High School Graduation Requirements

Career and Technical Education (CTE), in my opinion, has a dual purpose. The first purpose is to provide career exploration. We all know that children grow up with desires for a certain career such as fire fighter, law enforcement, professional athlete, and such. We also know that those aspirations change regularly. Many students in middle school through about tenth grade are unsure of their career aspirations. Even those that think they know often change their minds several times by the time they finish college or trade school. CTE give them the opportunity to learn skills necessary for almost every career choice. Many students who try various CTE courses are better able to match their interests with their abilities through career exploration.

The second purpose of CTE is to provide specific skills to better prepare them for entering the world of work, whether it is right out of high school, a technical or trade school, or a four-year college and beyond. I believe that most CTE programs do an exemplary job of providing skills to students to help them succeed.

The frustration for most CTE instructors, however, comes from the traditional ideal that every student needs to go to college. Statistics show that is not true for all careers in today's world. However, CTE is constantly fighting for adequate funding. In addition, there is constant pressure that any college-bound student has to take all the high level math and science classes. Recently, legislation has increased the graduation requirements for additional math and science classes. Students are being told that they need to take Chemistry, Physics, and Calculus to be successful in college. The fact is that many degree programs and career choices have absolutely no need for these skills. Students are being discouraged from taking CTE classes because they are "college-bound". Often the good students are unable to do career exploration because they cannot find time in their class schedules to take CTE classes. We need to help the students find what career they can most enjoy and be successful at, and then have them take classes that will prepare them for their chosen career.

It was my understanding that one of the driving forces behind highly qualified teachers was to get the most qualified teachers teaching the subjects they are experts in. The Business Education Department for many years taught Business Math. Students earned math credit for graduation by taking this class. This class was designed to provide basic math skills for students who struggled with Algebra and Geometry. They were taught to compute interest, calculate loan repayment, balance checkbooks, and the like. In other words, life skills in math. Most of the students were not college-bound. We had to quit offering the class for math credit because we were not highly qualified in math. When the Math Department took the class over, it quickly became another Pre-Algebra class. The needs of our low-achieving students were forgotten. Now, we are required to teach certain defined personal finance skills. The skills defined by the legislature were among the skills taught in our Business Math. Who is better qualified to teach personal finance than a business teacher? So who is going to teach personal finance? The Social Studies Department. Once again, CTE gets slighted because we are not a core area.