A Georgia State University conference on career and technical education today provided a more nuanced view of an education trend that has won favor with state legislatures.
Credit: Maureen Downey
Credit: Maureen Downey
Unlike most countries, the United States lacks a national yardstick to assess effectiveness of career education or apprenticeship programs. In other countries, “there is actually coherence. We have chaos,” said Stone. “We have 14,000-plus school districts, all of which have some level of autonomy.”
The Swiss CTE model builds around highly structured apprenticeships in which students are paid for their labor and learn most of their skills on the job rather than in classrooms. So the skills align with the job.
That alignment isn’t always the case here. Stone recounted a CEO who had one job and 200 applicants, all of whom took a qualifying math test. Only 16 passed the test, which reflected fourth grade math skills. Many workers need basic numeracy, but U.S. schools teach an increasingly abstract math curriculum.
Stone says they’re in math classes.
“Since the mid-1980s, we have added the equivalent of a full year of academics to high school,” said Stone. “Rigor equals more and more of the same stuff with no effect.”
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