(General programming note for blog readers in the West Lafayette school district: I am a candidate in the 2020 West Lafayette School Board election. There are four seats open, and I would like to fill one of them. If you want to know more about my campaign, ask questions, request a yard sign, please go to https://masson.us/schoolboard.)
As I’m in the middle of my campaign for West Lafayette school board, I’m going through some of my older posts on education. This one from July 2017 remains relevant:
Peter Balonon-Rosen, writing for State Impact Indiana has a good article on career and technical training initiatives in Indiana schools:
A new state law could allow job training programs to replace other high school graduation requirements. The law requires the State Board of Education to develop new pathways to high school completion.
It comes just as job training in Indiana high schools has taken on a new life — and new name.
“I think there’s a negative perception associated with the term ‘vocational training,’” Deuberry says. “Instead it is kind of like job training program. It’s so much bigger.”
. . .
Career and technical education programs are growing across Indiana. Today, students learn skills from welding to 3D printing to cooking – not just shop class skills, as was common in the past.
This is probably a good concept if done well but subject to abuse if done poorly. (Not very insightful: you could probably say that about almost literally any initiative.) Earlier in the article, Balonon-Rosen mentions that policymakers have struggled with whether education should be about getting kids ready for college or for the workforce. Molly Deuberry, speaking for the Department of Education, says “both.” And that’s correct as far as it goes, but I cringed a little at the idea of “college” being the counterpart to “workforce” because you run into the same question in college. Is that just advanced vocational training?
The larger question, in my mind, is whether you are teaching the student to be a worker or teaching the student to be a person. The ability to make a living is a big part of what is going to make you a productive, happy, fully developed citizen and human. But, it’s obviously not the only thing. Schools have to focus on vocational capabilities as a significant part of what will make a student a good person and a citizen who will improve the community. College preparation is not necessarily the path to excellence in those non-vocational areas of life.
But, I’m straying a bit from the point. When I was a kid, it seemed like vocational classes were a place where the troublemakers were shunted off. As I walked the hallways, I saw lots of rough kids through the doors of shop rooms that I never set foot in. The danger is that these vocational classes won’t be used so much as an alternate route for a fully developed education as storage space for “troublemakers.”
But it definitely doesn’t have to be that way, and from the article it sounds like the aspiration of the career and technical training initiatives is to recognize that college isn’t for everyone. (And, as I say this, I’m extremely wary of sounding like Judge Smails in Caddyshack when he tells Danny, “the world needs ditch diggers too.”) A strong career and technical education path was one of the recommendations of the NCSL report on how to build a world-class educational system after the study group reviewed a number of other educational systems around the world. As I put it in a blog post from last year:
Develop a Career and Technical Education path for those students preferring more of an applied education rather than a more academic approach. This shouldn’t be an educational backwater like so many vocational programs. It should be geared to boosting the national economy and providing a higher standard of living for a broader base of the population.
More from the report:
Singapore and Switzerland, in particular, have built strong systems of CTE with close ties to industry. Singapore uses a school-based model and Switzerland uses an employer-based model. In these countries, CTE is not perceived as a route for students lacking strong academic skills, but as another approach to education, skills development and good jobs. CTE is well funded, academically challenging and aligned with real workforce needs. It is hands-on, attractive to students and parents, and can lead to university for students who may seek professional and managerial positions later. For other students, CTE is a pathway to good jobs, by building technical skills that can be achieved much earlier than the traditional academic experience.
It bears mentioning that the report also called for social safety net infrastructure so the student comes ready to learn, a well-paid and highly trained force of teachers working collaboratively, and that the system be implemented as part of a comprehensive plan. These items are likely less palatable to Indiana policymakers than beefing up vocational education career tracks. Which, in turn, makes me concerned about whether the career and technical education track will be implemented as an alternate route to a high quality education or just a new name for the old approach to vocational education.
The high schools do not push vocational training since they lose funding for the student. The students only attend half a day and they may spend their junior year (example) in Health science education 1 and their senior year in nursing, medical assisting or athletic training and exercise science. The problem with the rural schools is finding teachers. The pay is terrible and the teachers that are teaching are there because they are dedicated and not teaching for the money. Then you have people who have no teaching degree that are being hired do to their expertise in the field they are instructing. A good example is the Elwood career center was looking for a IT instructor and the pay was under $30,000 a year. They literally shut down the program when the could not find a instructor to teach the class. My youngest son went to Central Nine was IT programming and computer tech support. He is his second year at UINDY in their new engineering department. They still have the automotive , diesel repair, welding and all the traditional classes from many years ago. We did go to a awards ceremony for students that had a good (the grade point average escapes me) grade point average.The grade average included his high school classes His junior year there were just over 100 students his senior year was in the 90’s. So career centers are a great choice for students that don’t want to go to college. Yes I believe they could tweak the classes they take in the half day at the high school to make them better citizens. I know my son Steven had math, government and another class. So here is a link to Central Nine which takes in 9 high schools on the South Side of Indy. https://central9.k12.in.us/
Thanks Phil! Good to get information from someone who knows the lay of the land. I often read this stuff from a 1,000 foot level and am mostly combining it with stuff I remember from high school; so I’m never sure how clear my perspective is.
Do you know if Central 9 has much success partnering with businesses/industry in the area?
Just talked to my son and he said that students did get jobs (EMT’ students got paid for going out on actual runs with the ambulance companies) but they had to be approved by the instructors and the administration. The students could work two days a week and go to school the other three days. He said only one student in IT (they have a morning and afternoon class) had a job. Steven said a large number of students in nursing, dental, culinary (they have a restaurant on site), diesel mechanics , cosmetology had internships. He wasn’t sure about the other classes since he didn’t have any friends in the programs. Many of the students worked after school or on the weekends.
I was doing some research for a friend running for school board in Franklin Township and I found a intriguing fact. Central Nine is one of three Career and Technology Center in Indiana that the instructors and teachers have a collective bargaining agreement which I assume is they have a union. That explains the low salaries in the rural Career Centers in Indiana. I could not find any financial information for any career center on the Indiana https://gateway.ifionline.org/report_builder/ or the School Extra-Curricular Accounts. I find this strange (C9 only shows up in the collective bargaining agreement) that the state doesn’t make them to do any reporting, unless I am looking in the wrong place!. I do know that there is another site that is run by a third party for the state of Indiana. I’m thinking there is not a lot on it but as I remember the link is buried in a report link and is hard to find.
Quick question who determines the EXTRA-CURRICULAR COMPENSATION or stipends, I know they are not bargained. I suspect it is done by the administration or is it a collaborative effort between the administration and the teachers. It does not make any sense that a 7th grade tennis coach can get a larger stipend then a high school robotics coach. Hmm do we value tennis over (watching the corn blow is more exciting then watching 7th grade tennis!) future engineers. Now you know why I’m helping my friend on his school election campaign.
I know that, in the case of “ancillary duties,” (“meetings, professional development trainings, and other school activities outside the contractual day or Contractual year”) the school corporation defines the scope of those duties and then the corporation and the union can bargain the compensation for the ancillary duties. (See Culver Community Teacher’s Association v. IEERB).
Thanks Doug I will send you the link other school link when I stumble upon it again. Yes that is what I was told by a administrator. but what confused me was at the end of the union teachers contract it stated , “Number of positions are included for informational purposes only and were not bargained.” I misinterpreted this statement, it was referring to the position of an assistant football coach was only bargained once even thou there are three coaches. One thing that puzzles me is how can a stipend be bargained for if it is filled by a person that is not affiliated with the school corporation. I’m guessing they are only bargaining for the position and not who fills it. If I get a chance I will re read the decision you sent and maybe it’s in there and I missed it.
Lastly I find it a bit unsettling the number of school board members I have talked to that have no clue that the State of Indiana has the https://gateway.ifionline.org/report_builder/ website that gives a board member literally all the financial details of the school corporation right at you finger tips. A new school board member would have all the financial data going in instead of having it spoon fed to them by the administration.
Here is where a school board member could catch a possible problem before it happened. Case in point the :William Henry Harrison High School extra-curricular accounts balance was $430,729.86 on 6/30/2020. The bond of the school treasure is only $25,000.00. Elwood High and Junior High have a combined balance of $163,762.99 and their bond is for $30,000.00. Franklin Twsp has a balance of $654,171.51 and a $50,000.00 bond. People don’t steal, my wife has worked as a probate para-legal for over thirty years and the stories she tells. She actually got her job because the para-legal before her stole over $300,000 from the law firm. She did go to jail but not as long as everyone thought she should have. Thanks for the info.
The bond example wasn’t really a money saver. I was thinking you could compare health insurance, vision and dental insurance cost for the teachers (by the way a dollar for the teachers cost for eye and dental services is fantastic) by comparing the total cost from other schools. On the health side the school corporations that have the cheaper plan ( Tippecanoe and Franklin Twsp both use Anthem) may be the same or close to the same plan and could save each teacher $500 to a $1000 or more a year
The three Anthem plans Franklin Twsp and the Anthem and Tippecanoe have are about a thousand dollars apart in favor of Franklin Township.
Your school district has a PPO and FT has a fund named Anthem 1/2.. Are they both PPO’s, who knows? All it would take is a couple of phone calls to the schools that had the cheaper plans and ask them to send you the plan information. Then compare the plans. Is it work, hell yes, but the teachers will love you if you can save them $500 to $1,500 a year. I have talked to HR people that pick insurance plans and they usually don’t put a lot of time into picking a plan, they pick what each companies sale staff recommends and then they pick what company has the best bang for the buck. What the sale support don’t push is that you can buy Anthem health insurance from numerous states and the name of the policy will be different but the benefits will be almost the same. The prices will be all over the map and that’s where you can save everybody (maybe even the administration) money.
I am seriously thinking about running for School Board Member next election next election. Big house and no children or grand children to fill it so we may be in New Palestine or Noblesville. I asked a school board member who was on the finance Committee (?} and why she didn’t take more time to go over the finances to find ways for the school corp to save some money. Her answer was, “that would a lot of time and they don’t pay me enough”, I almost hit her! Sad Grin! Link Collective Bargaining —- Report Builder: IEERB Collective Bargaining Report It’s up to date with the 2020 report
Oh wait, I forgot you have to win. Remember the person with the most signs wins! Oh wait that’s Franklin Township.!. Chuckle!