The Educated Guess » Career academies, where a-g and job training meet
Career academies, where a-g and job training meet
Posted in A to G Curriculum
The polarized arguments were familiar this week at the Silicon Valley Education Foundation forum in San Jose on a-g, the set of 15 courses required for admission to a four-year state school.
The establishment of a-g as a district’s default curriculum has opened up opportunities for students who never imagined themselves college-capable. If instituted with academic supports for struggling students, an a-g curriculum will not lead to a higher dropout rate but will offer more students, especially minority children, higher level courses. That’s been the San Jose Unified experience, Linda Murray, the former superintendent who instituted a-g, said. Making a-g standard could avoid what Neal Finkelstein, a senior researcher at WestEd, described as the “heartbreak” of many seniors who discover they’re a few credits short of being eligible to go to college.
The spread of a-g has narrowed the academic curriculum, San Jose State engineering professor Seth Bates said, and all but destroyed once-thriving career technical education programs that gave students hard skills for real jobs in electronics, construction and manufacturing. A-g has not contributed to a higher rate of college attendance and graduation. It has led to more than half of high school students entering the workforce unprepared, without skills.
But Finkelstein and other speakers also agreed it’s a false dichotomy.
Career academies, where a-g and job training meet
Posted in A to G Curriculum
The polarized arguments were familiar this week at the Silicon Valley Education Foundation forum in San Jose on a-g, the set of 15 courses required for admission to a four-year state school.
The establishment of a-g as a district’s default curriculum has opened up opportunities for students who never imagined themselves college-capable. If instituted with academic supports for struggling students, an a-g curriculum will not lead to a higher dropout rate but will offer more students, especially minority children, higher level courses. That’s been the San Jose Unified experience, Linda Murray, the former superintendent who instituted a-g, said. Making a-g standard could avoid what Neal Finkelstein, a senior researcher at WestEd, described as the “heartbreak” of many seniors who discover they’re a few credits short of being eligible to go to college.
The spread of a-g has narrowed the academic curriculum, San Jose State engineering professor Seth Bates said, and all but destroyed once-thriving career technical education programs that gave students hard skills for real jobs in electronics, construction and manufacturing. A-g has not contributed to a higher rate of college attendance and graduation. It has led to more than half of high school students entering the workforce unprepared, without skills.
But Finkelstein and other speakers also agreed it’s a false dichotomy.
