Monday, October 28, 2013

Lit blog #4



Shulock, Nancy, Colleen Moore, Su Jin Jez, and Eric Chisholm. "Career Opportunities: Career Technical Education and the College Completion Agenda." Institution for Higher Education Leadership and Policy (March 2012): n. pag. Print.
This article is addressing the issues California is having with its Community College  Career Technical Education system.  The Career Technical Education system is a system where state and federally funded community colleges offer associate and certificate job training and education.  "Community colleges offer a broad array of career-oriented certificates and associate degrees through what is generally called "career technical education" or CTE. Policymakers across the country are hoping to rely heavily on community college CTE programs to recharge their economies by helping students earn credentials with labor market value" (Shulock 1).   They analyse some of the specific issues California is having and some of the issues  that community colleges offering CTE are finding. One such problem is having many broad similar certificates offered  resulting in overall lower quality.    "State accountability reporting consists primarily of annual counts of degrees and certificates by field and extensive reporting of activities and enrollments. Outcomes by program are not reported because, with few exceptions, students do not officially enroll in CTE programs. Colleges can track course outcomes but not program outcomes, so there is no clear basis for evaluating how well subscribed a program is or how many program entrants complete it and reap benefits in the labor market" (Shulock 4).  One key concept is associates degrees versus certificates.  Associates require 60 credits, about two years, while  certificates are job specific training in under 60 credits.  One issue is that many certificate programs are not regulated or standardized.  "The considerable inconsistency across similar programs - in name, credit length, course requirements, expectations for basic skills competency - creates unnecessary confusion that prevents good understanding among students and employers about the meaning of particular credentials… Most unfortunately, this variability can dilute the value of credentials that students earn because employers are uncertain of the skills, knowledge, and competencies that a credential represents" (Shulock  8).   All four authors of this article were research or policy annalists for the California government and Board of Education and were tasked with the research and writing of this article as an official policy brief.  This article is extremely valuable to my research because it provides information on a good american career training and education system already in affect.  While it does need some improvement it is nice to know that it is in effect already.  It ties in very well as a direct comparison to the similar programs flourishing in Europe.   

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