“Career education lures top students”

I was very pleased to read a very positive article about CTE in the News and Observer that hopefully will change the public’s perception about CTE.

A few quotes from the article:

“Over the past decade or so, though, courses under the CTE umbrella have been revamped, tailored to the modern workplace that demands workers with a higher degree of technical savvy.”

“Such courses include bioscience, finance, television production, computer programming and, in Matthai’s case, clothing design. CTE supporters argue that such courses are vital to today’s economy, in which an auto mechanic needs to master computer diagnostics.”

“‘CTE is another way of learning,” said senior Mary Eggleston. “You get some reassurance that the math you’re learning you’re going to use again.’”

Chris’ Thoughts:

I was very pleased to read this article. It’s not often that the press explains CTE in a way that doesn’t sound like the old vocational education that most of us grew up with.

This article starts with a student who planned on being an orthodontist, but is now planning for a career in fashion. I’ve always said that it’s less expensive to change your major in high school than it is in college. That’s why career education needs to start before high school so we can allow our kids to start planning a career and allow them to change directions whenever they need to before they graduate from high school.

The article looks at the possible cuts in Perkins funding, and compares this to the president’s No Child Left Behind legislation. The writer does a good job explaining the funding issues to the public.

All in all, this is a very positive article about CTE. We need more of these to convince the public that the careers we are preparing the kids for are not the careers they grew up with.

Please, invite the media out to your schools to see what we are doing to prepare the next workforce. Hopefully they will be surprised at what they see and want to tell the public about it.

Well, that’s the way that I see it. Let me know what you are thinking, and stop by again soon for more of my ramblings.