Tuesday, October 27, 2015

NASBE Session :: Career Readiness for All Students

The Second C: Paving the Path of Career Readiness for All Students
Thursday, October 22, 2015

Panel Presenters
James Hull, Center for Public Education, National School Boards Association (NSBA)

Andrea Zimmerman, National Association of State Director of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc)

Malbert Smith III, Ph.D., President & Co-founder, MetaMetrics

Bill MathisPh.D. Managing Director, National Education Policy Center at University of Colorado, Boulder, Member of Vermont State Board of Education

Mireya Reith, Chair of NASBE Career Study Group, Vice Chair and Member of Arkansas State Board of Education

Robert Hull, Moderator, Director of Center for College Career, and Civic Readiness ("the first c, the second c, and the other c"), NASBE

Robert Hull: NASBE Board of Directors chooses one or 2 topics to take a deep dive into for the year - come back and share - - research. Report of the NASBE Career Study Group is the result of the work on "career readiness".


Jim Hull (no relation ^): Center for Public Education (cpe) also wrote a report on this topic: The Path Least Taken II

  • Lots of focus on kids going on to college
  • Not very much focus on the impact of high school on career readiness
  • There are many reasons kids don't go on to college
  • Non-college students took less rigorous courses in high school (though they took two or more vocational courses); other "credentials" that matter most for non-college goers:
    • completed Algebra 2 as their highest math course; advanced biology as highest science
    • cumulative GPS between 2.51 and 3.0
    • completed an occupations concentration in high school (three or more vocational courses in a specific labor market area)
    • earned a professional certification or license


Malbert Smith

  • MetaMetrics using lexile scores as a reading framework to ask: 
    • How well do you have to read to become an auto mechanic?
    • How do you measure career readiness?
    • What benchmark shows success?
  • Google "CCR" = college & career readiness
  • many states tracking students longitudinally
  • North Carolina ahead of many states in this regard
  • DIBELS Next* - Common Scale across multiple assessments, reporting out lexile measures on https://lexile.com/
  • the ELA standards: 5 critical shifts from earlier standards:
    • 1) text complexity
    • 2) analysis, inference and evidence
    • 3) writing to sources
    • 4) mastery of writing
  • Lexile levels and maths - necessary for very many careers, whether attorneys or auto-mechanics
  • This is where you need to be for active citizenship
  • All about competency
  • Importance of connecting career to competency (not just college...)


Andrea Zimmerman

  • How we can move to an innovative, HQ system?
  • Rigorous skills
  • Future of CTE Summit October 6-8, Orlando FL
  • What is a common, HQ CTE system supposed to look like?
  • Need to prioritize action steps (^)
  • SBEs have a clear and critical role for CTE
  • Two reports: focus on intersection of college and career in partnership with Achieve:
    • Competency work
    • Career accountability systems (Measuring Career Readiness @CTE)
  • Review ESEA waivers, state report cards, how they're being publicly reported, major trends
  • CCR framework is focused on the first c = college; need to instill career indicators, multiple measures Perkins data,cte/ccr leaders, as well as workforce and economic dev leaders; find the appropriate balance of uses across public reporting and accountability
  • Lingering Challenges are systemic
  • Incorporating CTE early and often - embedded in strategy at all levels, break down silos
  • Need to attend to equity: validation of multiple pathways






Bill Mathis

  • He attended a vocational education program, has sat on a voc ed board, and taught about it in college
  • CTE program taught him a lot about...vacuum tubes > > learned transferable skills
  • Today, kids need to learn basic knowledge, flexibility, continuous learning, cooperation, problem solving, etc, but that not exactly what kids are getting in school
  • Offered an Overview of Vermont's CCR program - task force led to Flexible Pathways Act 77, in order to graduate:
    • any HQ program can count
    • blended and virtual
    • must demonstrate proficiency
    • must have a personalized learning plan by 2019
    • career ed must begin in 7th grade
  • National and global need
  • the more highly educated the person, the more bucks they can make
  • this is the root of the American dream - but we live in a post manufacturing economy
  • Health Care, construction, and social assistance are all impacted


Mireya Reith

  • SBEs need to understand the framework in which we're working
  • Quickly realize that we're working in silos
  • Who gets the CTE money in states?
  • How is money spent in states?
  • Arkansas CTE housed in Career Education (separate board, separate dept)
  • These structures matter...!
  • Can't talk about CTE as K-12...goes back to birth...could we talk about it as Birth-20?
  • Visit your CTE programs!
  • Kitchens in a classroom!
  • classrooms integrated with other places
  • Feels like a different type of learning
  • Visit factories...learning that needs to happen...
  • Some states have definitions...[MA?]
  • What are the implications?


The take-aways:
College readiness is all about Competency
Career readiness is Overlooked (need for competency here, too)
Civics is Forgotten or Silent

Important to engage minorities - so often overlooked and the need to address preconceptions

There's more in the Storify