Strong leadership will let Kentucky soar, not stagnate

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.

Elevating and integrating career and tech ed

In a few weeks, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) will release findings from a study of our career and technical education programs. KDE requested the Southern Region Education Board (SREB) study pursuant to recent legislation that merged the former Office of Career and Technical Education within the Education and Workforce Development Cabinet with our local Carl Perkins programs in the Department of Education. It was important for the department to have an independent outside voice make key findings and recommendations on how to elevate and integrate career and technical education in the Commonwealth. Once we report the findings, we will ask the House and Senate Education chairs to provide time either during session or during the interim period to review the findings and recommendation from the report. 

Why do we want to elevate and integrate career and technical education in Kentucky? The simple answer is that we need to do a better job preparing and advising students for the career options that are available in Kentucky and the United States. While some of these jobs will require 4-year degrees, the vast majority of jobs that pay a living wage require 1-year technical or 2-year associate degrees.

A few years ago, I read a book titled “The Coming Jobs War” by Jim Clifton. Mr. Clifton provides projections that globally, more than 3 billion people are looking for jobs that pay a living wage; there are currently only 1.2 billion such jobs. That leaves a gap of 1.8 billion jobs.

U.S. companies are more and more internationally based. They will place their companies where they can find a qualified work force at the lowest cost. Nations who are surpassing the U.S. on international tests like PISA and TIMSS are most certainly focused on increasing the talent pool so they can attract more economic development and more jobs. International test scores do impact the economy.

We have already seen many jobs losses in our country. The loss of U.S. jobs has affected our adult population; however, the biggest impact is in our 18-24 year-old population. Too many of these young people lack the skills required for 21st century jobs. The unemployment rate for the 18-24 year- old group is double that of the general population (15 percent vs. 7.3 percent). When you breakout the data by subgroups, we find that black males, 18-24 years old, have an unemployment rate that exceeds 30 percent. The vast majority of these young people graduated from high school. When you look at high school dropouts, the numbers of unemployed greatly increase.

Why are so many young people unemployed and underemployed? The reasons are clear.

1. More than 50 percent of employers state that these young people do not have the skills for the jobs that are available. There are more than 3.2 million jobs unfilled in the U.S. -- many in manufacturing and health care. These jobs are unfilled because employers cannot find candidates with the skills needed. Many of these jobs require only 1-year technical or 2-year associate degrees. 

2. Our students do not receive adequate career counseling and they make poor career decisions. Too often our students enter career studies where very few jobs exist and pass over career studies that have job openings. Too often we hear stories of students who graduate from a 4-year college and are unable to find a job in their chosen area so they take a low-paying and low-skills job. We also hear the opposite – an employer has numerous openings for jobs that pay a living wage and cannot find applicants who are qualified.

Career and technical education must be elevated and integrated into P-12 education in Kentucky. 
• We must raise it to a level equal to college or academic preparation. 
• We must do a better job of advising students on what jobs are available and then matching them to their career interest through a career pathway. 
• We must integrate career and technical education through new delivery models that integrate CTE and academic requirements in full day programs that do not require lost time in transportation between programs. 
• We must eliminate career and technical programs that are out-of-date and do not have positive job prospects. 
• We must start new career and technical programs based on local and regional industry needs. 
• We must communicate and collaborate with industry to create model programs like our Advance Manufacturing program in Scott County with Toyota. 
• We must update facilities and equipment in our career and technical programs to help prepare students for the high-tech and high-skills jobs. 

As we roll out the findings and recommendations from the Southern Region Education Board, I hope readers will help communicate the importance of career and technical education throughout the Commonwealth. 

Terry Holliday, Ph.D.
Education Commissioner

Career and Technical Education in Kentucky

On October 16, pursuant to an executive order issued by Governor Steve Beshear, the Office of Career and Technical Education was merged with the Kentucky Department of Education’s (KDE’s) Carl Perkins branch to form the KDE Office of Career and Technical Education (CTE). Associate Commissioner Dale Winkler will head this new office. I am personally very excited about the potential to elevate and integrate career and technical education within the department.

Why is this so important to education and the economy in Kentucky? Here is one example.

Governor Beshear recently proclaimed October 5 as Manufacturing Day in Kentucky. The National Association of Manufacturers, the Manufacturing Institute, Kentucky Association of Manufacturers and the Foundation for Kentucky Industry have designated the day as a launch point to emphasize the many values of manufacturing.

Governor Beshear stated that “manufacturing is a wonderful career path for highly skilled workers within a crucial sector of the economy. The manufacturing community is a key economic driver in the Commonwealth, representing $27 billion, or 17 percent, of Kentucky’s GDP, with more than 215,000 people working in manufacturing in Kentucky.”

This week, I had the opportunity to tour an exciting program that is focused on manufacturing. I visited the Toyota Advanced Manufacturing Technician Program (AMT) at the Toyota Georgetown manufacturing plant. The AMT program has become a national model of how business can collaborate with education to create bright futures for students. In collaboration with numerous school districts in the region, Bluegrass Community and Technical College and other local businesses, students are offered a two-year intensive program that combines the technical, work and academic skills to prepare students for manufacturing jobs.

Of interest to me was the statement that over 600,000 manufacturing job openings are available in the U.S., and industry is having a hard time finding workers with the technical skills and work skills to fill these jobs that pay a living wage. What great news for students in this program and other similar programs across the U.S. It also was exciting to hear that there is significant interest to expand this type of program in Kentucky.

In talking with the students and instructors, I heard several suggestions for the new Office of Career and Technical Education. Among these suggestions was the expansion of our Project Lead the Way program, integration of more rigorous academic skills in career and technical courses, focusing instruction on projects and application of academic and technical skills in an integrated fashion, allowing communities to focus on specific job sector courses rather than one-size-fits-all courses, and heavily involving business and industry in career and technical programs.

Kentucky has focused on elevating and integrating career and technical education. Our Unbridled Learning accountability model gives equal weighting to college and career readiness with bonus points for students who graduate with both. Jobs are available for students who graduate with career and technical skills, as evidenced by the number of job openings in manufacturing.

Over the next few years, I hope our CTE program -- through the integration of academic and career/technical -- will provide numerous opportunities across the state that are similar to the Toyota Advanced Manufacturing Program.