Friends, classes and construction noise. Another school year at Aragon has started. As focus shifts from summer relaxation to academics, there is a relatively new requirement that students must consider when planning out their four years at Aragon: Career Technical Education.
Many of you have heard about Aragon’s Career Technical Education (CTE) program. It has courses covering photography, videography, biotechnology, engineering technology, computer science and nutrition/culinary arts.
The goal of the program, according to the California Department of Education, is “to provide students with a pathway to postsecondary education and careers.”
The State of California requires that school districts provide a CTE program for its students. It does not mandate that taking a CTE course would be a graduation requirement. It was the San Mateo Union High School District that—as of four years ago—made it a requirement.
I believe that this requirement is a good decision and has various benefits.
The name Career Technical Education is new, but the concept of providing career training to high school students is not. Aragon’s CTE department chair Susan Hontalas has worked in career education since 1979. She says that the predecessor to CTE was the vocational education program. It included courses like auto-shop that allowed students to graduate high school and then immediately enter a career.
However, jobs are now much more complicated. Hontalas gives the example that a modern mechanic must grapple with complex computer systems in today’s vehicles. This requires in-depth training that cannot be crammed into a high school course.
Nowadays, postsecondary education is often required because of the increased complexity inherent in today’s jobs. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the national average for enrollment of 18-24 year olds in two-year or four-year colleges was 26 percent in the 1980’s. In 2014, the average was 40 percent.
At Aragon, the number is even higher. From the 2014-2015 school year, 98 percent of Aragon graduates were slated to attend a two-year or four-year college.
Instead of preparing students for careers immediately after graduation, Aragon’s CTE focus is on adding variety to a student’s education and providing skills that are universally relevant to the modern job market. These two tenets of the program are why I firmly support the CTE requirement.
It is far from universal, but many Aragon students take exhausting academic workloads at the expense of any classes or extracurriculars deemed as nonessential.
The belief is that difficult academic classes lead to acceptance into a good college. A good college, in turn, means a good career.
But I reject this notion. This formula does not guarantee success.
First, by living in a bubble of highly academic classes, students can fail to develop important job skills. Aragon’s academic classes are excellent. But they will not teach you how to write a resume or how to work in a collaborative, project-focused environment. The job skills that the CTE program provides are not only unavailable in other classes, they are essential to success in the modern workforce.
As well, students who would otherwise avoid the CTE program may find that they have a knack for, and enjoy a discipline they would otherwise never have experienced. In the highly structured life of competitive students, variety can be essential.
High school students are often told to specialize. However, the better path is to branch out. It gives students more future options, and both colleges and employers will appreciate the wider skillset and knowledge base.
Yes, the requirement of CTEs may be irritating to some students, but it exists for a good reason. CTEs provide job skills that standard academic classes–and even other electives–cannot provide, and they encourage students to step out of their comfort zone and explore.
