Education Week - May 10, 2017 - 12

Tenn. Sets Sights
On Quality CTE
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

CAREER TECHNICAL EDUCATION
ing jobs in expanding industries.
Valerie Hubert's path illustrates
that new emphasis. A senior at
Warren County High, she nabbed
an internship at Batesville Casket,
in nearby Manchester. The manufacturer wanted a student to help
with packaging, but Valerie, a top
mechatronics student, changed the
company's plans when she told officials she wanted to do computer
coding.
Now she's part of Batesville's
engineering team, making $13 per
hour, quite a cut above her last job,
frying chicken for $7.75. As Batesville workers churn out 1,200 caskets a day in the massive facility,
Valerie is tucked away in a quiet
office cubicle, writing a program
that will help the company track its
production more efficiently.
She plans to attend Tennessee
Technological University next year,
where she'll study for a bachelor's
degree in computer engineering or
computer science.
Len Turner, Valerie's supervisor at the plant, said he's got "big
plans" for her. He wants to team her
up with the company's robotics engineers. That scenario puts a huge
grin on Valerie's face. "Yeah," she
said. "Oh, yeah."
When Tracy Risinger, Warren
County's career and technical education director, visited the Batesville
plant recently, Turner summed the
situation up for her this way: "Send
us more Valeries," he said. "We'll take
'em all."

Building a System
Seventy-five miles away, high up
in a state office building in Nashville, career-tech-ed leaders are
working to create those kinds of
promising career pathways for all
students. The clear alignment of
high school programs with postsecondary options, and with labormarket needs, doesn't happen by
accident. Tennessee is considered
a leader in crafting those connections. On a recent spring day, the
process of evaluating which high
school programs of study should be
welcomed, and which rebuffed, was
on display.
Heather Justice, who oversees the
state's career-and-tech-ed programs,
is meeting with Deborah Knoll, a
consultant who focuses on a cluster
of subjects including advanced manu-

Photos by Joe Buglewicz for Education Week

tion programs. Leaders in the field
are acutely aware that too many
career tracks have trapped young
people in low-paying jobs with
dim growth potential. To improve
students' prospects, those leaders
are insisting on a new definition of
"high quality" programs-one that
rests on the option of earning postsecondary credentials or degrees
and on the availability of good-pay-

AT A CROSSROADS

state to gauge their interest in offering a cybersecurity program, to see if
the demand is regional or statewide.
Knoll will also have to demonstrate
that students who opt for a cybersecurity program could move smoothly
into postsecondary pathways.

In the 'Hot Seat'

FROM TOP: Warren County
High School senior Valerie
Hubert has an engineering
internship at Batesville
Casket Company in
Manchester, Tenn. Hubert
takes career-and-technicaleducation courses at
Warren County High School,
and wants to pursue a
career as an engineer.
Karrie Fischer, a graduate
of the high school's
career-and-technicaleducation program,
works at night at Miniature
Precision Components in
Morrison, Tenn., and attends
community college full time.
Junior Keaton Turner
welds during a class in the
advanced manufacturing
program.

12 | EDUCATION WEEK | May 10, 2017 | www.edweek.org

facturing and information technology,
to discuss whether to create a program of study in cybersecurity.
In Tennessee, districts can offer
state-approved programs of study
within 16 "career clusters," or they
can create their own, as Warren
County did with mechatronics, and
get the state's permission to offer
them. But any program must be
backed up by data proving that it
meets a labor-market need and that
it offers students the opportunity to
pursue higher education.
Knoll had met with her advisory

council, a group of professionals from
industry and higher education, so she
had data to back up her cybersecurity
proposal. She spread it across the
meeting table for Justice to see.
A "heat map" showed high demand
for cybersecurity workers across Tennessee, particularly around Knoxville
and Nashville. Demand for those jobs
is projected to grow 18 percent nationally, and 35 percent in Tennessee,
by 2024, Knoll told Justice, who appeared interested. But she told Knoll
to continue her research, checking in
particular with districts around the

Those kinds of conversations are
replicated throughout the year, subject area by subject area, as Tennessee works with a team of consultants, and with districts, industry,
and higher education, to weed out
weak offerings and replace them
with strong ones. As they progress,
the chats look more like dissertation
defenses; the consultants are pressed
to justify their proposals. That's why
Justice's office has nicknamed them
"hot seat" meetings.
Tennessee has used this system to
eliminate 15 programs of study, such
as floral design, since 2013. It is continually revising or replacing courses
within those programs of study to
keep up with industry's needs.
Assembling programs of study
with strong employment and higher
education potential establishes a
"new floor" in Tennessee: not just
a high school diploma but some
postsecondary training after high
school, said education Commissioner Candice McQueen. To support that shift, the state is moving
toward a new accountability system
that will let schools demonstrate
strength not only by making students college-ready, with high ACT
scores or dual-enrollment credits,
but also work-ready, by earning industry certifications.
"The message is certainly not to
stop [after an industry certification],"
McQueen said. "That certification will
let you pay the bills in your apartment while you continue your education. College or work isn't the decision anymore. It's how you're going to
mesh the two."
Rich McKeon, the director of career
readiness for the Council of Chief
State School Officers, said states
are increasingly paying attention to
ensuring that they're preparing students for jobs that have solid growth
potential and college pathways.
And they're seeing a payoff in

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Education Week - May 10, 2017

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