Real Reform That Provides Career Opportunities for Our Students

I hope all my readers will go to the following link to read about The School Standards Rebellion.

According to the article in Politico, this is what is now happening in Texas:

"Parents furious about the state’s heavy focus on standardized testing teamed up with educators irate at the one-size-fits-all curriculum. Then an even more powerful ally stepped aboard: The Jobs for Texas Coalition, representing trade groups and businesses that collectively employ 6 million Texans, a third of the state’s workforce.

The coalition argued that the college prep curriculum eats up so many hours — especially when kids fail a required class and must retake it — that students have no time for vocational courses that introduce them to skilled trades. That’s led to fewer students seeking out jobs in construction and manufacturing. Those who do apply lack the technical training and the soft skills — such as on-the-fly problem solving — such classes nurture.

“For 20 years, we’ve been ratcheting up the rigor required to get out of high school, and we started to see unintended consequences,” said Mike Meroney, a spokesman for the coalition.

"Letting kids opt out of college prep doesn’t mean they’ll spend a lifetime flipping burgers, Meroney said. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics lists two dozen fast-growing occupations that don’t require higher education and pay $35,000 to $55,000 a year, including heavy equipment operator and car mechanic. “What is the real purpose of education if not to prepare your students for jobs?” Meroney said. “Seriously. That’s what we keep asking.”

We tried to do the same thing they are talking about in this story in Louisiana four years ago with the adoption of a law providing for a career diploma. The problem is that the powers that were in charge of Louisiana education at the time, namely State Superintendent Paul Pastorek did not like the career diploma. He wanted instead to push college prep for all and later the move to the Common Core. So Pastorek used the regulations of the DOE and BESE to suppress the career diploma in every way possible. His main weapon was the use of school performance scores and the letter grading system for high schools that rewarded mostly college prep efforts. The result is that only about 2% of our students currently graduate with a career diploma. At the same time, only about 20% of our students are successful in our 4 year colleges.

So now we find that one of the biggest industrial expansions in history in Louisiana is catching us flat footed. I happen to agree with this position paper from the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry. This is a direct quote from the LABI position paper:
"LABI will support efforts to enhance the Career Diploma, increase the use of TOPS Tech, bring more relevant course offerings into middle and high schools, and partner with community colleges and industry to get the credentials and training right."
I think its really ironic that LABI has been supporting the LDOE sabotage of the career diploma for the last 4 years. Now they are shocked that our students are not being prepared to do the skilled jobs coming to Louisiana. Our high school graduates are coming out of school with almost no skills to compete for the thousands of high paying jobs that are being created in everything from construction projects, to plant operations and even to a boom in health care services. This means that if we do not move quickly, our expanding industries will be importing thousands of skilled workers from other states and even other countries. Many of our high school graduates who graduated in the vaunted Core 4 curriculum but who are still not equipped to succeed in 4 year colleges may be relegated to serving fast food to the imported workers.

I am asking my readers and our legislators to please consider supporting the necessary revisions of the career diploma and changes in DOE regulations to reward schools that make these important opportunities available to their students. The job of boosting the career diploma to provide meaningful skills training to thousands of students will be especially difficult because Louisiana's "college prep for all" policies have decimated the ranks of CTE teachers at the high school level.

Watch for more information that will appear on this blog soon about efforts to revive the career diploma. It's time we give our students true career choices for the great jobs coming to Louisiana.