A recent article in the Washington State Wire, K-12 System Leaves Low Income and Minority Children Behind makes the point that too many of our low-income and minority children are being left behind. Also left behind are children not in these groups as well. Because of our public school system’s focus on “College for All” as a definition of success, we end up tracking all students into courses that only lead to a four-year university.
An unintended consequence of this “College for All” mantra results in Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs being viewed as less meaningful choices for students. Many times when a student wishes to take a program that involves working with their hands and learning a skill, their choice is looked at as demeaning or “less-than,” because a majority of educators and parents believe all students should be on a path to enter a four-year university three months after high school graduation.
The real growth in education will come when we recognize that our K-12 system is to be about “Success for All” and the term “college” no longer conjures up pictures of the UW and WSU in the minds eye, but instead truly reflect all of the options for education and training after high school including military, community and technical college, entrepreneurial, and apprenticeship pathways.
The Wire article correctly shares how we are not serving many low-income and minority groups of children based on low graduation rates and the number of suspensions and expulsions from school. The article also points out that 53% of students who drop-out do so in their senior year. The article correctly attributes this to students not seeing themselves going on to a four-year school and deciding not to stay because finishing school is not worth the payoff. This ultimately leads to a very poor statewide graduation rate. Career and Technical Education programs are reversing those numbers with current graduation rates for Career and Technical Education completers (two or more years in a similar program) of 86.6% in four years and a five-year rate of 92.2%.
An effort to recruit and counsel more students from all backgrounds into highly rewarding non-baccalaureate pathways would be the best thing that could happen to our society and for our economy. It would mean that our education system is meeting the needs of ALL students. It would remove the stigma attached to not going to “college” and demonstrate an understanding that the definition of success after high school has changed dramatically since the 1960s. Students from a wide range of achievement levels with a clear plan for their future should define educational success. By encouraging students of all backgrounds and income levels to equally find their way into four-year, military, community and technical college, entrepreneurial and apprenticeship pathways we create the honor in diversity of culture, thinking, and innovation that creates a vibrant society and economy.
Career and Technical Education shares the Wire’s call to expand Career Pathways as the best way to expand student opportunities and success and to provide sustainable funding for Career and Technical Education programs available in school. But, don’t let us turn to Career and Technical Education programs as the sole solution to poverty; to do so would be perceived as a tool of tracking, and not, in fact, as the expansion of options for ALL students across all social and economic backgrounds.
We must change the paradigm of conventional thought by ensuring that Washington State has the best Career and Technical Education programs in the nation. As the truth of Career and Technical Education’s value continues to be discovered and its student participants (2 or more years) and graduates are hired for great jobs, K-12 reform will have no choice but to support Career and Technical Education as an essential component of every high school student’s education.
Yet in the current legislative session, Career and Technical Education is fighting for its future. Misinterpretations of the McCleary decision make Career and Technical Education collateral damage as legislators scramble to pump up other education accounts.
It’s a simple fact that quality Career and Technical Education programs cost more to implement than most English, history, math, arts, or even science courses. Quality Career and Technical Education programs demand the quality tools found in engineering, trades, health care, entrepreneurship, media, agriculture, and computer science. The higher cost of Career and Technical Education programs is directly related to the quality of the STEM-related skills that our students will take with them to compete for and create the jobs that will build our state’s economy. Career and Technical Education funding is included in basic education which will meet and satisfy the McCleary decision.
When we don’t adequately fund our Career and Technical Education programs, we are relinquishing Washington’s great career opportunities to graduates from other states and other countries. We must focus on this social/economic goal by funding and building the Career and Technical Education programs our students deserve today! And by doing so, help all of education reform embrace a mantra of true “Success for ALL” in the not too distant future.
As the Wire article says…“We hope the legislators will rise to the challenge” and do what is right for all the children in Washington State by supporting an educational program that has a proven return on the state’s investment.”
Your support matters.
Public service journalism is important today as ever. If you get something from our coverage, please consider making a donation to support our work. Thanks for reading our stuff.
