Delegates Dave Nutter (R-Montgomery) and Bill Carrico (R-Grayson) are co-patroning HB 1422: Standard diploma; requirements to include one concentration in career and technical education. This is a bill that makes one tiny modification to §22.1-253.13:4D2:
In establishing course and credit requirements for a high school diploma, the Board shall:
[…]
Establish the requirements for a standard, modified standard, or advanced studies high school diploma, which shall include one credit in fine, performing, or practical arts and one credit in United States and Virginia history. The requirements for a standard high school diploma shall, however, include (i) one concentration in career and technical education; and (ii) at least two sequential electives chosen from a concentration of courses selected from a variety of options that may be planned to ensure the completion of a focused sequence of elective courses.
(Addition emphasized.)
This means that every child in the whole of the state would need to take two years of vocational education classes.
Now, I’m a real believer in the value of a technical education in high school. Way too many kids are put on the college track who would be better served by a technical education. For differing reasons, not every kid is cut out for college. I have plenty of peers who, these six years after getting that degree in underwater basket weaving are still making a whole lot less than they’d be making if they’d gone into plumbing at the age of eighteen. But the other side of that coin is that there are lot of kids who aren’t cut out for carpentry, bricklaying, or auto repair. College is the path for them. And making college-bound kids take two years of cosmetology is just as dumb as making career-bound kids take two years of college prep courses.
But that’s just a small objection. There’s the larger objection that I have to the SOLs and NCLB, which is that I think that neither the state nor the federal government should be dictating the minutia of what localities should be teaching. If the local high school in a farming community wants to focus their earth science course of farming and their biology class on animal husbandry, then they should be able to do that. That takes advantage of the local expertise and teaches kids something that will be more relevant to their lives and, ultimately, probably more useful.
Then there’s the slightly larger objection. Fine, the kids take two years of vocational classes. So that’s two years worth of classes that they’re taking now that they’ll no longer take. What are we going to teach them two years less of? English? Math? Science? What can we do without? Under NCLB, are we even allowed to do without them?
And then there’s the major objection: unfunded mandate. (Unless its patrons are preparing an enormous tax hike to fund this. I’m guessing not.) The superintendent of Fluvanna County Schools says that implementing these new classes would cost the school system $200k. Area technical schools have nothing close to the capacity to drastically increase their enrollment. They lack the physical space, the equipment, the teachers. Kids have to be bused to and from the often-distant facilities. Or, alternately, all new technical wings could be built onto every high school in the state. All in all it amounts to an enormous investment. The impact statement on this bill should be good for a laugh.
Del. Nutter and Del. Carrico are right: there’s not nearly enough emphasis on technical education in this state. But this isn’t the solution.
11/29 Update: See Kaveh Sadeghzadeh’s comment about the standards vs. advanced studies diploma. We didn’t have any fancy advanced diplomas when I went to Western Albemarle High School.
My understanding is that college-bound students will track on the ‘modified standard’, or ‘advanced studies’ path. Only the the ‘standard’ diploma course would do the technical path. That does, however leave your point of unfunded mandates.
Perhaps we could get more secondary and associate degree education funding for rural Virginia in exchange for all those extra traffic lanes Fairfax is looking for?
Bubby is right–this would only affect the standard diploma. And in Virginia, more students get the advanced studies diploma than the standard diploma (in 2004, it was 34,242 to 33,809). The main differences between the two are that the advanced studies diploma requires 3 years of Foreign Language and an extra year of math, science, and history, while the standard diploma provides more electives. Furthermore, they don’t have to take 2 techincal courses, just one–the two (of 6) sequential electives requirement has been in effect since the class of 2003 to ensure that kids aren’t simply taking 6 random intro classes. While there is something to the notion that the state should not be involved in the minutia (indeed, more than something), I think this is simply stating that for those 6 electives non college-bound kids must take, at least one should be more life-preparing than chorus, band, advanced p.e., and drama (as valuable as those are).
I have no comment on Virginia’s system, as I’m the product of the Indiana educational system, but I wanted to point out that vocational education and honors education are not always mutually exclusive. My little brother had to fight for the right to pursue both the Indiana Academic Honors Diploma *and* a Computer Systems and Networking vocational program (one that he and another young man created). His (very rural) high school was on a block schedule, so it was entirely possible for the boys to get the honors classes they needed while spending a couple days a week in a different county school with more networking capabilities. The stumbling block was a school counselor who believed that vocational students *could not be* college track or honors students.
Fortunately, my mother is an educator in the county and she fought for my brother.
I don’t know if kids should be forced into vocational ed if they don’t want to take it, but I don’t think vocational students should be barred from more academically challenging classes, either. And I do think vocational education *should* get more funding and should be more encouraged. The kids who took small engines and welding had a hell of a lot more career skills at 20 than most of my honors track friends. If I hadn’t had the opportunity to change schools, I’d have taken some of those vocational classes just for usefullness of the skills.
I have only a passing knowledge of the VCCS system. Would it make it cut the costs slightly to make these additional vocational programs available at community colleges? Some of the same costs would be applicable, particularly bussing and hiring staff, but this infrastructure may already be available at many community colleges. Not every community has a CATEC, so maybe this is a way to provide vocational education opportunities to more students?
Waldo, in my days at Albemarle and Monticello, which I believe began only a year or two after you would have graduated (1997-2000), I was on the “advanced track,” so you must have just missed it.
I agree that this is a stupid bill, but nonetheless I really wish I’d have been allowed to take technical classes instead of PE back in my Public-School days. Sure, I need excercise now, but it was a huge waste of time and emotional energy back then. I wish they’d taught me something technical and useful, as I’m now something of a huge technology klutz.
Current law already mandates the creation of a vocational program by every local school board. Note that not only does the law encourage cooperation between school systems and CCs, but also schools and businesses in the community. It doesn’t require the erection of multi-million dollar, state of the art facilities, just some flexibility and creative thinking. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Education, “virtually every high school student takes at least one career and technical education course, and one in four students takes three or more courses in a single program area.” I think the most that can be said about this bill is that it doesn’t do all that much.
As a teacher in Chesterfield County, I witnesses a pretty impressive vocational program. Now, I will grant that CCPS is substantially different in nature than Fluvanna, and the funding certainly needs to be there for such a mandate. But my biggest problem with the vocational program was that more students didn’t take advantage of it, and the biggest reason was laziness. Unfortunately, a kid can get away with slacking off in an English class, or in P.E. But in a carpentry class? A landscaping class? You actually have to work in those classes. What’s wrong with forcing kids who will be entering the workforce to know just a thing or two about the workforce?
I agree with Jocelyn–vocational courses and an honors curriculum should not be mutually exclusive. IMO, the existense of the Advanced Studies diploma has the perceived effect of cheapening the “standard” diploma. High school can serve two purposes; it can either prepare students for the real world, or prepare students to enter another environment where they will hopefully be prepared for the real world. Unfortunately, too many students are pushed into taking the latter path without entering that new environment (be it college, technical school, or the like). In today’s world, it would be irresponsible to allow our kids to enter the workforce having only taken English, Algebra, History, and three years of a Foreign Language. And I say that as a Latin teacher.
One more thing:
“If the local high school in a farming community wants to focus their earth science course of farming and their biology class on animal husbandry, then they should be able to do that. That takes advantage of the local expertise and teaches kids something that will be more relevant to their lives and, ultimately, probably more useful.”
I may be wrong, but I think that’s precisely what career and vocational education is all about. I don’t see why an farming course, working with local experts and certified teachers, can’t be an appropriate vocational course. More importantly, I don’t see anything in the law that says it wouldn’t.
Specifically, “Local school boards shall also implement. . .
3. Career and technical education programs incorporated into the K through 12 curricula that include:
a. Knowledge of careers and all types of employment opportunities including, but not limited to, apprenticeships, entrepreneurship and small business ownership, the military, and the teaching profession, and emphasize the advantages of completing school with marketable skills;
b. Career exploration opportunities in the middle school grades; and
c. Competency-based career and technical education programs that integrate academic outcomes, career guidance and job-seeking skills for all secondary students. Programs must be based upon labor market needs and student interest. Career guidance shall include counseling about available employment opportunities and placement services for students exiting school. Each school board shall develop and implement a plan to ensure compliance with the provisions of this subdivision. Such plan shall be developed with the input of area business and industry representatives and local community colleges and shall be submitted to the Superintendent of Public Instruction in accordance with the timelines established by federal law.”
It’s not all about technical wings on buildings.
Kids are soooo overweight NOW and eat so poorly that PE ( not to mention health ed/family life) should be required through the senior year. Emphasis should be placed on fitness, strength and flexibility rather than team sports.
I should mention that I was a founding board member of Central Virginia’s Information Technology Academy back in 2000, a program administered through the Charlottesville/Albemarle Technical Education Center (CATEC), as well as a student at CATEC (video production) in my freshman year. And in middle school I took two semesters of shop and two of home economics, as we were all required to take. The point is that I’m not entirely unfamiliar with the vocational education process.
Those DoE stats make me wonder what qualifies as “a career and technical education course.” In my freshman year I was required to take a few weeks long typing course, despite typing at 80wpm. Was that “a career and technical education course”? There was certainly no other requirement at my high school that we take anything else along those lines, at least that I knew about.
What I’m saying is that there’s no need that such things be in vocational education. The idea of teaching information that’s relevant and useful to the local student body need not be relegated to the world of vocational education. They can be incorporated throughout the curriculum. But as we standardize curricula through SOLs and NCLB, it becomes impossible to provides such tailored education, because teachers have to spend all of their time teaching to the tests. And, believe me, animal husbandry will not be on the tests.
And what if the locality decides to tailor its schools’ biology curriculum with, say, intelligent design?
That’s not fair, and I really am kidding. NCLB, as written, is a joke, I feel blessed that my subject area wasn’t important enough to be SOLed (which, for teachers, will always stand for “shit out of luck”). But there are defensible arguments to be made for some sort of standardization. To an extent, it can help limit the academic disenfranchisement of students in certain localities vis-a-vis the nation as a whole. What’s to keep localities from deciding that, you know what, Algebra’s not all it’s cracked up to be, and kids in this manufacturing town won’t need it, so let’s not teach it?
Problem is, no one I know has come up with the happy medium that will afford teachers the spontanaity and flexibility to be effective educators while ensuring that localities are not further disadvantaging their students. When someone does figure that out, I hope he’ll let me know so I can help out. Until then, we can save a whole hell of a lot of money with NCLB by videotaping one master teacher teaching exactly what the government wants, firing all the other teachers, and distributing DVDs to the schools. DVDs cost much less than a teacher. Actually, not that much less.
I can see why vocational education courses should be offered for those who are not academically inclined, but to _require_ them is an imposition on those who prefer ideas to sawdust.
Of course, I speak as someone who is all thumbs. Had I been required to take a shop class in high school, I would probably be speaking as someone who has no thumbs at all. (And in that case, everysentencewouldlooklikethiswouldn’tit?)
Waldo, you just reminded me of my middle school days, spent at two different exlusive private schools. One, where I spent my 8th and 9th grade years, was founded in 1863 and had never, ever not had a student go to college. Not once.
Talk about being forced into a track.
I always admired the kids who used that reputation to their advantage. Every year, one student would say, “hey, I’ll think I’ll join the army!” A couple of closed door meetings later would inevitably result in an all-expenses paid trip to Princeton.
“We didn’t have any fancy advanced diplomas when I went to Western Albemarle High School.”
That gives me a good “Albemarle is snooty” belly laugh. I am certain that WAHS had an advanced diploma when you where there. Almost everyone at WAHS gets the advanced diploma, so you probably didn’t realize that there was even such a thing as a regular diploma.
The part of this story that I’m a little surprised by is that there are apparently students in Fluvanna who 1) get the regular diploma and 2) don’t take two years of votech.
Um. No. That’s precisely the opposite of the truth. WAHS served western Albemarle — Crozet, White Hall, Afton, and all of the small tows in the hollows of the foothills of the Blue Ridge, like Sealville, Rockybar, Browns Cove, nearly up to Shifflett Hollow and Bacon Hollow, just over the Greene County line. Many of the kids that I knew at WAHS came from farming families, and had grown up working on the farm. The school population plummeted on the opening day of deer hunting season. Some of my best friends there teetered between destitute and poor, lacking the money for winter coats or new shoes. These kids were far from “snooty,” and the fact that they graduated at all (at least, those who did) says more for their tenacity than anything else.
I’m actually pretty irritated by your assertion, Addison. I didn’t think that sweeping generalizations and stereotypes were your kind of thing. It annoys me to see the lives of my friends trivialized like that.
I apologize. I admit that I intended to provoke a response with that dig.
To return to more objective analysis:
65-70% of WAHS students get the advanced diploma. https://eb02.vak12ed.edu/reportcard/report.do?division=2&schoolName=1795 (page 9)
That’s a high number. It’s about the same as Oakton High School in Fairfax, which draws from an affluent area by almost any definition.
https://eb02.vak12ed.edu/reportcard/report.do?division=29&schoolName=1333
By comparison, William Monroe, which you point out almost shares a border with WAHS, is 39% advanced diplomas.
https://eb02.vak12ed.edu/reportcard/report.do?division=39&schoolName=1213
I suspect that’s because the demographics of WAHS have changed considerably since 1992-4, when I was there.. Firstly because Monticello High School opened, removing 1/3 of WAHS’ population. And secondly because the population of the county has become more wealthy, with lower class citizens moving into the surrounding counties or into Charlottesville.
Interesting stats, though. I had totally forgotten that data was available online.
That online info is very useful, but one warning: In going over it, Lisa and I found that some of the information was dubious, and some categories are filled with a ‘no data for that field’ designation, while others for the same year are given ‘no data yet’ designation.
We are going to get to the bottom of it and I will report back.
In theory, the information would be being used by businesses and individuals to determine if an area would be suitable for relocation. This data is putting out the wrong message.
It is either the DOE or the School Division that is at fault here. But since I have been watching the schools very closely for the past three plus years, it will not be difficult for me to bring these items up.
Or maybe Lisa will convince me to let her handle it. Don’t know yet.
Sawdust to ideas? I’d dial it back a bit if I were some of you guys. I’m pretty sure this is no secret plan for European-style tracking in grade school between the vocational and college bound. One thing I think this would do is open more schools to offer double enrollment options with community colleges—something Governor Warner supported. Halifax is one jurisdiction I beleive is pursuing that idea, and its not driven by bricklaying or cosmetology, it focuses on a more tailored learning environment for individual students.