A nice article from the Techniques magazine, a publication of the Association for Career Technical Education (ACTE)

http://www.acteonline.org/tech_april10.mapping.html

Here’s a snip:

Mapping the Chapter: One Way to Tackle the CTE Textbook
This reading specialist has come up with a strategy to help other CTE instructors map the CTE textbook, so that students can better comprehend the information in them and discover a joy of reading.

North Carolina completed a study on CTE students and their graduation rate. Here is the article:

CTE students graduate from high school at higher rate than state average
Preparing for the future
April 13, 2010 12:00 AM
Chris Lavender
Staff Writer

Students enrolled in Career Technical Education programs have a better chance of graduating from high school, a recent report from the state showed.

The N.C. Department of Public Instruction report showed that with 30 school districts statewide, the four-year cohort graduation rate was 90 percent or above among students completing a four-course CTE concentration in 2009.

“Career and Technical Education plays an important role in helping prepare students to be globally competitive and college- and career-ready,” State Superintendent June Atkinson said. “Research has shown that CTE courses provide many students with a way to connect what they learn in school with their plans for future education, training and work.”

Lenoir, Greene and Jones County Schools each provide students with CTE opportunities. Jessica Shimer, Lenoir County Schools career development coordinator, said Monday that CTE programs remain popular with students.

“Key components to CTE are the career and technology student organizations,” Shimer said. “These clubs help develop leadership and allow students to compete and get involved with community service.”

Lenoir County Schools celebrated CTE month in February, which highlighted the program’s efforts to prepare students for the workforce after graduation.

“We set goals every year to get students career ready,” Lenoir County Schools Superintendent Terry Cline said. “The CTE program helps keep students from dropping out.”

Students enrolled in the CTE program in Lenoir County Schools had an 83 percent four-year cohort graduation rate in 2009, which was above the state graduation average of 71 percent for all students.

Greene County Schools Superintendent Patrick Miller said that CTE is a valuable tool for students.

“It is more important now than ever before,” Miller said. “We push for everyone to try and go to college but the reality is not everyone can go. CTE provides a way for students to go straight to the workforce.”

Greene County students in the CTE program had an 81 percent four-year cohort graduation rate in 2009 while Jones County students in the program had a 68 percent four-year cohort graduation rate, according to DPI.

CTE students in Lenoir, Greene and Jones graduated at a higher rate from high school than students in their districts who were not enrolled in the CTE program.

Some of the more popular CTE courses are machining, automotive mechanics and health care. Shimer said Lenoir Community College works with Lenoir to develop and teach CTE courses.

“We are going to offer cosmetology courses next year as part of CTE,” Shimer said. “Students will go to LCC for the cosmetology classes.”

LCC instructors teach machining courses at North Lenoir and Kinston High Schools.

“We are proud of our CTE students and what they have accomplished,” Shimer said.

Statewide, more than 72 percent of high school students, or about 310,000 students, take CTE courses each year. According to DPI, 90 percent of all students take at least one CTE course before they graduate.

Chris Lavender can be reached at 252-559-1078 or clavender@freedomenc.com.

Just received the updated reports from our Fiscal office today. Here are links to download the pdf’s:

Apprenticeship Allocation0910 P1

Copy of Apprenticeship 07-08 Annual R2

Copy of Apprenticeship 0809 Annual_2_22_10

Good morning.  Yesterday’s  California Apprenticeship Coordinators Association meeting brought up some interesting information for the LEAs that I think will benefit us in several ways.

The CAC meeting in April is actually hosted/organized by the CACA, which occurs every 2 years.  This CAC meeting is focused more on training and educators than other CAC’s.  As such, two years ago (prior to my involvement) the April meeting was attended by many educators, affiliated with apprenticeship programs or (more importantly perhaps) CTE programs that feed into apprenticeship opportunities.

While there is a cost involved with attending the workshops, there was significant discussion about having training committees sponsor educators to attend the workshops.  I will be getting more information today (Thursday) about the details of the workshops and also will send out an email to the LEAs later on to begin advertising this opportunity.

What I would like to see is the LEAs that are involved in apprenticeship identify a CTE instructor in their district/county that is not necessarily working with apprenticeship but could become an advocate for this career path.  By attending, they will learn more about apprenticeship, meet and network with potential partners for their CTE program and gain more exposure to apprenticeship than perhaps they had before.

More to come…

ACTE, the Association for Career Technical Education, has a magazine that is published every month or two.  The September issue had several very interesting articles that spoke about Apprenticeship specifically and how CTE makes a positive impact in career workforce development in general.  Here are the articles and links to the PDF files:

CTE in the Economy:  Finding the Upside in the Downside

Registered Apprenticeship:  Stepping up to the President’s Challenge

Career and Technical Education: Pursuing a Pipeline for the New Green-Collar Workforce
More articles here.

Take a look and send them to those who might be interested.

Here’s a brief wrap up from the CAC meeting, as it relates to the training side of things.

Our meeting at 11am on Wednesday was attended by about 20 people, LEA’s and sponsors included.  We had a good discussion about workers compensation issues as well as a new set of procedures that we’re looking at implementing to provide more consistency from one LEA to the next in how programs are monitored and supported.

Workers Compensation Issue:  at this point, there is Labor and Ed Code that can be interpreted to mean that if an apprentice is NOT employed (receiving unemployment) and is injured during training, the LEA may be responsible for the workers compensation insurance.  We will look into this more and hopefully find a reasonable solution.  LEAs may be over-exposed to serious injury claims as it currently stands and that could lead to some dropping out of the program all together.  More information to come on this issue.

Annual Program Evaluations:  most of the LEAs already work closely with the program sponsors to evaluate the training programs, monitor attendance taking procedures, etc.  What we are proposing is a set of guidelines, some required and others recommended, that will provide a higher level of consistency from one LEA/program to another.  And with the increase in turnover at the LEA and even program sponsor level, this is a good time to solidify procedures used in monitoring and supporting all apprenticeship training programs.

We will be working on a draft outline and gathering feedback from LEAs and program sponsors over the next 2-3 months.  The goal is to implement this beginning May 1, 2010 and put it into use for the 2010/11 Fiscal Year.

And finally, with regards to online/distance learning for Apprentices, if you have any questions whatsoever, contact me (John) and we can talk more about this issue.  The RSI Sub-Committee recommended to the full CAC that they accept a resolution promoting use of distance learning as long as it was of high quality and properly monitored.  The CAC minutes will reflect the actual wording if you are interested in that.  Basically, it is being used effectively world wide and in certain instances, distance/online learning is very appropriate for use in Apprentice training programs.

Next CAC meeting is in January at the Sacramento Radisson Hotel.  Plan on being there if you can make it, Wednesday is the best day to attend so that we can all meet again to discuss these and other topics.

Good afternoon all,

The CAC meeting in Anaheim is next week, Wednesday through Friday at the Sheraton Park Hotel on Harbor Blvd., next to the Convention Center.  I will be in attendance thanks to the approval today for my travel.  I’ve sent out an email to the LEA’s asking that if they can, they attend on Wednesday to meet together around 11am in the sub-committee meeting room.  I’m waiting on confirmation that we have the room but if not, we’ll find a spot to sit down and talk.  The RSI committee meets at 1pm on Wednesday and I highly recommend that you attend that meeting as well.

It is very important that the K12/CDE side of Apprenticeship in California be visible and in attendance at these meetings as much as possible.  There are several grants that have been awarded and more will in the future, which the K12 community can participate in as partners.  Most grant recipients are Community Colleges along with non-profit groups or some combination thereof.

Email me at jdunn (at) cde.ca.gov if you have questions.

John

(sent via email this morning too)

As the budget has finally settled and the real funding numbers have surfaced, my earlier calculations for funding amounts were off by a small amount.  Instead of a 4.5% reduction from the final 08/09 allocation, the real number was a reduction of 5.25%.  The attached spreadsheet illustrates the final amount, based on a total funding package of $15,692,601.  The hourly rate has not changed, it remains $5.06 at this time.

The early indication is that there is not enough money left to incur mid  year reductions as we experienced last March.  That being said, it would be prudent to factor in some “wiggle room” and ensure that should mid year cuts occur again, you have the ability to re-capture funds.

Also, as we saw in July, should the legislature choose to “sweep” unused funds from our account as a way to balance the budget on paper (only to return the funds in the next fiscal year), those LEAs who reported all or most of their hours by April were not affected by that sweep.

The real (final) allocation letters will be emailed Tuesday of next week, with the adjusted numbers.  You can print them at your leisure and if you need a letter mailed, let me know and we can send one out that way too.

Have a great Labor Day weekend.

Allocation List Apprenticeship Allocations_Sept_09

Good news!  The budget was signed and we’ve been able to take a look at the details and it appears that the Apprenticeship line item was not changed.  Therefore, we will be taking only a 4.5% reduction for 2009-10, which is what was in the March budget revision for this fiscal year (2009-10).  The hourly rate remains the same, at $5.06.

Bad news!  The budget “swept” $1.4 million from the 2008-09 allocation, representing the amount of money left in the account as of June 30.  This money is supposed to come back to the LEA’s eventually but not soon most likely.  Perhaps not ever.  The majority of the Apprenticeship funds are expended by May 1, because of the April attendance reporting.  But because we count the attendance in May and June, and report in July, those funds were still in the account and were swept.

Allocation letters will be coming out shortly.  Stay tuned for more.

Yesterday we sent out the 2008/09 Annual Survey for the Apprenticeship programs affiliated with the CDE.  It is a new format and hopefully should allow us to collect the data much more efficiently than we have in the past.  This will also allow us to extend the deadline to October 1st, so that we can make a report to the California Apprenticeship Council (CAC) meeting in late October. The Survey is here

Also, the CAC meets this Wednesday through Friday in Burlingame and the CDE will be there for one or two days.  If you will be there, please take a moment to say hello.

Budget will be signed by end of the day today, we hope.  We don’t have any information on what the cuts to Apprenticeship will be other than the 4.5% that is already expected based on the March budget act. We will post the info as soon as we hear.

Thanks, let us know if you have any questions on the survey or budget.

John