lives? It's the former,
according to the industrial model implicit in much of the United States'
current educational policies. In that model, education is just another
industrial sector with the job of manufacturing skilled labor.
Educators
in the United States have yielded the driver's seat to this industrial outlook
without giving it enough thought. Doing so keeps many educational leaders and
policymakers from making decisions that further their own values and their
students' needs.
America's existing economic infrastructure
is partially to blame for our many social, economic, environmental, and
geopolitical problems. If there is cause
for optimism in education, however, it is that so few people would choose an
educational career that requires training students merely to fit the
predetermined roles required by the status quo. Instead, we, as educators, hope
our students will participate in the intelligent redirection of society.
It is true that a healthy economy is a
public good. It is equally true that this good is not served when students,
educators, and policymakers treat each other chiefly as servants to the business-as-usual workaday world of adults.
It serves the public good when our various professions, occupations, leisure
activities, and on-the-ground pursuits are energized by educational
institutions that are cultures of imagination and growth, regardless of their
diverse aims and emphases.
Every child should have the opportunity for
an education that fronts growth, emotional development, imaginative engagement,
aesthetic vitality, responsibility, and care. Let us hope that this idea still
has the power to adjust the attitudes and practices of those determining
educational policies.
Steven
Fesmire, Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies, Green Mountain
College
Poultney,
Vt.
Forcing college
kids to ignore the liberal arts won't help them in a competitive economy.
Steven Pearlstein, The Washington Post, Sept. 2, 2016 (excerpts)
This focus on college
as job training reflects not only a misreading of the data on jobs and pay, but
also a fundamental misunderstanding of the way labor markets work, the way
careers develop and the purpose of higher education….
For me, there’s nothing more depressing than
meeting incoming freshmen at Mason who have declared themselves as accounting
majors. They’re 18 years old, they haven’t had a chance to take a course in
Shakespeare or evolutionary biology or the history of economic thought, and
already they’ve decided to devote the rest of their lives to accountancy. It’s worth remembering that at American
universities, the original rationale for majors was not to train students for
careers. Rather, the idea was that after a period of broad intellectual
exploration, a major was supposed to
give students the experience of mastering one subject, in the process
developing skills such as discipline, persistence, and how to research,
analyze, communicate clearly and think logically.
As it happens, those are precisely the
skills business executives still say they want from college graduates —
although, to be fair, that has not always been communicated to their
human-resource departments or the computers they use to sort through résumés.
A study for the Association of
American Colleges and Universities found that 93 percent of employers agreed
that a “demonstrated capacity to think
critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important
than [a job candidate’s] undergraduate major.”…
In today’s fast-changing global economy, the
most successful enterprises aren’t looking for workers who know a lot about
only one thing. They are seeking employees who are nimble, curious and
innovative. … The good jobs of the future will go to those who can collaborate
widely, think broadly and challenge conventional wisdom—precisely the
capacities that a liberal arts education is meant to develop….
So here’s what I’d say
to parents who, despite all the evidence, still believe that liberal arts
majors waste four years contemplating the meaning of life: At least those
passionate kids won’t make the mistake of confusing the meaning of life with
maximizing lifetime income.
For
the Sake of Humanity, Teach the Humanities
Liberal arts education is
essential to good citizenship
Jim Haas, Commentary, Education Week, Nov. 14, 2016 (excerpts)
Vartan Gregorian, the
president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, has spoken of liberal
education as "the soul of democracy" because it prepares students to
"appreciate the difference between earning a living and actually living;
to cultivate more than a passing familiarity with ethics, history, science, and
culture; and to perceive the tragic chasm between the world as it is and the
world as it could and ought to be."
Our hearts would sing
more joyfully in a political climate tempered by the humanities with their
abiding themes of constructive citizenship and commitment to the common good.
As W. Taylor Revely IV, the president of Longwood University, observed to The New Yorker recently: "Over the past two generations, the idea of
education being about teaching people how to engage in public affairs has been
lost. At one point, the core curriculum at the college level was focused
on: How do you get ready to be an active citizen in America? How do we make
democracy endure? Today, education is
almost exclusively thought of in terms of career preparation. That's what we've
lost."
The humanities—central to
our cultural heritage—are not inborn and must be taught anew for each
generation. Let's get on with it.
The big threat
on campus
By Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg View, Dec. 5, 2016
Robert P. George and Cornel West, both
professors at Princeton, are a political odd couple.
For several years they have been teaching a
class together — titled “Adventures in Ideas” and exploring the thought of
writers from Plato and St. Augustine to John Dewey and C.S. Lewis — and holding
public discussions around the country.
A few days ago, I moderated a conversation
between them at the American Enterprise Institute … on the purpose of the
liberal arts.
One thing that surprised me about our panel,
though, was how little they dwelt on political correctness and how much they talked about another threat to the
liberal arts: the tendency to view higher education purely in terms of its
economic benefits. “Our age is an age of the celebration and valorization
of wealth, power, influence, status, prestige,” George said. “Those things are
not bad in themselves, but they easily and all too often become the competition
for leading an examined life.”
And it is the examined life that both George
and West view as the purpose of a
liberal-arts education. Its goal, that is, is to encourage critical reflection on the biggest questions; to lead us
into an intellectual engagement that fulfills our nature as thinking beings; to
help us achieve self-mastery; to enlarge our souls. It is, of course,
possible to pursue these goals without going to college, but institutions of
higher education are (or should be) dedicated to them in a special way. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-05/the-biggest-threat-on-campus
From previous years
Character-Building
Beats Out Economy-Building as Goal
Catherine
Gewertz, News in Brief, Education
Week, Feb. 26, 2014
… Americans rank ‘building character’ above
bolstering the economy when asked to name the most important long-term goals of
K-12 education.
A survey of 6,400 voters, conducted by the advocacy
group 50CAN, found that twice as many respondents chose character-building as
those who chose "a healthy economy." Respondents also ranked building
character above building independence and leadership, creating a lifelong love
of learning, providing equal opportunities, helping people become good
citizens, and providing "self-fulfillment."
The Heart of the Matter, a report of the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
2013 (excerpts)
The humanities remind us where
we have been and help us envision where we are going. Emphasizing critical
perspective and imaginative response, the humanities—including the study of
languages, literature, history, film, civics, philosophy, religion, and the
arts—foster creativity, appreciation of our commonalities and our differences,
and knowledge of all kinds…. We must recognize that all disciplines are
essential for the inventiveness, competitiveness, security, and personal
fulfillment of the American public.
At the very moment when China
and some European nations are seeking to replicate our model of broad education
in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences—as a stimulus to
innovation and a source of social cohesion—we
are instead narrowing our focus and abandoning our sense of what education has
been and should continue to be—our sense of what makes America great.
We live in a world
characterized by change—and therefore a world dependent on the humanities and
social sciences. How do we understand and manage change if we have no notion of
the past? How do we understand ourselves if we have no notion of a society, a
culture, or a world different from the one in which we live? How do we ensure
our security and competitiveness in the global community? A fully balanced
curriculum—including the humanities, social sciences, and natural
sciences—provides opportunities for integrative thinking and imagination, for
creativity and discovery, and for good citizenship. The humanities and social
sciences are not merely elective, nor are they elite or elitist. They go beyond
the immediate and instrumental to help us understand the past and the future.
They are critical to a democratic society and they require our support.
Bill
Ivey's book: Handmaking America
Barry Hessenius, Barry’s Blog, Oct. 14, 2012
(Ivey) posits that education has become too much
the handmaiden of business and that its purpose shouldn’t focus exclusively on
preparing students for jobs (at least not all office jobs), but that “we must achieve a subtle,
realistic balance between education for craftwork and education for
citizenship.” Sure to
be attacked, if not vilified, as a heretic, he has the courage to discuss how
education has been for some time ‘wrong footed’ in its dedication to math and
science to the exclusion of other pursuits….
College Crisis
Time
Magazine, InBox, Nov. 12, 2012
As a longtime professor, I appreciated your "Reinventing
College" package, with essays by Romney and Obama [Oct. 29].
Unfortunately, both missed the key point
of a college education: to sharpen students' minds so they become
independent thinkers. Both stressed the
importance only of science and engineering to serve the needs of corporations.
If we don't provide equal support for liberal arts and the humanities, who will
uphold and maintain our democracy?
Winberg
Chai, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Wyoming, LARAMIE,
WYO.
Tom
Rollins Receives 2012 Philip Merrill Award
Inside
Academe, vol. XVIII, No. 1, 2012-13 (American Council of Trustees and
Alumni)
Mr. Rollins spoke eloquently on
the importance of the liberal arts—which, he said, are about everything. “The
task of undergraduate education is to pass on what, at great pain, we have
learned over 3,000 years.”
When I Was a Child I Read Books
Marilynne
Robinson, 2012
Lately we
have been told again and again that our educators are not preparing American
youth to be efficient workers. Workers. That language is so common among us now
that an extraterrestrial might think we had actually lost the Cold War.
Education and the Economy – Today’s
Students, Tomorrow’s Workforce?
Another
View #91 - November 2012
This is not the space to make the
counterargument for the liberal arts. It
has been done well in Denver Post
guest commentaries by Colorado College President Jill Tiefanthaler, “In defense
of liberal arts education” (Oct. 24, 2011), and by the University of Denver’s
Tom Farer, “Scrap liberal arts? Think again” (Oct. 21, 2012). Or look to Stefan Collini’s recent book, What Are Universities For?, in which he
asserts: “Society does not educate the next generation in order for them to
contribute to its economy.”
I simply offer a concise statement from St.
John’s College, where I earned my Master’s degree. The Great Books Program—by many standards,
the most impractical degree imaginable.
Not to me.
The best
preparation for the workforce of tomorrow, for the jobs that have yet to be
created, is a liberal education—the kind of education most especially found at
the small residential liberal arts colleges across the country…. Graduates of
the nation’s many fine liberal arts institutions are prepared not only for a
diverse range of careers but for all of life’s challenges and opportunities. … This education provides a fitting foundation
for all pursuits in life. It is of
life-long value.
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