RALEIGH ó Just the name reveals part of the predicament.
These days, what most of us know as vocational education is being called career and technical education by public school officials.
It’s only the latest tag for hands-on classes focused on skilled trades.
The reason for the different names is obvious. It’s the stigma. Vocational education ó learning engine repair, carpentry, tool and die making ó is for those who can’t cut it in tough academic courses that prepare students for four-year college.
At least, that seems to be a pretty pervasive belief among a lot of students and parents.
The reality out there in the job market doesn’t jibe with those notions.
As new graduates of four-year, liberal arts colleges well know, some of those degrees and $3 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks right now. Students moving through a machinist vocational education program at a high school and into a machinist and computer assisted design program at a community college will find something quite different upon graduation. Try a $45,000 job awaiting them. It’s the same for health care-related programs.
Some state officials who want to increase vocational education offerings point to another advantage. They say students enrolled in the classes graduate from high school about 90 percent of the time. That compares to an overall graduation rate of about 70 percent.
Those numbers are behind an effort by state Sen. Harry Brown, an Onslow County Republican, to beef up vocational course offerings in low-performing schools. Brown plans to file a bill that would require more clusters of vocational courses in high schools that fail to graduate 60 percent or more of their seniors for two consecutive years.
Brown has some support for his idea.
State Schools Superintendent June Atkinson and two key House budget writers, Democrats Doug Yongue and Jim Crawford, turned out for a news conference where Brown announced his proposal.
Yongue is a former vocational education teacher and local schools superintendent. He noted that vocational education classes engage students and allow them to develop a real rapport with their teachers.
What’s also clear is that the instruction makes it much easier for students to connect the dots between educational opportunity and career path. That, as much as anything, explains the disparity in graduation rates between students enrolled in vocational education courses and those not.
A kid meandering through school ó with vague notions about college, work and without the grades to put it together ó is going to question the relevance of a high school education. Policymakers who don’t get that may be more dense than those students.
Maybe public schools need to adopt a new motto, one that James Carville might appreciate: It’s the relevance, stupid.
Kids enrolled in vocational education course see the relevance of their education. They get it. That’s why they’re graduating.
Brown’s idea might help. It’s not nearly enough.
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Scott Mooneyham is a Raleigh-based columnist for Capitol Press Association.