North Carolina’s Employment Security Commission predicts that most job growth through 2016 will occur in occupations that require a high school diploma and some on-the-job training. They say that only a handful of fast-growing occupations, such as computer system analysts and teachers, will require four-year degrees. Terry Stoops, the John Locke Foundation’s education policy analyst, says that the K-12 public school system should be playing a much bigger role in addressing the need for new workers. He discussed the topic with Donna Martinez for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
Martinez: This is a fascinating subject because everybody is always concerned about future job prospects, but particularly in a down economy, a lot of people are focusing on this. Tell us, where is the job growth projected to come from? Specifically, what types of jobs?
Stoops: Well, it’s going to come from traditional trades like plumbing. It’s going to come from construction work and the various skilled trades that are involved in the construction business. And it’s going to really come in areas that have traditionally not been emphasized by our schools. Allied health is another example – home health aides and nursing home aides. So we are going to see growth in those areas and smaller growth in the areas that require four-year degrees.
Martinez: Now, you focus in your paper, Terry, on making sure that we prepare our young people for the job growth of the next few years. What types of skills and knowledge, then, are they going to have to have in order to compete and move into a productive job area?
Stoops: Well, all students are going to need the basics. They need to be able to write well, to read well, to do math, and so we’ve got to make sure that the basics are covered. But beyond that, students are going to need advanced skills in these areas. Plumbing is no longer just a matter of having a wrench. There are computer systems [involved]…
Martinez: As I can personally attest when I’ve tried to do things.
Stoops: Exactly. There are a lot of sophisticated systems. Auto repair, for example, relies heavily on computers. And so what we really need is, not only a workforce that understands the basics – reading, writing, arithmetic – and not only understands the basics of a trade or profession, but understands the more advanced knowledge that’s needed to succeed in some of these trades and some of this career and technical education. And that’s what we are not seeing our schools produce.
Martinez: Terry, when you talk about these types of skills and job areas, I think of the community college system. But you write in your paper that the K-12 system has to be much more involved. Where do we stand right now? What is the K-12 system doing to prepare kids, and what do they need to do?
Stoops: Well, there is an idea now that the K-12 system, and specifically high schools, will just be a feeder to community college programs that are involved in career and technical education. We really need to get out of that mindset and think of our K-12 schools, starting in our middle schools, as the place to prepare students for a career in technical education and a career in one of those areas.
Martinez: Now you say middle schools, not high schools.
Stoops: Absolutely, because middle schools are the time when students begin to withdraw from academics; they start to think about dropping out. This is where students fall behind. So, if we can capture their interest in middle school and have that continue through high school, we can not only prepare a future workforce but prevent a lot of the dropouts that we are seeing that really do start in middle school.
Martinez: What options do kids now have in their middle and high school years? Is there very much out there at all?
Stoops: There’s not much out there at all. Now, just for the record, a lot of students take that initial career and vocational career and technical course – that initial one – but the advanced courses aren’t really being pursued by students. I mean, there are a lot of courses available and perhaps around half of our students take some kind of career and technical education course. But what we’re seeing is a real fall-off in the other advanced courses in specific areas. So, whereas it appears that a lot of students are getting involved in career and technical education, the truth is, very few of those students are going on and taking advanced courses in those areas or taking advanced courses in multiple areas so that they have skills in different areas and then can choose, when they graduate, which area is most appropriate for them. So right now there are a lot of options, but unfortunately, students aren’t really taking it to the next level. They are not receiving that advanced training that they’re going to need in the future workforce.
Martinez: And that’s really a sad point, I think, because from what you’re saying, it sounds like there are students, then, who are graduating from a North Carolina public school with a diploma, yet they don’t yet have enough of these specific skills to go out and get a job right now.
Stoops: Yes. And unfortunately, the assumption is that if they don’t have the skills, they can just go to a community college. But not every student is cut out for spending another two years in a community college to gain the skills that they could have gained while they were in a K-12 school – in middle school or high school. It seems very silly for us to be wasting the time of a student in middle school who is not on an academic track, but forcing them into an academic track for four to six years of their life, when they could be better suited to learning the basics and then learning some career-and-technical-education area, such as plumbing or auto repair or an allied health area.
Martinez: Are the opportunities consistent at schools around the state, Terry?
Stoops: Absolutely not. There is no even distribution of these schools. We have very few vocational schools – specifically vocational schools – around the state. We have vocational centers, we have programs, but they’re not evenly distributed. Students in various parts of the state don’t have equal access to some of these vocational programs and a lot of the vocational classes, and especially the advanced classes that many students will need. So, unfortunately the state doesn’t seem to be very interested in learning where vocational education could be expanded, and how it could be expanded in different parts of the state, especially those that are struggling economically.
Martinez: Terry, you mentioned the fact that you would like to see some real focus happen at the middle school years. We know the state right now is appropriating money to the school systems for so-called dropout prevention grants. How do these two issues relate – preventing dropouts and this issue of vocational and technical education?
Stoops: Sure. There are plenty of studies that show that at-risk students do better in a career and vocational, career and technical area, vocational area, than they would in a regular academic setting. And so we need to start with that information: What evidence is out there that says that at-risk students are more likely to stay in school? Career and technical education is one area that shows that, yes, students are willing to stay in school if they’re pursuing an academic [area] that they are interested in. So, that is certainly something that needs more research. The dropout prevention grants unfortunately aren’t touching this area. There is nothing for vocational education in the dropout prevention grants, nor will there be, because the state is just not interested in promoting it.