Subject: [Homestead] Education that makes sense today
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 09:53:00 -0500
It doesn't remain unchanged across several generations. Today,
hardheaded self-interest, and assessment of relative opportunities ought
to downgrade college and upgrade vocational school in the career plans
of most high school graduates---accomplish your income objectives in two
years without having a massive $100,000 scholastic debt laid on your
shoulders, and giving you the option of working for an established
company, or starting up your low-risk new one, for which an annual
income of $100,000 or more is a reasonable expectation..
Pick your field of work, auto repair, plumbing and heating, electricial
wiring---all are face-to-face with customers and requiring your hands
and your tools to do the job---a conference call with an Indian
"advisor" won't hack it.
Now, if you have Asperger's, with enormous power of undivided
concentration, you will do well to go the college route to a research
job with a drug company---you will still have a relatively high income,
but be prepared to use a substantial part of it for several years to
repay academic loans.
A smart path — that isn't 'college'
By Ben Brown
If we're so big on measuring results in education, isn't it time to get
serious about an approach that links knowledge and training with
good-paying jobs?
The time is ripe. Hardly a week goes by without another warning from a
business or education-reform group that too many of our students
graduate without the skills to compete in a global marketplace. And when
the nation's governors meet in February for a National Education Summit,
high on the agenda is a discussion of new strategies for helping
students "build bridges between high school, college and work."
The trouble is, if you try to bring vocational education into the
discussion, the first thing that enters many folks' minds are the guys
in last-period shop class, the ones who seemto know their way around an
engine block, but not algebra II. Fonzie in Happy Days, the 1970s sitcom
set in the 1950s, was a voc-ed guy — cool, but not what parents hold up
as a career role model. Everybody knew Fonzie wasn't headed to college.
And college is the one sure path to the good life, right?
A skewed view of college
Well, yes and no. Yes, if you're willing to morph your concept of
college to include other post-secondary educational opportunities, from
community colleges to tech schools to professional- certification and
workplace-training programs. Occupational certification has increased by
50% during the past decade, according to a recent study by the National
Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
No, if you're talking about only four-year institutions, where a third
of students don't qualify for degrees in six years.
"The last thing we need is another college dropout, saddled with student
loans and looking for a job without a marketable skill," says Gerry
Hogan, a volunteer advocate for vocational education and the chairman of
Endurance Business Media.
Clide Cassity, director of Pinellas Technical Education Centers in
Florida, adds, "Yet somehow we've gotten ourselves in the situation
where we believe that college is all that counts, that nothing else
matters."
Even though good jobs increasingly require what used to be college-level
training, most still don't demand four-year degrees. Of the U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics' estimates of the fastest-growing occupations
between 2002 and 2012, the top 10 don't require bachelor's degrees. And
many non-degree occupations crying out for workers are career fields
with salaries that can support healthy families — provided employees
have higher level skills.
Kay Martin, CEO of the Francis Tuttle Oklahoma Technology Center in
Oklahoma City, says students who graduate in Tuttle's automotive program
"after a few years can earn $100,000." And there are similar career
opportunities in health technology, the construction trades and public
safety.
In an era of outsourcing, here's more good news: These high-skill jobs
aren't going anywhere. You're not going to call someone in India to fix
your car or your plumbing. And if your house is on fire in Ohio, help is
not coming from Mexico.
A' real-world' advantage
Career and technical education — the term voc-ed pros have adopted to
avoid the Fonzie factor — has the advantage of relevance. For many
students, "academics suddenly make sense," says Robin White, president
of the Great Oaks Institute of Technology and Career Development in
Cincinnati. "Geometry makes more sense in construction technology than
just drawing circles and squares on paper." And the best programs can
tout real-world accountability.
Tom Applegate, executive dean of Austin Community College, says, "All
our programs are labor-market driven. If employers don't want our grads,
we don't want the program."
In Florida, Cassity has lines at both ends of some Pinellas Tech
programs: Students wait for class slots, and companies wait to hire
them. Two-thirds of Pinellas Tech students complete requirements for
professional certification or state licensing, and 82% end up employed
in their field of study.
So what's not to like about voc-ed? "It's the high schools that have run
amok," says Phyllis Hudecki, executive director of the Oklahoma Business
and Education Council, a non-profit education advocacy group. Even its
defenders acknowledge that, in the past, voc-ed has been used "as an
avoidance mechanism for kids who couldn't do academic work," Hudecki
says. "And that's still out there. I want to make sure students are
really learning, and then turn them loose" in voc-ed tracks.
Approaches such as the Southern Regional Education Board's "High Schools
That Work" project have proved that integrating vocational education
with academic courses can accelerate achievement at the high school
level. The trick is combining a no-compromise academic program with
vocational education that matches students with business mentors and
that guarantees them career and academic counseling. That may be tough
for stressed-out high schools, but it's doable.
Easier to model are proven post-secondary programs such as Cassity's in
Florida and Applegate's in Texas. They fight for funding, yet they have
track records business leaders and legislators should admire. So why not
reward them for delivering what the market needs?
The demand for trained — and retrained — workers is only going to
increase, perhaps in unexpected ways.
"Our fastest-growing group of students by percentage," Applegate says,
"is those with master's degrees."
Ben Brown writes for Southern Living and its sister magazines, and he is
a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.
[Homestead] Education that makes sense today,
tvoivozhd, 01/10/2005