Industry Experts in the CTE Classroom

Increasing high school students’ access to industry experts is a key priority across states, according to a new report from Advance CTE, and alternative teacher certification approaches are not enough to fill the gap.

The State of CTE: Increasing Access to Industry Experts in High School, developed in partnership with the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders at American Institutes for Research, features results from two surveys, one of 47 State CTE Directors and one of 260 local CTE teachers and administrators from 26 states. Key findings include:

• 90 percent of states use alternative certification policies to increase access to industry experts, with a little more than half describing this approach as moderately or majorly successful
• More than 40 percent of respondents support access to experts teaching at the postsecondary level through such means as tuition support, virtual learning and other strategies
• Almost 30 percent of states have recruitment programs for industry experts to co-teach with a certified teacher of record
• Very few states use incentives to increase industry expert engagement
• States cite significant barriers to connecting with industry experts: geography, low levels of awareness from industry, lack of funds for salaries and incentives, and limited data on the current state of industry engagement

The publication recommends that states expand certification policies to include part-time and co-teaching licenses; develop agreements with postsecondary institutions to have faculty with industry expertise teach dual enrollment courses; develop initiatives for industry experts to act as mentors and career coaches; enhance industry awareness of opportunities to engage in the classroom; and approach all of this in a systemic way.

UPDATE: Register for a companion webinar Monday, January 9 at 3pm ET/12pm PT.

Comments

[Chrispinus Sifuna]

This is great piece of information
Keep up.

[Old Lady]

hi

educating families is the key. My family's knowledge goes back to the early 1960's) My aunt (small, close knit family) was in a car accident. I remember seeing her with head bandaged. A week in the hospital and she was sent home to rest. She was never the same. Even as a kid I saw it.

But she continued her life as a doting wife and mother. Several years later she picked up a rifle (nobody knows where she got it----) at 2:00 AM and shot her sleeping sons. She killed one and permanently disabled the other.

Sent to a mental hospital she was released three years later. That very day she filled her (even then) old fashioned claw bathtub. She climbed in and then added a plugged in lamp with a frayed cord. (Yes, she had seen that in some 1950s camp movie.) She was electrocuted

My parents generation attributed it to environment. (My uncle "might" have been having an affair; they had recently moved and she missed her old friends; etc.)

Its only when the famous (football players and/or wrestlers) fall victim that society pays attention. We've known for 60 years the dangers of head injuries. Please keep pushing for more attention.

[Denny]

Thanks)