What do you envision when someone says career and technical education? Unfortunately too many people harken back to days gone by of a “shop” with kids who couldn’t cut it in regular academic classes and were destined for low-paying jobs. While that may or may not have been an accurate account in the past, today it could not be further from the truth.
Not only does career and technical education (CTE) demand a strong foundation in academics, but often leads to higher paying jobs that are in greater demand than those held by college graduates with a bachelor’s degree. And CTE isn’t just for one group of students. In 2012-13, almost 70 percent of Kentucky high school students participated in career and technical education.
The goal of Kentucky K-12 public education is to prepare students for life after high school which means readying students for college and/or career. To achieve that goal, there must be viable alternative pathways.
In 2010, Governor Beshear created the Transforming Education in Kentucky Task Force. This group worked to develop recommendations and how to build on the great work of KERA and Senate Bill 1 (2009). One of the key recommendations was to merge the two existing career and technical programs in Kentucky and create a world-class system of career and technical education. Governor Beshear followed up with an Executive Order that moved the state-operated career and technical centers from the Education and Workforce Development Cabinet to the Department of Education. In 2013, the General Assembly passed legislation in support of the Executive Order and created a Career and Technical Education Advisory Committee that includes state and local center teachers and administrators, higher education, and business leaders.
As we began the work of the advisory committee, one of the first actions was to obtain the services of the Southern Region Education Board (SREB) to conduct a study and make recommendations on how to move from two systems of career and technical education to one world-class system of technical centers.
This week, Dr. Gene Bottoms of the SREB presented the report to the Career and Technical Education Advisory Committee and the Kentucky Board of Education. The report includes four major recommendations.
1. Develop one system of technical centers with equitable and
adequate funding for all centers. This recommendation
will require additional study and research in regard to
adequate funding for assessment and accountability, career
pathway programs of study, facilities, equipment, suppliers,
industry certification examinations, salaries and staffing,
and staff development.
2. One system of accountability and support for all technical centers.
This recommendation will require significant work with vision
setting, goal setting, and continuous improvement plans in all
centers.
3. One system of world-class centers. This recommendation requires
us to think differently about state verses local centers. We need
to think about a new governance structure and delivery model
like Delaware, Massachusetts, and other states. The new model
could look like regional technical centers that offer full-day
education that merges academic and technical programs.
This recommendation will require site visits to states where
this delivery model is working well.
4. One system of technical centers in partnership with
postsecondary and industry. This recommendation will require
significant collaboration between business and industry,
postsecondary, feeder high schools, and technical centers.
Next steps include:
• The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) will fund the study
to determine equitable and adequate funding.
• The Office of Career and Technical Education (OCTE) will take
the recommendations from the SREB report and move toward a
work plan to implement the recommendations. Stakeholders
across the state will be involved in reviewing the
recommendations from the SREB report and providing
feedback to OCTE on how best to implement the
recommendations from the report.
• KDE will support travel to other states that have strong regional
centers to discover best practices.
• With funds allocated in the recently passed FY15-16 budget,
KDE will work with five counties to develop a possible model
for a regional center
• Funding provided for additional CTE positions will go toward
restoring positions in technical centers based on the
recommendations from the report.
Kentucky has long experienced success with career and technical education. The SREB report will continue that success. Career and technical education is a critical component of our K-12 education system and is critical to our success in helping every student reach college- and career-readiness.
We will provide regular updates to the Kentucky Board of Education and the Career and Technical Education Advisory Committee on our progress with implementation of the SREB report.
Governor Beshear recently convened a group of business leaders, legislators, educators, and policy makers from across the southern region to study career and technical education. This group was convened under the support of the Southern Region Education Board (SREB) for which Governor Beshear is the chair in 2014. The group will complete its work with a report in late summer. I was excited to be a part of the group since KDE was also conducting a career and technical education study with the support of the Southern Region Education Board.
During a recent meeting, all of the southern region states made presentations about different aspects of career and technical education. We had presentations from national and international leaders. And we received numerous research reports that will inform our final recommendations. One of the reports comes from Anthony Carnevale, one of the most respected researchers in the field of education and workforce, at the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The report is titled “A Decade Behind: Breaking Out of the Low-Skill Trap in the Southern Economy.” I want to share a few of the findings from the report since they will inform eventual recommendations not only for the SREB report but also for the Kentucky specific report.
Jobs will require more technical skills and training beyond high school. By 2020, 66 percent of jobs in the United States will require some postsecondary training. In the Southern Region, the projection is 59 percent and in Kentucky, 54 percent. Unless we do something different, in the south and in Kentucky, we will not have as many well-paying jobs as other states and that will have an impact on our region’s and our state’s economy.
There is a low-wage and low-skill equilibrium in the south and in Kentucky. Supply and demand for skill are balanced with low education and low wage levels. In recent days, this has been exactly the conversation that the Saving Our Appalachian Region (SOAR) initiative has been having in Eastern Kentucky.
How do you break out of the low-wage and low-skill equilibrium? There are two strategies to do this and both strategies must work closely together and develop simultaneously. We can produce more high-skill talent through postsecondary training and we must modernize existing industries and attract new industries that have high-skill and high-wage jobs.
What happens if one comes before the other? If you have more postsecondary talent and few high-skill and high-wage jobs, then you will have a brain drain to other states where the jobs exist. If you have the high-skill and high-wage jobs but the workforce is low-skill, then the business will import talent from other states. This is exactly the pattern that we have seen first with Toyota and in more recent days with General Electric and Ford. Importing talent from other states may help the economy, however, it does not help Kentucky workers land higher paying jobs.
Governor Beshear understands the issues and I feel certain that our General Assembly also understands that the recruitment of high-skill and high-wage jobs requires an equal push to develop a highly skilled workforce. A highly skilled workforce comes through investment in education from early childhood through postsecondary attainment.
I am excited that Governor Beshear’s budget is focused on the competitiveness of Kentucky and his budget priorities are evidenced in his focus on early childhood and K-12 education and economic development (from cradle to career). However, there remains much work to do with investment in postsecondary education and training.
I encourage our lawmakers to look for additional revenue sources to invest in postsecondary education and training.
There are those that will say the time is not right. There are those that will say we must cut in order to live within our means and we cannot raise revenue. However, the message from all of the research, reports, and practical experience of business leaders and policy makers is that we should not be swayed by the false dichotomy of investment versus no revenue.
The long term benefits of investment in education and training will greatly outweigh the short term push back on expanding revenue sources. Kentucky can lead or watch other states soar beyond us. Difficult times require strong leaders who can make tough decisions. Governor Beshear exhibited his strong leadership this week. Now it is up to the General Assembly.
