Watching this video from the NBC evening news will help you understand the post that follows.

Yesterday, we had the privilege to visit the founder and board of the IGNITE program in Fredericksburg, Texas. The high school rocketry program, founded by teacher Brett Williams in the mid-nineties, has spread across the state and is moving across the borders.  TSTC is looking for ways to partner with the IGNITE/SystemsGo program as it grows.

The learning is entirely project-based.  Students work in teams to design working  hybrid rockets that meet the specifications for each part of the curriculum.  It has been very successful.  To quote Mr. Williams:

This is a whole new way of teaching. We really are working on not just educating our students, but developing them for the workforce. Coming out of this high school program, these students will understand design and development, testing, analysis, and program management - all things the industry needs in the workforce of tomorrow.

Here are some pictures from our trip (warning - low quality iPhone snaps ahead):

Brett Williams (right) in his classroom discussing rocket science with TSTC System Chancellor Dr. Bill Segura.

Another view of the Fredericksburg High School “rocket room.” TSTC Waco President Elton Stuckly is pictured facing the camera next to Dr. Segura. You can see from here that the room is part of an old auditorium which has been divided into rooms.

Redbird 10, designed by high school students,  which will be launched at White Sands.  They are hoping for 100,000 feet.

Redbird 10 fin detail. The legs behind give you an idea of scale.  This a big metal bird.

The nosecone, designed and built by the students, will likely carry a university research payload.

Access to valve area where the N2O (nitrous oxide) oxidizer will be released to facilitate the burning of the otherwise inert solid fuel.  This system is much safer than a standard solid fuel rocket in which the fuel and oxidizer are permanently mixed together.

Failure IS an option!  These are the remains of a rocket that crashed at White Sands, possibly due to a failure in the system which releases the oxidizer.  The students have been doing a failure analysis.

All of the technologies required to build a rocket are vital to the United States as a world power.  Here we see an increasingly rare sight - a real machine shop in a high school.  A consortium of local machine shops also help the students with their projects.

Some thoughts about the program:

• It works.  The students involved are going on to study engineering and engineering technologies in college
• There was a lot of inspiration and determination to do the impossible on the part of Brett Williams
• The Fredericksburg Independent School District and the entire community had great courage and confidence to make this possible
• It can be, and is being replicated

As Mark Long of TSTC Publishing said while we were there, “It would have been a good idea anywhere, but it happened here first for a reason.”  Kudos to those visionaries who were willing to put hard work behind their visions.  Lives are being changed because of it.

*STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

There is a first-semester Computer Science (game programming) student at TSTC who is video logging his experience day by day.  Checkout the videos by clicking here.

Talking with new students over the last few days has reminded me of just how great a stride this is for them.  Just like me so long ago, many of our newbies are first-generation college-goers and find ‘normal’ college practices bizarre (and sometimes they are right). One student looked intently at his schedule and said, “I just realized that not all of these classes are in the same building.”  Why would he know that?  A lot of high school ‘campuses’ are really just one big building.  Another student asked if he was allowed to go home between classes!

Freedom, responsibility, heightened expectations, and no buffer between them and hard realities - no wonder it is such a difficult transition.

This time it is Robotics, Rocketry, Research at the Rapoport Academy Early College High School.  TSTC is involved in helping with these projects.  More secondary and post-secondary cooperation in CTE!  Read all about it on the Texas High School Project website HERE.

An article in the Corsicana Daily Sun about CTE at Corsicana High School mentions secondary and post-secondary connections twice (Corsicana is about 55 miles from TSTC Waco).  The building trades teacher said “his program has 38 young men working on their carpentry level I certification, which is very much like a college transcript, and are being taught the same curriculum as students in Waco at TSTC”

The new automotive teacher was most recently teaching in the award-wining Toyota program at TSTC Waco.  We hated to seem him go, but we are glad that his high school students will get the benefit of his experience and dedication.  Our best wishes go out to Michael Schmidt in his new postion at Corsicana High School.

If the tide in technical education is going to continue to turn, high schools and colleges need to persevere in finding ways to partner.  As we work on more articulation, dual credit, and innovative programs our students and our economy will be the winners.

Baylor Abandons SAT Payments (Inside Higher Ed) - So a magazine sets up a college rating system. It becomes wildly popular and more important than it should be. Whatever you do, don’t game this “system.” It would be “dishonest.” I read this one because it was about our local university, but it could have happened anywhere.

Are Universities Above the Law? (The Weekly Standard) - Three recent cases that illustrate the difficulties faced by higher education institutions in the legal system. The big universities are now very rich. It will make them a target for more legal action in the future. In these cases, Dartmouth, Duke, and Princeton may deserve what they are getting, though.

What Shortage of Scientists and Engineers? (The New York Times) - John Tierney argues that there is no shortage, just a shortage of American-born ones. Very interesting - but I don’t have enough information to evaluate the arguments. I do know that scientist immigration is no reason to feel sanguine about the state of math and science education in the U.S. I also know that we are very short of technicians in areas critical to economic growth, and we are not importing many of those.

Over at the Mpowered blog, there is a post about a proposal to require California students to take algebra in the 8th grade.  The post does a good job of showing the illogical underpinnings of the argument, so I don’t think that I need to address it.  I will say that my experience with my own kids indicates that good teachers make a difference and early algebra does not. (I linked to the category since I couldn’t find a permalink.  The article title is ‘Algebra earlier policy not proven anywhere.’)

‘Early Algebra’ is another example of ‘rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.’  The Texas 4×4 (four years of math, english, science, and social studies) is in danger of the same accusation as it now stands.  Although the Texas 4×4  for high school students is a good idea, it rests on a shaky foundation.  The facts are plain - students who have passed Algebra 2 with decent grades don’t actually perform at the advertised level.  Students who are unprepared for Precalculus and Calculus will do poorly in those subjects, too.  Since four years of math are required, the teachers and principals will have the choice of continuing to pass under-prepared students, or failing them, causing them miss graduation.  History tells us what will happen.

I support four years of math in high school with the following provisos:

1. A meaningful technology or business math course must be an alternative for those not headed to Calculus
2. Failure MUST be an option
3. Provisions will have to be made for ‘credit recovery’ when students fail
4. Passing a dual-credit College Algebra course should meet the 4th year requirement*

I believe that these ideas are needed to make the 4×4 effective.

*I realize that this may seem strange, but college-readiness is the point and basic math college-readiness and passing College Algebra are close to the same.  I consider this to be focusing on the desired result rather than the process of getting there.  Also, it has always been an issue for me that a full college academic course requiring more work than a full year high school course only counts .5 high school credits.

The San Diego Union-Tribune notes a new effort to reintegrate academics and CTE.  The idea is to make academics relevant and make it clear to CTE students that they can go to college.  This seems like a no-brainer to me, but some people believe that a wall must separate the two.

Here is the good stuff:

“I think there’s really this false dichotomy between saying ‘college-ready’ and ‘career ready,’” said Kathleen Porter, director of Career, Technical and Adult Education for the Poway Unified School District. “Having real-world connections in academic classes is every bit as important as having real-world classes reinforce academic skills.”

At Poway High, Advanced Placement physics students supplement their lectures on electrical circuits by visiting the school’s auto shop to see the circuits at work. And as a result of consulting with the physics teacher, auto shop teacher Ken Faverty said he teaches his students more about multiple circuits to reinforce classroom concepts they will face on state science tests.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: I have blogged about California’s CTE and the Governator before.  I am glad to see things moving in the right direction.

Charles Murray says it is for most people.  He has an interesting essay in the Wall Street Journal that talks about how the BA has become the gold standard when it does not necessarily indicate any special level of job skills.  He speculates about whether this would happen if we were designing our education system from the ground up:

First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn’t meet the goal. We will call the goal a “BA.”

The essay is well-written and thought-provoking.  Read the whole thing.  Murray has a book coming out soon entitled, “Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality” (linked to Amazon Kindle edition).  I don’t know if the description from Publisher’s Weekly is accurate.  If it is, I will have some disagreement with the book.  Still, the recognition that job skills are more important than academic stamps of approval is important and far too rare.

UPDATE:  For a related post, check out “Is College Worth It?”

TSTC Waco, with help from a Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) grant*, is hosting a Summer Bridge program for Waco ISD rising 11th and 12th graders.  The students are raising their placement test scores, eating well, having fun, and getting their hands on some cool technology.  They are also receiving some survey class college credit.

These students will be academically prepared for college.  The video indicates that they will be enthusiastic about continuing past high school, as well.  I can’t think of a better way for them to spend a summer.

*The grant did not cover the cost.  TSTC and WISD had to help.

There is a good post at the blog for the Center for College Affordability and Productivity that asks that very question. It makes the argument that money is not being used where it should be:

The game is this: “we are moving to a more knowledge based economy, so nearly everyone should go to college,” or so says the Educational Establishment. Then, the legislators appropriate more money. Then colleges take that money –and use it on virtually everything but expanding access.

As I blogged here, putting more tax dollars into higher education often does not result in improved education. Instead, the money is used for “prestige-building” activities like hiring non-teaching Nobel laureates.

Excellent essay at The Atlantic.

The common ambivalence about balancing college and career education is well-identified:

There is a sense that the American workforce needs to be more professional at every level. Many jobs that never before required college now call for at least some post-secondary course work…

America, ever-idealistic, seems wary of the vocational-education track. We are not comfortable limiting anyone’s options. Telling someone that college is not for him seems harsh and classist and British, as though we were sentencing him to a life in the coal mines. I sympathize with this stance; I subscribe to the American ideal.

Read the whole thing.

Via “No Sucker Left Behind”, Inside Higher Ed reports that NYU will not be accepting dual credit courses taught at high schools by high school teachers qualified and certified by the credit-granting college. They will be accepting AP credits. It seems crazy to me, and they don’t appear to have any research to back it up.

I know that when our college offers credit in this manner, the high school teacher must meet the same qualifications and curriculum alignment must occur. Not accepting that coursework seems short-sighted to me. It is also a view into why I believe that our system is out-of-date, out-of-touch, and out-of-time.

UPDATE:

I just read one of the responses in the comments section from the Academic Integrity Coordinator of UC, San Diego. It reads:

Dual Enrollment Teaches Students the Wrong Lessons

I am so pleased to see that a major university has made this decision, albeit for different reasons than I problematize “dual enrollments.” The dual enrollment program reinforces in students a consumer mentality of higher education by teaching them that the academy accepts short-cut methods for earning college credit and prioritizes credit acquisition over learning. Why do we wonder, then, that students view other “short-cutting” methods (e.g., copying and pasting off the internet, copying homework, submitting the same paper in two different classes for credit, and unauthorized collaboration) as viable and acceptable methods for completing college courses? This “double dipping” may offer students short-term benefits (e.g., college access), but NYU’s bold step begs the academy to step-back and contemplate the potential long-term costs of dual-enrollment and other credit-acquisition schemes. How does “dual-enrollment” affect our students’ cognitive, moral/ethical, and social development? What are the psychological and adjustment ramifications for the students who enter college as “better-than-perfect” because they receive extra credit for AP classes? Are there ways to prepare students for college-level education and enhance access WITHOUT teaching them that it is acceptable to double-dip and WITHOUT reinforcing in them the country’s obsession with grades? I would hope so and I hope NYU’s decision stimulates a nation-wide discussion on this issue.

All I can say is that this attitude is exactly what is going to cause our current system to go down the tubes. Yes, our students have a consumer mentality. ‘The Academy’ is going to need a service mentality to meet the challenge. I am dumbfounded that taking a college course for college credit could be called a “credit-acquisition scheme.” I am just flabbergasted by the assertion that taking dual-credit at high school is like plagiarism!

There is a good post on the ‘Ed in ‘08′ event in Washington D.C. on the Generation Yes Blog. GenYes points out:

The Ed in 08 campaign is a plan to get the presidential candidates to talk more about education and create more urgency in American politics for improving education. Their three policy pillars are:

• Higher standards
• More effective teachers
• More time and support for learning

Uh huh, sure - who isn’t for these. But what exactly do these phrases mean? There are a thousand interpretations, and a thousand more implementation ideas.

That is the problem. Presidential candidates and politicians in general are happy to talk about motherhood and apple pie. “Children need to know how to read and do math!” is a nice statement with which all voters will agree. However, “We need vouchers” or “We need year-round school” or any other specific solution makes some percentage of the voters mad.

I recently had a conversation with a Texas politician who is unhappy with the lack of direction from Washington on a real energy independence plan. He said, “We’ll have to do something ourselves since they aren’t going to do anything.” The same is true with education. At the national level, many of our “leaders” are now too hampered by political considerations to actually lead.

For more on Ed in ‘08, chedk out another GenYes post here. Ed Chipalowski has a lot here.

I agree with everything in this article from Inside Higher Ed. It is very much worth reading the whole thing. We are going to need a completely new way for funding and organizing post-secondary education in this country. Our system of technical colleges is already moving in the direction of greater efficiency in equipping students with truly marketable skills. This society can no longer afford the ‘college experience’ as it currently exists for these reasons:

1. It does not serve the students
2. It does not meet the needs of the economy
3. It wastes huge amounts of taxpayer money
4. It leaves higher ed customers under a heavy load of debt

Right now, public post-secondary technical education already represents an exceptional deal. When you remember that five of the top first year earnings degrees were the AAS variety (see here), you realize that ROI is much better from a technical college degree.

Read the article. Like all bubbles, this one will leave winners and losers when it pops.

UPDATE: I can’t agree with everything I read in this post. Connecting career choice solely with IQ is ridiculous. I’ve known too many Ph.D types that weren’t very smart, and a lot of technicians that were brilliant. I think it has more to do with choice than IQ.

I do agree with this bit, though:

Many go to University who ought to have learned their career skills in high school — or at least in junior college. It is not necessary for all the citizens of a republic to have gone to university and learned French Narrative Theory. One need not know know anything at all about Foucault or Deconstruction to be a good citizen, vote in elections, pay taxes; and indeed I put it to you that being without debt is probably preferable to knowing French Narrative Theory.

Don’t just sit there - make a comment!

Again from a friend at Texas Workforce Commission, this report about the lack of real change in schools. Highlights … I mean lowlights include:

• Time: Nationally, the amount of time spent in elementary school on core subjects has increased by only approximately 36 minutes per week-less than 10 minutes per day.
• Teaching: About 8 percent of public school districts offer pay incentives for excellence in teaching. That figure has remained virtually unchanged since 1984.
• Standards & expectations: 12th grade test scores in reading and science have dropped, while average high school GPAs have grown dramatically. Students are earning higher grades in “tougher” subjects, yet actual learning is either stagnant or declining. For instance, in math, almost half (two out of five) high school seniors lack skills commonly taught in the 7th or 8th grades that are needed to learn trades that do not require a college degree.

There is a lot to read in the report. I still believe that dual credit can help with a lot of these problems. Even with more dual credit, our educational system is stuck in the past.

In Terry Gilliam’s 1981 geek fest movie, Time Bandits, the megalomaniacal character named Evil rhapsodized about his plans for the world after he gained power. He finished his monologue by announcing that he would create a “rushing wind which will cover the face of the earth and wipe clean the scourge of woolly thinking once and for all.” Although the movie ends with Evil being defeated, I confess that I also desire for that wind to blow a certain kind of woolly thinking away forever.

I refer to the epidemic of woolly thinking among American adults about the priorities of young people. Adults who should know better believe that high school students are “having the best time of their lives” and should be allowed to have fun. After all, this is their last chance for amusement before the hard work in college begins, followed by “the real world.” Opposing this woolly thinking is the political and educational establishment’s campaign to “make the senior year meaningful again.”

Although actually using the ultimate high school year to learn is a worthy goal, the schools are not culpable for this faulty logic. It is a cultural malady caused by affluence, immature parents trying to vicariously relive their youths through their children, and an inadequate understanding of simple economics. Adults know, or should know, that one can never fully reclaim a wasted year. Every moment of time is precious, especially the prime years for learning and growing. Students should be focused on building a great future. Instead, they come out of our high schools academically unprepared and clueless about the future. If the wind blows them toward college, they idle along in general studies or psychology programs, hoping to avoid any really difficult math.

When my younger daughter was a high school sophomore, she decided to take enough dual credit courses to graduate a year early. Respected adults were concerned that she was throwing away all of the wonderful experiences of her senior year. It was “the best time of her life” and she would be missing it to get some early college credit. What a waste! She did graduate early and will be a junior at the University of North Texas when most of her peers are just beginning their remedial classes at the local community college. What was more valuable in the long run – a second junior/senior prom or a two-year head start on a college education? How many of us now look back on the senior year in high school as “the best time of our lives?” Is it possible that parents are trying to buy a second chance at that experience through their children?

The lack of economic understanding exhibited by this attitude is staggering in the calamitous effect it has on both our children and the economy of the country. Marketable skills drive the ability of any individual to make a living – not a degree alone. Many affluent parents seem to think that as long as their children get a four-year degree from a well-known university that a good job is automatic. They might be shocked to see young people with those bachelor’s degrees coming to a two-year technical school to get marketable skills, but I have seen it many times. Young people with no salable talents wind up as overeducated baristas who are struggling to pay enormous student loans.

Thomas Edison said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” We would blush to quote something so corny to our teenagers these days. They wouldn’t know what overalls were, anyway. But something like that, more modern and relevant, needs to be heard. A few people will get lucky and prosper by accident. For the rest of us, opportunity requires work and work creates opportunity. Everything else is just playing the lotto - and if counting on winning the lotto doesn’t seem like woolly thinking, that cleansing wind needs to blow your direction.

According to this article from Inside Higher Ed, distance education is booming at Community Colleges. What are we doing to keep up in technical education? Much of what we do cannot be packaged online. You can’t solder resistors on a circuit board online, but you can prepare students for the lab? Many of our subjects could be taught in “hybrid” or “blended” courses. Theory and some lab could be done online, while the meat of the labs could be done in less time with more flexible schedules on campus.

What about secondary school CTE? Are we utilizing the same tools that our students will see in college. All courses at TSTC Waco are now required to a least have a syllabus, schedule, and grade book online. Many are going much further with tests, handouts, activities, chat sessions, discussion boards, recorded lectures, podcasting, etc. It is (past) time to get on board with a newer and more flexible learning environment.

A friend sent me a link to a very interesting article from Inside Higher Ed. Charles Miller is taking on the oft-repeated canard that a bachelor’s degree is worth a million dollars to a graduate over a lifetime. It seems that if you do the math right, it is worth considerably less. The problem I have with the math is that it does not separate the differences that occur because all degrees do not provide highly marketable skills.

The College Board has responded to Mr. Miller by conceding the nonexistence of the mythical million but claiming that a public university graduate “breaks even” at 33 years of age while it takes a private college graduate until age 40. Considering the high pay that an AAS degree can bring (see here) and the economic futility of some four-year degrees (see here), I wonder what the break-even point is for a technical school major. Stay tuned - I am sure that we will here more about this.

In the mean time - check out the comments on the Inside Higher Ed article. Also, I would recommend that reading Marty Nemko on the same subject.

UPDATE: By the way, my ‘friend’ is the TSTC System Associate Vice Chancellor for Technology Advancement, Michael Bettersworth. If you are interested in forecasts about where technology is headed in the future, please checkout his Emerging Technologies page on the TSTC website here.

If you are interested in buying a forecast, try the TSTC Publishing site which links to their web store.

I ran across the following in the Waco ISD CTE Newsletter for March 2008. It isn’t available online yet.

Jonathan Lozano, a senior at A.J. Moore Academy was recently surprised by an envelope from TSTC. He opened the envelope to find a Certificate of Academic Achievement. This certificate is awarded to part-time students earning a 3.75 or above during the previous semester. Jonathan earned a 4.0 in his Welding Technology Dual Credit class. His name was also published in the February edition of the Tech Times.

This is Jonathan’s second year in Welding Technology. He earned six hours last year, he earned three hours last semester and is enrolled in three hours this semester.

Jonathan plans on pursuing a Certificate in Welding from TSTC and eventually become an architect. He believes that the knowledge, skills, and abilities learned in welding will easily transfer into coursework in architecture. Jonathan should complete his certificate program in December of 2008.

Will welding make him a better architect? If he designs steel structures, you know it will! He will also have a skill he can make good money with while he works on that architecture degree.

The article is another good one. Money quote:

Degree and diploma programs can vary wildly in price among for-profit schools, and those prices can look even higher when compared with public schools.

According to the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice at ITT Technical Institute costs about $72,900.

That same degree costs roughly half — $36,890 — at University of Phoenix. And at Middle Tennessee State University, the same degree would cost about $21,000 for in-state students.

Also, be sure to check out this PDF comparing costs.

(via e-Learning Pundit)

Just a few miles west of Waco you will find the little town of McGregor. What you would not expect to find there is a rocket engine test and development facility. It is there, though, and belongs to SpaceX. Although engineers are very important to efforts like those in McGregor, they would be lost without technicians. A couple of our TSTC Waco employees visited the SpaceX facility recently. Along with Vanguard College Preparatory Academy, they toured the facility and got to see a static rocket test.

Their tour guide had and engineering degree as well as a business degree. She got her start at TSTC, where she participated in the Baylor University Center for Astrophysics, Space Physics & Engineering Research (CASPER) summer program. The CASPER lab is located on the TSTC Waco campus and is staffed by TSTC Laser Electro-optics faculty and students. SpaceX is also staffed with a number of TSTC Waco graduates.

Although we often hear about the need for engineers, we are very rarely reminded that several technicians are required for every engineer. In fact, when I checked here for SpaceX jobs at the McGregor site, there were 7 jobs for technicians and 2 for engineers. Technicians, as well as engineers, are required for the U.S. to continue as a technology and space exploration leader.

Here is a video of a static test firing at the SpaceX McGregor facility:

If I hadn’t been at CTAT in Austin, I would have seen something cool like this!

Many of the presentations from the Education Open Source conference I attended (and blogged about) in Austin are now online here.

My wife and I are back from Austin and Education Open Source, now. I’m glad to be back, but I’m not looking forward to the backlog at the office. I have a lot of things to think about that will give me blog-fodder for some time to come (that would be “blog-fodder” and not the “Blogfather,” who I believe may be Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit).

The last session was a panel discussion including State Senator Florence Shapiro, State Representative Geanie Morrison, Texas State Technical College System Chancellor Dr. Bill Segura (my boss’ boss!), Birdville ISD Superintendent Stephen Waddell, Valero Energy Director of Maintenance and Engineering Jim Griffith, and Paula Thomas of the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Organization and Leadership Development department.

There was plenty of fascinating discussion. Jim Griffith brought the house down when he suggested matter-of-factly that the solution to AAS degree transfer difficulties would be to have the presidents of the 4-year colleges summarily shot! (Note to Valero executives: This was a joke and everyone took it that way.) Dr. Segura pointed that those who question rigor at transfer time don’t hesitate to board a plane piloted by a technical college grad. They also receive treatment in hospitals 80% staffed by two-year allied health grads.

The most intriguing part of the conversation had to do with a state law in New Jersey requiring four-year public colleges and universities to accept public two-year degrees. Apparently I missed that news when it came out. That was a very popular idea with the secondary and higher ed CTE folks at EOS! I hope we can achieve something like that in Texas very soon.

What do you think?

Secondary/Post-Secondary Cooperation – Jan Brae (ACTE Executive Director) talked about it today at Education Open Source in Austin, TX. Then she reminded us that we all have different rules, agencies, laws, and missions. That makes cooperation very hard. So much of it seems to be out of our hands.

I think we make it harder than it needs to be, though. We talk a lot about seamless transitions, but we don’t really talk to each other much. I was involved in college technical organizations and meetings for some time before I even knew that CTAT (Texas secondary CTE) and ACTE (national secondary CTE) existed.

There is hope, though. There are a lot of post-secondary folks in attendance at this CTAT-sponsored conference (the Chancellor of the TSTC System, Dr. Bill Segura, is here). By the time we left today, there was talk about CTAT and TACTE (Texas Post-Secondary CTE) having their meetings together. Communication can lead to understanding, friendship, and cooperation. That should be a great benefit to our students. Maybe our transitions will really be seamless one day.

Jan Brae, Executive Director of ACTE, spoke to the attendees at Education Open Source today. I was struck her by her comments on why CTE professionals aren’t having a bigger impact on the discussion about education reform.

She said:

1. We don’t talk about CTE using data - just anecdotes

2. We don’t talk about CTE using the language that is driving reform. We should talk about -

• Academic Achievement (how do your CTE students compare?)
• Dropout or graduation rate (how do we compare?)
• Transition to post-secondary (how do we compare?) Any post-secondary should count - certificate, two-year, or four-year

She had a lot more to say, but she made it clear that people need to know that CTE is the pathway to post-secondary success in the workplace or in college.