Alison Yin for EdSource
Alison Yin for EdSourceCalifornia’s public schools should be doing much more to prepare students who don’t go to college to enter the workforce, according to registered voters who responded to a Berkeley IGS/EdSource poll. But they are divided in their assessment of how well schools are doing in providing that preparation.
They also expressed strong support for community colleges and other institutions to offer more vocationally oriented apprenticeship programs that may not lead to a college degree but prepare students for specific jobs.
A major goal of reforms in California schools, including the Common Core standards and the Local Control Funding Formula, is to prepare students for both college and the workplace. But in the face of compelling research that shows that young people’s long-term economic prospects are far better if they graduate from college, the emphasis in public schools in recent decades has been on preparing students for success in college, at the expense of more vocationally oriented courses or pathways.
Yet in the survey of 1,000 registered voters in late August and early September, 69 percent of voters “believe is it very important for the state’s public schools to put greater emphasis on preparing high school students who may not end up going to college to be successful in the workforce.” Just 3 percent said it was not important.
When voters were given a number of indicators that could be used to evaluate the performance of public schools, almost exactly the same proportion ranked “preparing student to enter the workforce directly after high school” as being of high importance (62 percent), as did those who similarly ranked “preparing students for college” (61 percent).
“The poll results indicate that the California public recognizes the importance of providing options for students who may not go to college when they graduate from high school, or may delay going there,” said EdSource executive director Louis Freedberg.
However, respondents felt that schools could be doing a far better job when it comes to workplace preparation. When asked to rate how well schools are doing in preparing students for the job market, just 28 percent said schools near them “are doing an excellent or good job in this area.” Parents of school age children were more generous in their appraisal, with 46 percent saying their local public schools are doing an excellent or good job in preparing non-college bound students to enter the workforce.
The poll results suggest there is strong public support for major efforts currently underway in California to boost vocationally oriented career-technical education in K-12 schools, said Freedberg. These programs prepare young people ready for jobs in a wide range of fields including emerging ones such as cybersecurity and computer coding, and more traditional fields such as dental hygienist, home heating and cooling, and culinary arts.
In fact, the survey showed strong bipartisan support for better preparation of students for the workforce.
In recent years the state has made massive investments in K-12 career technical education (CTE) programs. It has spent $1.4 billion on two large grant programs, the Career Pathways Trust and the Career Technical Education Incentive Grant. Ongoing funding for these programs is not assured, and advocates have called on Gov. Jerry Brown to make a portion of what it has spent on career technical education spending in recent years permanent.
Experts and practitioners point out that career technical education does not mean that students who enroll in those courses don’t go to college. “CTE students do go to college and they go because of CTE,” said Alyssa Lynch, Superintendent at Metropolitan Education District, a provider of career and workplace education to six school districts in the Bay Area.
“The survey suggests a false binary choice between going to college and going into the workforce,” said Hilary McLean, interim president of the Linked Learning Alliance, which works to strengthen the links between the school curriculum and college and career pathways. “In fact, it is important for all students to be prepared for success in the workforce and for college, because most occupations in our economy will require at least some postsecondary training.”
She said that “districts implementing Linked Learning are proving that it is possible to prepare students for college and careers at the same time, and that this approach inspires students to achieve at higher levels. Because Linked Learning students are prepared for college and careers, they can choose which path after high school is right for them.”
David Stern, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus who has researched college and career readiness in K-12 settings for 40 years, said that the most effective strategy is to prepare students for both college and the workplace, rather than having separate programs or pathways.
“High school pathways designed to prepare students for both college and careers are more effective than career-prep by itself,” Stern said.
At the same time, voters feel strongly that higher education institutions needed to do more to prepare students for specific jobs. Seventy percent of respondents said it was “very important” that “community colleges and other institutions offer more vocationally oriented apprenticeship programs and courses that may not lead to a college degree.” Another 23 percent indicated that it was “somewhat important.” Only 2 percent said it was not important.
In July the California Community Colleges began a $6 million marketing campaign to highlight its career-technical training programs after its survey results showed that the public’s knowledge of the system’s career education offerings “is low” compared to other programs.
The Berkeley IGS Poll, based at UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, conducted the poll in partnership with EdSource. Respondents were drawn from a statewide YouGov Internet panel, with an estimated margin of error of +/-4 percent for the overall sample. The characteristics of those polled approximated the demographic profile of the state’s overall registered voter population.
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Douglas Dixon 6 years ago6 years ago
I'm a native 60 year-old male Californian that enjoyed the benefits of a R.O.P. program in the mid-70s. I learned welding, automotive, machine-shop skills that propelled me through life with several tech-skills that provided for several career-lines. As I had no support for any college at that time, I had to rely on me to survive and support a family. I realize, with great sadness, that times have changed indeed. A high-school friend … Read More
I’m a native 60 year-old male Californian that enjoyed the benefits of a R.O.P. program in the mid-70s. I learned welding, automotive, machine-shop skills that propelled me through life with several tech-skills that provided for several career-lines. As I had no support for any college at that time, I had to rely on me to survive and support a family.
I realize, with great sadness, that times have changed indeed. A high-school friend starting his own business recently went to a local high school to inquire about part-time help in his small-engine repair and restoring of classic cars. He was told that all auto, welding, and machine-shop classes have been gone for years.
Unbelievable! We had both made great careers out of these courses. But now, all anyone wants to do is sit behind a computer, after all, who likes greasy-hands?
I see on the news that 250,000 jobs are currently needed for construction with no available workers. Sad.
Yes, it would be a great idea to renew the occupational programs that get people into the current jobs needed in society. I realized that I didn’t have parents that were going to pay $40,000/year for college, and I damned-sure didn’t have a trust account in order to lay around in my mother’s basement, and raise hell on the internet night and day.
How about we try something different besides conforming to liberal ideals that are crippling this country/state, morally, as well as financially.
Don 6 years ago6 years ago
In San Francisco you’d be called a racist for using that photo in the headline – a white teacher standing over a black student with the implication he’s on a non- college pathway. Oops!
Nancy LaCasse 6 years ago6 years ago
The students participating in high-quality K-12 career technical education programs are the best example of why CTE is a fundamental education program that should be treated as such and the state should permanently maintain and grow high quality CTE programs. Robust, high-quality, accountable K-12 CTE programs make a significant contribution to California’s economy by providing thousands of students with the training and skills necessary to be productive, income earning taxpaying citizens.
Fred Jones 6 years ago6 years ago
Allow me to add that I’m grateful for EdSource commissioning this clarifying poll and reporting about the important findings that hopefully will have profound policy implications in Sacramento.
Chris Walker 6 years ago6 years ago
This poll again illustrates the glaring disconnect between the expectations and needs of our society and what is actually being delivered by our $60B public education system in grades K-12. University systems have a vested and financial interest in tracking ALL kids to their doors whether or not that is what our students want or need. The overhead and financial obligations of these universities demand a captive audience bringing inflated tuition dollars and … Read More
This poll again illustrates the glaring disconnect between the expectations and needs of our society and what is actually being delivered by our $60B public education system in grades K-12. University systems have a vested and financial interest in tracking ALL kids to their doors whether or not that is what our students want or need. The overhead and financial obligations of these universities demand a captive audience bringing inflated tuition dollars and state and federal grants to their coffers each and every year. So much so that they have surrogates arguing it is not a “binary choice” so they can continue their tracking system. The truth is it is a binary system – and our kids can either prepare for admissions to UC/CSU or fail and drop-out. The University of California and California State University admissions policies have made it clear to High School counselors, administrators and school board members what classes should be offered in the limited curriculum day between grades 9-12 to “prepare students for college and career.” How effective are these courses that purport to focus upon “career” or the skilled trades? Well, the average age of skilled trade apprentices in our state used to be 19 in the 1970s and early 80s — today it is close to 30 years old. That is a decade of earnings, health benefits and retirement savings LOST for these people. If they were wrongfully placed on the college-track by our system which so many are they will also be tens of thousands of dollars in debt. It’s time to admit we have a problem with our universities’ and their influence on K-12 curriculum choices for kids and to finally be honest with the fact that this system has been, is, and will continue to provide a “binary choice” – between college admissions or failure – notwithstanding university surrogates claiming otherwise.
Fred Jones 6 years ago6 years ago
I find it instructive this article ends with several quotes about how important UC admissions coursework is, when the headline news is that 93% of voters polled believe "the state’s public schools [should] put greater emphasis on preparing high school students who may not end up going to college to be successful in the workforce." That same bias is embedded throughout California's Ed Code, accountability dashboard, LCAP, and other policy priorities driving instructional and budgetary decisions … Read More
I find it instructive this article ends with several quotes about how important UC admissions coursework is, when the headline news is that 93% of voters polled believe “the state’s public schools [should] put greater emphasis on preparing high school students who may not end up going to college to be successful in the workforce.”
That same bias is embedded throughout California’s Ed Code, accountability dashboard, LCAP, and other policy priorities driving instructional and budgetary decisions of districts and schools. Sure, they all throw a rhetorical bone to “career readiness,” but all of those state drivers fail to even define what that means and hold schools accountable for delivering such training and education.
Nobody takes a second to consider that of course 4-year college completers tend to rise further in the economic ladder, but that may have little to do with what they actually learned in college. They simply got the cultural message that the only path to success invariably leads through college, and so they went that path and due to all sorts of variables were equipped to be successful not only in their educational pursuits but careers, as well. Their success often says more about them than it does their chosen educational pathway.
I wish this article, instead, celebrated the many respectable trades and careers that prop-up our economy and provide middle class jobs for millions of Californians. Because it is those labor market opportunities in which our state is experiencing a serious skills gap, with too many young people ill-prepared to take advantage of them.
Evidently California voters grasp this gap between what messages and priorities our educational system is sending compared to the realities of the workforce, even if our state’s educational leaders still want to ignore or spin it in a way that continues the college-for-all insanity.