Vocational schools: Ripe for reinvention

Monday, the state’s Board of Regents is poised to make an important decision to elevate and overhaul career-oriented studies, giving them equal status with academic subjects for high school graduation.

Critics who claim this is “dumbing down” requirements are utterly uninformed. Educators and employers are united in support of this effort because it’s a strong step toward ensuring that public high school graduates are on the path toward advanced degrees, successful careers or both.

In a meeting today, State Education Commissioner John King and Chancellor Merryl Tisch will ask the Regents to accept their recommendation that the mastery of job skills become one of the criteria for earning an academic high school diploma in New York. This will enable schools across the state to create and expand successful Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs.

Under the reform, students would still need to earn their math, science and liberal arts credits — but their career-oriented studies would finally be granted equal status in evaluating overall academic achievement.

The claim that adding this testing option, known as Multiple Pathways, waters down standards couldn’t be further from the truth. A study commissioned by the Board of Regents and conducted by Cornell and Harvard researchers, in fact, found that many CTE tests are more difficult, not less, than Regents exams — and that CTE graduates who earn Regents diplomas will have demonstrated college and career readiness “far more convincingly” than non-CTE students.

Too many young people — both in the city and state — graduate from high school unprepared for either college or a career. This leaves young people adrift and employers without a pipeline of qualified job candidates.

It also is expensive to society, as thousands upon thousands of disconnected youth are headed for a life of underemployment or dependency.

About 40% of New York City’s high school students, or 120,000 young people, are now enrolled in a dedicated CTE school or program. A recent study shows that they are more likely to complete their course of study and graduate than students who are not in a career-oriented program.

The best CTE programs are directly connected to employers who guide curriculum and certification requirements and provide professional development for teachers, internships for students and even a first crack at a job.

The problem is that despite its significant promise, CTE has not been fully legitimatized as part of the state’s core curriculum, making it a costly “add on” to the high school experience, rather than a deeply interwoven piece of it. As a result, career-oriented education still carries the negative stigma attached to old-style vocational education, which was a secondary track for students destined to “work with their hands.”

In recent years, a number of model CTE programs have emerged, in which high schools students are earning college credits and receiving industry certifications that qualify them for employment upon graduation.

Some lead directly to an advanced degree, such as IBM’s P-Tech and Energy Tech, sponsored by Con Edison and National Grid. Venture capitalist Fred Wilson has invested in two new software academies, at which students are preparing for the job opportunities in the city’s fast-growing tech sector.

They’re doing exactly what public schools do: producing young people capable of being self-sufficient and economically productive members of society.

Not all CTE programs are of equal quality. By bringing CTE up to Regents exam status, Tisch and King’s plan will help New York finally move the needle on college and career readiness among its public school graduates and set more of our kids on a course for success.

Wylde is President of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit organization of the city’s business leaders. Mulgrew is president of the United Federation of Teachers and a former classroom teacher at William E. Grady, a Career and Technical Ed high school in Brooklyn.