The secret to rebuilding a healthy economy, expanding job growth and reducing unemployment originates with certifying a qualified and dependable workforce through post-high school Career and Technical Education (CTE) that meets the evolving needs of business and industry, according to Western Yavapai County’s Mountain Institute officials.
It is a secret, they say, because the public remains largely unaware of its ongoing inroads and future potential, and often perceives a college or university degree as the preferred route to job and career success. That perception is shifting, and the image of CTE is improving, through experience surrounding student retention, workforce readiness, job obtainment and starting salaries.
No longer called “vocational technical” education, the new CTE offers a blend of classroom instruction and hands-on education focused on skills needed in today’s and tomorrow’s economy, while keeping students engaged in their education.
By 2020, 65 percent of jobs in the United States are expected to require a postsecondary education that will lead to credentials, certifications and degrees, according to Sue Clark-Johnson, executive director of Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy. This statistic is referenced in her forward to the Institute’s “21st Century Career and Technical Education Pathways on the rise: The Role of Career and Technical Education in Arizona’s Future,” published in April 2013.
Arizona’s answer to CTE was the 1990 creation of the Joint Technical Education (JTED) program, which now operates in 13 of the state’s 15 counties and delivers 88 percent of the state’s CTE programs, the Morrison Institute report states.
Western Yavapai County’s Mountain Institute JTED (MIJTED) begins its sixth year this fall with 17 educational tracks enrolling more than 600 students (calculated by an average daily membership formula) among public, private, charter and home-schooled students from seven school districts: Prescott, Bradshaw Mountain, Chino Valley, Mayer, Ash Fork, Seligman and Bagdad.
“With society as a whole and not just Prescott, people have been told that the best education avenue is a four-year educational institution or college,” said MIJTED Superintendent Jeramy Plumb. “That’s not where the jobs are in today’s market and where they are expected to be in the next 15 to 20 years. Parents are starting to really value those shifts. And they are seeing that there are really good avenues to pursue…as an alternative path to gainful employment.”
A national study by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce cited in the Morrison Institute report stated that 39 percent of men and 34 percent of women with a postsecondary certificate earn more than the median male worker with an associate’s degree, and 24 percent of women and 23 percent of men surpass the median bachelor’s degree holder in earnings.
The jobs for which 18- to 19-year-old MIJTED graduates qualify can range from $30,000 to $40,000 annually to well over six figures, Plumb said. Salaries “on the whole are very good,” depending on career path and a student’s goals.
“We aligned ourselves with industry needs certification-wise,” said Plumb. “All of our programs end in industry certification. Students can graduate from high school and go on a job site and obtain work.”
The business community “led the charge” for MIJTED because “they wanted skilled workers to come work with them,” Plumb explained. From auto dealerships to Yavapai Regional Medical Center (YRMC) to Yavapai College and other business and education partners, the program has been “a very active partnership with members of the business community… We have a very close relationship with those folks. It brings a lot of business ties together.”
One “hugely successful” aspect of the MIJTED is skills labs with local employers. Twenty-six students were enrolled in skills labs (a job location extension of the classroom) at the end of the recent school year and about half of them were retained for the summer. The skills lab target this fall is 100 to 150 second-year students, Plumb says.
Lamb Automotive offered job shadowing with rotating technicians to four MIJTED students on Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons in the Chevy and Nissan shops. The students worked on vehicles with technical tools under the oversight of Lamb technicians, following a written application and in-person interview.
“[MIJTED] is a good program, definitely good for the kids,” said Heath Janzen, parts and service director for Lamb Automotive. “We all have our wants, but getting into doing it for a living… [(can be] an eye opener in the real world.”
Automotive is the second most popular career MIJTED track, after allied health, Plumb says, adding that culinary is “extremely popular” and aviation “is gaining.”
Economic cutbacks and eliminated curricula across the country during the economic downturn resulted in “lost ground” in allied health and nursing education across the country, while at the same time fostering an aging work force, explains YRMC’s Community Outreach Manager Ken Boush.
There will be a “new generation” of healthcare professionals “coming back around full swing,” Boush said, citing programs like MIJTED as helping provide students a “head start” and “getting pointed in the right direction” on education-intensive allied health careers.
Tim Carter, Yavapai County High School superintendent, said he “couldn’t be more pleased” with the success of the MIJTED program he helped create, stating that “the proof is in the pudding” of year-over-year growth. The initiative began “back in [2005] and [2006] when it became very apparent in discussions with districts that high school students, in particular, [were] not being exposed to Career and Technical Education in both the volume we wanted them to and the quantity of funding,” Carter said.
Voters in the November 2008 general election passed a referendum approving MIJTED by more than 70 percent in each of the participating districts. “With a vote of 74 percent in districts in pretty tough economic times, you have to think it has great merit,” Plumb said. “We knew that the program would just continue to grow.”
The funding formula through property tax and state sales tax tracks with average daily memberships and takes into account the amount and difficulty of education delivered. The MIJTED has received $1,000 to $3,000 per student each year, Plumb estimates, and will enter the coming school year with an estimated budget of $1.85 million, based on fiscal year 2014 enrollment.
Rapid annual growth brings unique challenges in providing enough facilities, instructors and funding. The more rural Yavapai County must manage greater distances between schools, fewer large-scale employers, and increased struggles in the workforce to find and obtain jobs than its big city counterparts. Innovative scheduling with four-day school district weeks and use of video and electronic contact between campuses provide work-around solutions.
The program acknowledges that western Yavapai County is not able to place all of the students. Employers are informed that the best and brightest students will be available to fill local demand, although 60 to 70 percent of jobs may be located in a neighboring county, state or across the country, Plumb says. Students are advised to be aggressive and ready to relocate for a job.
“We couldn’t be more pleased with how it has ended up,” Plumb concluded. “We are ranked number one [in the state] across all [JTEDs] on all industry assessments. That speaks volumes for the quality of students we are obtaining from the area and the quality of the partnerships with business and industry.” QCBN
By Sue Marceau
Quad Cities Business News
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