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Ричард В. Зинсер, профессор отделения профессионального и технического образования Западного Мичиганского Университета, г. Каламазоо, США
Richard W. Zinser, Associate Professor in Career and Technical Education at WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY, College of Education, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
ПОДГОТОВКА ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНО-ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКИХ
РАБОТНИКОВ В США
THE PREPARATION OF VOCATIONAL TEACHERS IN AMERICA
В данной статье представлен общий анализ профессионального образования в США и более подробное описание системы подготовки профессионально-педагогических работников в США. Профессиональное и техническое образование, как известно, подразделяется на 16 обширных кластеров специальностей на национальном уровне. Обучающиеся средних школ и профессиональных училищ проходят курс по традиционным тематикам, таким как торговля недвижимостью, и по более современным программам, как здравоохранение и информационные технологии. Статистика приема обучающихся прилагается. Программы профессионально-технического образования основаны на производственных стандартах и включают производственную практику обучающихся. Как правило, программы подготовки педагогических кадров состоят из бакалавриата по основной специальности, курса педагогики и производственной практики по профессии. в статье также затрагиваются актуальные вопросы профессионально-технического образования.
This paper presents an overview of vocational education in America and then focuses on vocational teacher preparation. Career and Technical Education (CTE), as it is now known, is organized into 16 broad clusters of occupations at the national level. Students in secondary and technical schools take courses in traditional areas such as building trades, and in more recent curricula like health occupations and information technology. Statistics on student enrollments are included. CTE programs use industry standards as their foundation and include work-based experiences for students. Teacher preparation programs typically consist of a bachelors degree in a teachable major, pedagogy courses, and relevant work experience. Several current issues with vocational education are also discussed.
Ключевые слова: подготовка профессионально-педагогических кадров, профессиональные кластеры, профессиональное образование в США.
Key words: vocational teacher preparation, clusters of occupations, professional education in the USA.
The American system of education has a rich history beginning with the establishment of the nation. Two of the earliest acts of the new U.S Congress (ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest ordinance of 1787) emphasized and supported education. However only a small percentage of the population was educated, and a comprehensive system of public education was not implemented for another 150 years. In early
America vocational education was provided much like it was by the European immigrants: there were a few apprenticeships, and necessary skills were taught father-to-son and mother-to-daughter. Due to mechanization, agriculture and industry were the two principal areas needing more skilled laborers. As industry grew in the 19th century some businesses created their own training programs for employees. When public education was established there was a debate on the role of education and whether vocational courses should be included. But in 1917 vocational education was formalized by the Smith-Hughes Act which provided public funds and was driven largely by industry. The Act also required certain curriculum standards and reporting from each state. The two world wars also highlighted the need for a dedicated system of training in a wide variety of technical skills. In the latter half of the 20th century vocational education was revised several times to keep up with changes in society and technology (Gordon, 2008).
Background
Public education is organized into elementary, secondary or high school, and college or post-secondary which includes community colleges, four-year universities, and graduate programs. Vocational education occurs mostly at high school (grades 9-12, ages 14-18) and community college levels. Community colleges provide apprenticeship courses, certificate programs, two-year vocational degrees, and two-year general degrees that transfer to universities.
The government supports vocational education with $1.2 billion currently (Perkins, 2006). The funds are allocated to states based on a formula including population. The state governments keep 15% for leadership and administrative activities; the balance goes to school districts with a 60/40 split between high schools and community colleges. The individual school usually receives about 8-10% of their total budget from Perkins. The government also is able to serve their social agenda by specifying support for certain enrollments such as students with special needs. In addition, school districts and states are required to report on annual performance indicators such as program completion and transition to employment.
In high school students take introductory courses for career exploration and more advanced studies for job and college preparation. Most high schools offer some vocational programs; larger school districts also have area career-technical centers located to serve numerous sending schools. Students spend half a day at the center and half at their home
school; these courses are for advanced or later high school students. They can earn college credit for vocational course-work through agreements with community colleges. Many CTE students also participate in work-based learning experiences and compete in vocational student organizations. Curriculum is based on industry standards and is informally supervised by business advisory committees which are local representatives from each subject area Vocational Programs
The federal government has organized public vocational education into 16 career clusters which are broad groupings of occupations. The rationale is that students in this career stage should explore and choose a career path, not necessarily a specific job. For example, a student may express an interest in health careers and take one or two introductory courses. They would visit a few local health organizations to get an idea of what it would be like to actually work in the field. Third, they would investigate the various careers within the health pathway and the requirements for college courses. After high school they would be prepared to obtain an entry-level job in the health sector and to continue with postsecondary education in health or another career area. To provide such a foundation, therefore, each CTE program should include the following components:
Academics: Courses in math, science, English, and social studies that support any career
Pathway skills: Exploration of the career cluster including technology, safety, leadership, ethics, higher education Technical Skills: Basic skills associated with the cluster occupations
Employability. Skills all students need to be employable such as communication, problem solving, and personal management
The system is designed so that all students can benefit from vocational education whether
they plan on going directly to work, to community college, or to university. According to the US Department of Labor (2008), jobs can be categorized by level of education into three large
groups: about 15% of jobs require a high school education only; 65% need at least some postsecondary training; and 20% require a four-year university degree. There are many good jobs available in the trades and manufacturing at the high school level because of the large number of retirements. Due to increasing technology, the largest vocational area is those jobs at the technician level which require 1-2 years of education and training. Students graduating from a university also benefit from high school vocational education because of its foundation skills.
The US Center for Education Statistics (2002) collects data on public education including CTE. Table 1 below provides some background information.
Table 1 Percentage Distribution of Public High Schools in the US (2002]
School
Size
<599 students = 55.2 600-1199 = 26.6 1200-1999 = 13. 2,000 > = 5.8
School Location
Urban = 15.1 Suburban = 41.4 Rural = 43.5
Eighty-eight percent of high schools offer some CTE programs; the average number of programs per school is 8.6 which include 5 on-site programs and 3.6 off-site. Off-site courses are usually held at a community college or a business related to the subject area. The high schools that offer CTE programs are comprised of 11,000 comprehensive high schools, 1,000 CTE high schools, and 1400 regional CTE centers. The regional centers may offer 15-30 different CTE programs and serve 5-25 local high schools. Students who take more than one CTE course in a cluster are called "Concentrators": 39% take 2 courses, and 21% take 3 or more courses in the same occupational area. Of all CTE students about 45% are female, 24% are racial minorities, 10% have disabilities, and 25% are from low income families. An interesting side note is that, for the author's local district and state, these percentages are also accurate which indicates that those populations seem to be distributed normally (Zinser & Vito-Randall, 2008). In total there are about 15 million CTE students in America (ACTE, 2009).
The most popular programs, based on enrollment, are Business, Computers, Mechanics, Precision Production, Building Trades, and Health. The Business curriculum typically includes courses in business systems, marketing, and accounting; the Computer program may offer courses in office applications, operating systems and repair, and networks; in Mechanics students take classes in automotive technology and related areas; Precision Production consists of machining and welding; the building trades program contains all aspects of residential construction; Health occupations involves students in human anatomy, emergency procedures, and basic patient care.
Teacher preparation
There are over 137,000 CTE teachers in America. Historically, teacher preparation has been based primarily on occupational experience, that is, a person with the job skills was considered qualified to teach others, much like the apprenticeship model for trades and industry. However it has evolved to include a teacher preparation program. CTE teacher education institutions may use the national vocational standards to guide their development of new teachers (National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, 1997). The 13 standards are organized into four categories: creation of a productive learning environment; advancement of student learning; transition to work and adult roles; and professional development.
Although there are variations between states, typically a program consists of a bachelor degree containing teacher training courses and a teaching internship. Prospective CTE teachers take about 12 courses in their teachable major—the technical content—and 6 courses in pedagogy. Two additional courses in education are required, plus the pre-internship and student teaching. Students can utilize the course projects for application to their related major. This is the program of study at Western Michigan University (wmich.edu/coe/fcs/ cte) which may vary slightly at other institutions and in other states. The number of universities that provide CTE certification, and the size of those programs, also varies among regions throughout the country. The coursework typically includes
Career/Employability Skills: teaching adolescents basic skills to be employable such as career exploration, developing a resume, and interviewing strategies
Curriculum Development in CTE: analyzing occupational standards and community goals to develop CTE courses.
Public Safety Corrections ^Security
ufacturing
.sSefri- Service
Planning, managing, and providing legal, public safety, protective services and homeland security, including professional and technical support services.
Planning, managing and performing the processing of materials into intermediate or final products and related professional and technical support activities such as production planning and control, maintenance and manufacturing/process engineering.
Planning, managing, and performing marketing activities to reach organizational objectives.
Ti:r, !<thnoiory, tin%inutin% 4, Mathematics
nsportattort, Distribution & Logistics
Planning, managing, and providing scientific research and professional and technical services (e.g., physical science, social science, engineering) including laboratory and testing services, and research and development services.
Planning, management, and movement of people, materials, and goods by road, pipeline, air, rail and water and related professional and technical support services such as transportation infrastructure planning and management, logistics services, mobile equipment and facility maintenance.
Teaching Methods for CTE: instructional skills including lesson planning, questioning and discussion techniques, and using electronic media
Student Assessment & Management: basic competencies in assessing student achievement and managing classroom behavior.
Special Populations in CTE: preparing teachers to work with students with a variety of special needs like learning impairments and physical disabilities.
Principles of Career and Technical Education: covers the history, philosophy, and delivery system of CTE.
Adolescent Development: the changing physical, cognitive, and psychosocial needs of students.
Content Literacy: study of the language processes including reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
Seminar in Education: taken during student teaching with other interns to develop reflective practitioners.
Intern Teaching in CTE: semester-long field experience teaching in a CTE program.
There are also two non-traditional routes for CTE teachers to obtain certification. A person with occupational experience may teach a vocational course in a high school on an interim basis while working toward certification; this allows a school to use an uncertified teacher temporarily when there are no professional teachers available. The opening may be due to a new or high-demand area. A second route is for prospective teachers who already have a bachelor degree in a technical area but no education courses; they are allowed to enroll in a masters program and take the teacher preparation courses for graduate credit. This group is becoming more prevalent, perhaps 25% of students, which includes retired military and those needing to change careers.
One of the current initiatives in CTE teacher training is to prepare pre-service teachers to integrate academic content with their technical curricula. This is due to the national effort to improve standardized test scores for high school students on math, science, English, and social studies. CTE teachers analyze their courses to identify the academic content and implement strategies to make the connections more explicit. For example, courses in health careers contain significant content from science such as anatomy and biology; the health teacher may collaborate with a science teacher to reinforce key concepts in each other's courses or even team teach classes through joint projects. Or a precision machining teacher may work with a math teacher to help instruct students on the algebra that is required to understand part design and machine set-up. Recent research on academic integration (Stone, Alfield, Pearson, Lewis & Jensen, 2006) has shown promising results by increasing CTE students' scores on standard tests. The hypothesis is that some students may learn academic skills better in their technical courses because of contextual or project-based teaching style.
CTE teachers also need to be proficient in setting up and managing work-based learning for their students. Work-based learning includes a range of activities from relatively low intensity like job shadowing to a year-long internship. For a job shadow the CTE teacher contacts a local business that has positions related to the program area and arranges for the student to visit with an employee for two hours or even all day; the student interviews the employee and observes their work to get a realistic preview of what the particular career might be like. An internship is where the student works for a local business in a position which is connected to their classroom for a few hours per day up to 20 hours per week. The teach-
er's role is to establish a training agreement with the company that outlines what exactly the student will be doing, and to communicate with the supervisor and the student during the internship. Another common work-based learning experience is the school-based enterprise in which students perform work at the school that, again, is related to the CTE classroom; for example a culinary arts class may run a school restaurant that serves students and even the community. In this way the participants learn both the cooking skills and the business skills of managing that type of organization. Work-based learning has been found to be effective in helping students with the transition from school to work and postsecondary education (Bailey, Hughes & Moore, 2004).
A third component of teacher preparation is the knowledge and skill to run career and technical student organizations (CTSO). These organizations are exclusively for students in a CTE area like the Future Farmers of America for agricultural education classes. There are 10 recognized CTSOs (Scott & Sarkees-Wircenski, 2004). The CTSO activities are considered intra-curricular because the teacher uses them as part of the classroom instruction. Each organization is run by student officers elected by the students; the teacher's role is chapter advisor. The CTSOs have established projects that serve both as application exercises and as products that compete with other chapters. Exemplary student projects can progress through local, state, and national competitions. Participating in CTSOs gives students hands-on instruction, recognition by their peers, leadership skills, and opportunity for career exploration. Prospective CTE teachers therefore should be prepared to work with the student organizations.
Many scholars and policy makers in CTE believe that the public image of CTE needs to be improved (see Lynch, 2000 for example) which is another subject that CTE teachers need to be familiar with. In the last 25 years there has been much debate at the national level on how to improve school performance due to a proportion of high school students who do not finish high school and those who are deemed unprepared to enter either work or college. This has led to an increase of graduation requirements usually in the form of additional academic credits. Although CTE has evolved significantly in postindustrial America, it is still seen by some as a lower class education resulting in a bias that all students should have a four-year college degree for professional occupations. The result is that some students who would have benefitted from vocational education are pressured to pursue a college preparatory curriculum in high school. So CTE teachers have a large role to play in helping promote the benefits of their programs and in marketing their programs to increase enrollments. The three components described above—academic integration, work-based learning, and student organiza-tions—can all contribute to improving the image of CTE by highlighting its benefits to parents, school counselors, and the community.
Professional Development
Both new and current CTE teachers have several professional associations available to them for continuing development. The largest organization is the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) which has about 30,000 members. The ACTE is organized into 12 divisions representing the major subject areas plus a few others such as the administration division. They have a full time staff in Washington DC where one of their principal missions is advocating CTE with legislators. There is an annual conference which usually draws around 5-10,000 members; the conference includes
dozens of presentations and an exposition of educational suppliers. They also publish a periodical for CTE teachers called Techniques and provide other venues to disseminate information on their website (acteonline.org). The cost of membership is only $60 per year and is free for students.
Furthermore, CTE teachers belong to professional organizations in their subject areas such as the National Business Education Association for business teachers. Like ACTE, these groups have conferences and publications which naturally focus on topics related to their special interests. There are also industry-related associations that many teachers belong to so they can keep current with the technical aspects of their subjects; an example would be a group of public accountants which a business teacher with an accounting curriculum might join.
The national government has a wealth of resources that are useful for CTE teachers. There is a National Research Center for CTE which conducts and distributes research as well as providing professional development for state CTE administrators. The Center (nrccte.org) is considered to be one of the leaders in sponsoring scientifically-based research on the most important topics to the CTE profession. The US Department of Education funds the Office of Vocational and Adult Education which sponsors programs to support adult education and literacy, career and technical education, and community colleges.
Graduate Programs
In addition to other professional development efforts, CTE teachers are required to take a certain number graduate courses during their first five years of teaching. Consequently there are many active masters programs in CTE and a lot of teachers end up completing the degree. They take advanced courses in curriculum development, assessment, work-based learning, research, and others. Some courses are delivered online and during the summer for these working professionals. There is also a doctoral program in educational leadership with an emphasis in CTE for graduate students interested in becoming CTE administrators, specialists, and higher education teachers. Students in the program generally have a master's degree in CTE and a substantial number of years teaching experience; they take additional courses in leadership and research methods, and complete a professional field experience and dissertation.
Conclusions
Based on the number of CTE program graduates, and the numerous technical careers available, one would have to say that the vocational system of education in America is working very well. For the most part, the government has recognized the importance of workforce development for the success of its citizens and the economy, and vocational education is the main component of the system. CTE is well-positioned to help prepare tomorrow's technicians in fields that cannot be automated or outsourced as has happened to thousands of jobs in
the last 25 years. However, to some extent vocational education is invisible to many educators and policy-makers because of the bias toward professional careers such as doctors, lawyers, and scientists. (It is ironic though that many of those professionals started as vocational students in high school.) The support of CTE has also waxed and waned during the different political administrations: former president George W. Bush for example favored eliminating federal dollars for vocational education, but fortunately Congress voted to maintain it. In contrast President Obama recently announced the American Graduation Initiative ("Remarks by the President", 2009) which among other things provides $12 billion for community colleges with the goal of adding 5 million more two-year degrees and technical certificates by the year 2020. In conclusion, history has shown the value of vocational education, regardless of politics or budgets.
REFERENCES
Association for Career and Technical Education (2009). Fast facts. http://Acteonline.org.
Bailey, T., Hughes, K. & Moore, D. (2004). Working knowledge: Work-based learning and education reform. New York: Routledge Falmer.
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Stone, J. R., III, Alfeld, C. Pearson, D., Lewis, M. V., & Jensen, S. (2006). Building academic skills in context: Testing the value of enhanced math learning in CTE (Final study). St. Paul, MN: National Research Center for Career and Technical Education.
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