Editor’s note: This commentary is by Clifton Long, of Washington, who is the plumbing and heating instructor at Central Vermont Career Center, and a former board chair of the Orange North Supervisory Union. It was first published in the Times Argus.
The promise of career and technical education in our state is that we will train high school students for success in high-wage, high-skill, high-demand careers. The McLure Foundation projects 18,600 such jobs, which are attainable by CTE grads, will become available in Vermont in the next 10 years through attrition and new-job creation. More than 10,000 additional jobs will be available to CTE grads who go on to obtain an associate or bachelor’s degree.
At wages of $40,000 to $65,000 per year, these jobs represent nearly $1.5 billion in salaries for Vermonters and hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue for the state. These careers create an undeniable incentive for young Vermonters to stay in Vermont, buy homes, raise families and invest socially and economically in their communities. The benefits to our citizens, communities and commerce are difficult to overestimate.
And yet, Vermont’s CTE system is preparing students for only a fraction of these jobs. The currently pending state CTE plan affords the secretary of education, the Legislature and our governor the perfect opportunity to make structural changes that will enable us to effectively train many more students for these careers.
Vermont has 17 CTE centers governed by a variety of models, usually as a part of the district in which they are located. This fragmentation makes industry cooperation difficult, complicates human-resource management, creates confusing funding structures, defies curriculum standardization, and precludes possible economies of scale. There is no statewide plan that matches course offerings with local and statewide industry needs.
CTE center budgets are often controlled by the district in which they are housed rather than directly (and equitably!) by the sending schools from which their funding flows. In addition, the current funding structure for CTE centers has a built-in financial disincentive for students’ home schools.
Inevitably, and particularly now as student populations continue to decline, sending schools face increased financial pressure to hold onto all of their students. This institutionalized barrier to filling our career centers will deprive numerous students of their best opportunities for success in high school and in their future work life.
CTE centers currently perform a variety of duties that do not require a full-time employee. Examples include marketing, recruitment and community outreach, human-resource management, technology integration, curriculum development and implementation, business management, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) and literacy instruction, equipment purchasing and maintenance, and professional development. These responsibilities must be absorbed by existing in-house personnel, including teachers and support staff.
The economies of scale obtained through district centralization would enable the hiring of employees with the right skill set who are able to focus exclusively — and more efficiently and effectively — on those duties. This would cut local costs and save money overall. What’s more, administrators, teachers and support personnel would then have more time and energy to do their most important work: teaching and supporting students.
If the 17 centers were governed by a single entity, a statewide CTE single district, many of these inherent problems could be solved. Such a reorganization would change very little about the way centers function with students and their communities, but would create many administrative advantages and cost-saving opportunities. A statewide district could vastly simplify the flawed CTE funding mechanism into one that delivers a stabilized tuition and true equity across the state. CTE centers would have boards made up of representatives from school districts that send students to that center. Each of those boards would send a representative to a statewide board.
Business staffing needs would directly drive programming, ensuring there is a job for every graduate and a graduate for every job. Teachers would be hired, trained and paid under a contract designed to attract the best industry professionals, basing salaries on experience and licensure rather than college credits. Employers and educators would collaborate on curriculum development for a seamless transition to industry training programs, including apprenticeship, certifications and licensure.
Currently, many different state and private agencies share responsibility for adult career education but CTE centers have the required expertise, staff, plant and equipment to retrain our often underemployed adult workforce. A statewide district can also be an employment service for high schoolers and adults: Every student should graduate with a job waiting for them. Coordination with the Agency of Education, the Department of Labor and other entities would be greatly simplified.
Career and technical education, and the careers for which it prepares students, have changed enormously in the last generation. We must educate our students and the general public about the exciting, living-wage career pathways that are now available.
Only a stand-alone CTE district can ensure we take full advantage of these job opportunities for Vermonters. Ten years from now, if we have filled those nearly 30,000 jobs with CTE graduates and retrained adults, the positive effect on Vermont will be felt for generations.
