Skills Gap !

Arne Duncan, "CTE has been the neglected stepchild of education reform. That neglect has to stop."

Educators and business leaders say that a "college for all" mentality is no longer realistic, if ever it was. Many positions - known as "middle-skill" jobs - don't require a degree from a four-year institution. The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce estimates there will be 47 million job openings in the decade ending in 2018. Nearly half will require only an associate's degree.
Career and technical education programs, once derided as being for those who couldn't cut it academically, offer one path. But growing those programs has not been a national priority and their quality is inconsistent at best. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has called career and technical education the "neglected stepchild" of education reform.
U.S. Rep. James Langevin, D-R.I., who co-chairs the bipartisan Career and Technical Education Caucus in Congress, wants to change that. He has pushed to expand federal funding for such programs so they can access state-of-the-art technology and equipment. He notes that Perkins Act funding has remained stagnant over the last decade even though demand for career and technical education programs has increased. The funding was cut in the current fiscal year.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SKILLS_GAP?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=HOME

'Skills gap' leaves firms without worker pipeline
Jun 30, 12:40 PM EDT

The Aspen Institute is spearheading a national campaign that aims to do something that hasn't happened nearly enough: get community colleges and employers talking.
The need for such efforts, experts say, is enormous.
In a major report in February, Harvard University highlighted what it called the "forgotten half" of young adults who are unprepared to enter the work force. Some drop out of high school. Some who finish can't afford college. And some who can afford it find that what they've learned in college or vocational programs doesn't match employers' demands.
"Our system for preparing young adults is broken," said William Symonds, director of the Pathways to Prosperity Project at Harvard's Graduate School of Education. "We're not saying that the system is failing everybody, but it is leaving a lot of young people behind."

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/ap/413961_-Skills-gap--leaves-firms-without-worker-pipeline.html#ixzz1Qs8qEKhF
http://www.mail.com/scitech/news/528178-skills-gap-leaves-firms-without-worker-pipeline.html
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‘Skills gap’ leaves firms without worker pipeline
Problem has left businesses without the workers they need in a rapidly changing economy
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43590587/ns/business-personal_finance/
Skills for America's Future Featured as Innovative Policy Solution at Aspen Ideas Festival http://news.yahoo.com/skills-americas-future-featured-innovative-policy-solution-aspen-190613972.html

'Skills Gap' Leaves Firms Without Worker Pipeline

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=13963995&page=2

Jobs and the Skills Gap

http://www.leadered.com/pdf/Job-Skills%20Gap%20White%20PaperPDF.pdf
Willard R. Daggett, Ed.D., International Center for Leadership in Education
If the United States wants to remain competitive in a global marketplace where the majority of workers earn a fraction of the salaries paid in this country, we must have the most competent and innovative work force possible. Our K-12 education system is not getting the job done.
The academic skills demanded by many entry-level jobs today are at a higher level than the academic skills required for postsecondary education. Some of those skills are not only more rigorous but also different from the skills needed for success in postsecondary education. Yet, our schools continue to focus on getting students ready for college as the ultimate academic preparation, despite the fact that for two decades business has led the charge for higher academic standards because schools are turning out young adults without the academic skills to succeed in the workplace.
Skills Gap Is Big Concern of Employers Today
http://www.aces.edu/dept/extcomm/newspaper/may17d01.html
AUBURN, May 17---Two great concerns of employers today are finding good workers and training them. The difference between the skills needed on the job and those possessed by the applicants, called skills-gap, is of real concern to human resource managers and business owners looking to hire competent employees. While employees would prefer to hire people who are trained and ready to go to work, they are usually willing to provide the specialized, job-specific training necessary for those lacking such skills.
BJJ EDUCATION - PROCEDURAL VS. DECLARATIVE KNOWLEDGE

http://www.bjjweekly.com/bjj-lifestyle/bjj-education-procedural-vs-declarative-knowledge.html
It's not the career that defines whether a school is a CTE, it's the teaching methodology and focus. When teaching vocational courses, instructors teach what is called procedural knowledge. Procedural knowledge is the knowledge of how to perform a particular task. If we use a plumbing course as an example, there will be classes that cover all the tasks that a plumber needs to be able to do in the course of his daily work. There will be classes on measuring, cutting and welding pipe, testing systems, installing fixtures and so on. Some schools might also teach the business tasks a plumber might need like estimating, book keeping, and marketing.

There are a lot of advantages to teaching procedural knowledge in a CTE course. By focusing exclusively on the tasks a student will need to perform a particular job, CTE schools can produce a worker ready to hit the ground running very quickly when compared with traditional education. Students leave a CTE course ready to work and productive from the first day. Therefore, might be trained for a new career in as little as 2 years.
Since the ancient Roman empire, a liberal arts education has been thought of as the education appropriate to a free person. Students perusing a liberal arts education study philosophy, language, literature, science and mathematics. Students learn how to think and reason, they study ideas and concepts. This type of knowledge is known as declarative knowledge, and differs from the procedural knowledge gained in a vocational education setting.

CTE 2.0: Combining Declarative Knowledge and Procedural Knowledge
How can we combine the values of declarative knowledge and the values of procedural knowledge?

CTE Blog

I will try to enter comments about significant occurences in Iowa Career and Technical Education programs...at least weekly.