Bobay: California abandons Career Technical Education
Students from Silicon Valley Career Technical Education classes renovated this San Jose house and brought it up to code as part of their career training. (Mercury News File Photo)
Thirty years ago, the “one way to win” paradigm in education became popular in high schools. Counselors only promoted classes that would lead teenage students to college. In the long term, this wiped out vocational programs, known now as Career Technical Education (CTE).
In 2013, Gov. Jerry Brown created the new Local Control Funding Formula to redirect the investments in special programs. He stated if districts value a program, they will fund it. His idea of funding Career Technical Education was to throw $500 million out to both school districts and CTE centers to compete for grants. In addition, grants must be matched with district funds.
The programs become sustainable when the grants conclude.
We need legislators in California to stand up for future funding for career education, the way Congressmen Joe Heck from Las Vegas and John Kline from Minnesota stood up recently to authorize federal CTE funds.
How do you make sustainable programs at Career Technical Education centers that serve over 200,000 students in California when there is no future for them?
On a positive note, the funds that have been awarded through grants have been put to good use starting cutting-edge programs. This is what the state needs. But when the grants run out, so do the services and programs for these centers.
Silicon Valley and cities across the United States continue to diversify their economies to keep pace in a rapidly changing global marketplace; we need a well-educated, highly trained workforce to fill the jobs of the future. Students enrolled in CTE programs are challenging themselves and learning advanced and highly technical subjects that will help them fill current in-demand jobs.
According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, there are about 4 million job openings in the United States. Among the top industries are: manufacturing, engineering, cybersecurity, and healthcare. Where does the governor think students can receive this training? Especially now that ITT Tech, Heald Business College and Corinthian College have all shut down?
Career Technical Education Centers produce more than 2,000 trained students per year, per community. The centers serve all students, but they tend to attract a higher percentage of under-represented populations. More than 70 percent of the students studying in the Health Careers field go on to college, making them both college and career ready.
Superintendents in California have been fighting for CTE dollars for over a quarter of a century. It is time to invest in our centers and programs that can put people to work in today’s jobs. We are a service that needs to stay open and have adequate funding for workforce development in our communities.
Daniel Bobay is a Milpitas Unified School District trustee and board president of the Metropolitan Education District, which operates Silicon Valley Career Technical Education for six local school districts. He wrote this for The Mercury News.Bobay: California abandons Career Technical Education: