Tag Archives: career education

Apprenticeships offer in-demand skills, on-the-job training

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Currently, America is facing a critical shortage in skilled workers in many industries, but apprenticeships can help change this.

Apprenticeships offer people the chance to learn in-demand skills that can lead to employment and a rewarding career. According to the Ohio State Apprenticeship Council, part of the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services, Ohio has more than 900 registered apprenticeship programs that can give people on-the-job training and the high-level skills that are required to be successful in today’s workplace.

A registered apprenticeship provides full-time work during the training period, decent wages, quality instruction and an avenue to job security. Each program involves a minimum of 2,000 hours of on-the-job training and 144 hours each year of related technical instruction. Once the program is completed, graduates will receive a certificate that is recognized across the entire U.S.

Registered Apprenticeships: The Logistics

  • Must be 18 years old to participate
  • Most programs require a high school degree, vocational school diploma or a GED
  • Average starting wage is $11/hour
  • Some programs charge fees for tuition and equipment, but financial assistance is available

Industry Sectors Participating in Registered Apprenticeships: 

  • Aerospace
  • Construction
  • Energy
  • Information technology
  • Manufacturing
  • Military
  • Government
  • Utilities
  • Service and retail
  • Social services and health care
  • Telecommunications
  • Transportation

For a list of registered apprenticeships in Ohio, visit http://jfs.ohio.gov/apprenticeship.

Ohio to adopt career-tech report card

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Ohio’s State Board of Education is set to approve an A-F report card for career-technical schools, which will make Ohio the first and only state to issue a graded report card for career-technical education.

The career-tech report card is reported to be a “collaborative effort” between Governor Kasich’s office, the Board of Regents, the state board and a variety of career-technical education associations. It will provide five graded components, including:

    • Reading
    • Math
    • Four-year graduation rate
    • Five-year graduation rate
    • Post-career-technical education program placement

Also included in the report card will be one non-graded component, “Prepared for Success,” which will reflect student participation in earning early college credit. This will include:

  • Advanced placement
  • Post-secondary enrollment options
  • International baccalaureate
  • National standard college entrance test participation
  • Remediation-free attainment
  • Honors diplomas
  • Other college-career ready assessments

Like the local report card, the career-tech report card would use an A-F grading scale, and the additional components for graded and non-graded measures on the report card would phase in over the next three school years. As stated in House Bill 555, the first report card has to be published by Sept. 1, 2013 for the 2012-13 school year.

A career-tech report card is another great step in providing parents with as much information as possible, giving them the ability to make informed choices when it comes to their students’ education.

Career and College Prep Coursework prepares students for success

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As young adults continue to face an increasingly competitive and educated job market, many students are enrolling in College Jumpstart and career-prep programs in order to ensure they stand out in the field of potential applicants.

Consequently, Ohio schools have begun to step up the quality and availability of these alternative high school programs as a means to better prepare their students for life after graduation.

One such initiative is the Ohio Plan for Career-Technical Education, a collaborative effort of multiple levels of coursework designed to prepare high school students for postsecondary education in their area of interest. These programs also provide students with career prep for high-skill, high-wage, and high-demand occupations.

Ohio’s College Tech Prep programs combines work-based learning with knowledge and skill development in preparation for postsecondary education.  The CTE program also offers students great diversity as it provides education in sixteen different fields ranging from information technology to human services.

Most often, career coursework is associated with the Workforce Development (WFD) initiative which provides in-depth training and coursework in fields where students receive a minimum of 450 hours of instruction.

As of 2011, 23% of Ohio’s high school students were enrolled in WFD and 13% of those enrolled were also placed in advanced courses such as higher-level mathematics.  With this level of academic and career preparation, WFD students graduate at a rate of 98.74% and 90.17% receive placement at postsecondary institutions.

CTE programs can primarily be found in city, local, exempted village and joint vocational school districts, but increasingly they can be found in charter schools and youth correctional facilities as well.  So long as the charter school has an approved career-technical program, any student may enroll according to the policies and procedures of the specific school.

Be sure to check your local school to see if career-tech is a viable option for your child and please visit the Ohio Department of Education, TechPrepOhio, or feel free to contact School Choice Ohio for more information about career-prep and other college jumpstart programs. These options are already working for thousands of Ohio students and could make a difference in the career future of your child!

Ohio’s New Career Connections Initiative

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The Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Career-Technical Education (CTE) just released the September issue of their newsletter, and it is full of information. The newsletter features an article from Steve Gratz, director of ODE’s Office of CTE, that discusses the state’s new Career Connections initiative, which requires that career connection learning strategies be included in K-12 curricula by the end of June 2013.   Check out excerpts from his article below, and be sure to take a look at the full newsletter here.

Career Connections focus beneficial for pre- and post-high school

By Steve Gratz, Director
Office of CTE

Now more than ever, students need to be exposed to careers – and the earlier the better. Reminiscent of previous state and national initiatives, this statement is déjà vu for many of us. We know that career focus gives purpose to learning and that purpose keeps kids in school much the same as it yields better employers and employees.

Research suggests that young students begin developing ideas about careers as early as age four and that career development positively impacts student retention through grade 12 as well as postsecondary education success. Understanding the value of career infusion for both students and overall citizenry, I am delighted about Ohio’s new “Career Connections” initiative. It’s part of Senate Bill 316, which states that K-12 model curricula embedded with “career connection learning strategies” be adopted by the State Board of Education, “not later than June 30, 2013.”

The Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Career-Technical Education is committed to expanding career development resources and supports available to districts. Under ODE’s charge to develop these career connection learning strategies, the Office of CTE is beginning this collaborative work with staff in the Office of Curriculum and Assessment. Career Connections is about students building relevance between academics and their future career plans. Above and beyond SB 316, the Office of CTE will work with educators to establish frameworks for implementing Career Connections within grades K-12. We are looking at awareness for K-5, exploration for 6-8 and experience/planning for 9-12. These frameworks will assist districts with establishing infrastructure, infusing career development into their curriculum, and identifying sustainable resources to support implementation.

5 reasons to incorporate more career education into high school curricula

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Our director of community programs, Sarah Pechan, was on vacation in Arizona this summer and found the whole state buzzing about the issue of school choice. She shares some of the perspective of parents she met while rafting through the Grand Canyon’s Colorado River.

As I mentioned in my post earlier this week, when the conversations on the river or hikes turned to school choice and education policy, a hot topic was incorporating more career education and real world work into high school curricula. Lots of great reasons came up and people were happy to hear that this is already a hot topic in education policy through the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others.

Reason to incorporate more career education #1: To put it bluntly, high school is pretty lame.
Education observers have long noted that students often drop out of high school not because of family issues or because they can’t read. They drop out because they see school as irrelevant to their lives and have become completely disengaged. One of our river guides skipped most of his classes in high school but is an extremely talented young man and now studies physics in college.

Reason to incorporate more career education #2: Hands on jobs often pay pretty darn well.
Our rafting trip leader, a geologist, was passionate about career education: “We need to decrease the stigma against career education. Graduates of career programs often make more money than if they had gone to college, usually in jobs that can’t be outsourced. People who work with their hands often have higher job satisfaction too.”

Reason to incorporate more career education #3: We all could stand to know more about how the world around us works.
Knowing philosophy and literature is really important. But so is knowing how small engines and waste water and personal finance work. I think I would feel like a more well-rounded human being if I had learned more about these things.

Reason to incorporate more career education #4: Our economy could boom from a generation of entrepreneurs and technology-competent workers.
This recent article calls Ohio employers “frustrated” that they can’t find more qualified employees. Likewise, schools like ePrep are preparing entrepreneurs to create small businesses that fuel our economy.

Reason to incorporate more career education #5: Nothing stinks more than spending 4 years and $40,000 to get a degree that you find out your first year on the job you really hate.
The earlier students start exploring career options, the earlier they can start heading in the right direction for them. This means they spend less time in college or post-secondary education wandering from major to major trying to find a good fit.

The lone dissenting voice came from a vascular surgeon in Bel Air (home of the Fresh Prince) who said he didn’t support skills-based education until the graduate education level. He said K-12 should be for students to learn how to study, undergrad should teach students how to think, and graduate school should teach students how to “do” something.

But as someone who personally emerged from high school recognizing that my primary competency was test taking, which is not exactly a helpful skill in the real world, I’ve got to believe that we can do better.

The Cristo Rey network of schools is a great example: they incorporate corporate internships into their college-prep curriculum. Students are engaged in the outside world and learning things they can bring back to the classroom. This mutually reinforcing study-practice rhythm of education makes sense.

What if Ohio ran with this model and expanded it into a broader apprentice system beyond the corporate world? This is what fellow hiker Debby shared has worked brilliantly for her son in Switzerland.

“In Switzerland, we have a strong apprenticeship system and career education system that allows students to explore concrete areas that interest them. As parents we save money on college expenses when our students have already had a chance to narrow down their fields of interest.”

Ohio has some truly outstanding career options through the College TechPrep program, but they require students to sign up for a separate program outside of their regular high school curricula. What if we were to offer biotechnology, graphic design, entertainment, and information technology courses alongside the geometry, AP English, and physics courses to allow all Ohio high schoolers access to a more dynamic high school experience?

- Sarah