RISD REPORT
This week CTE Director Britina Pesak with Rockdale ISD Career and Technical Education Department give’s insight into this vital program at RockdaleISD.
With the rapidly changing job market, we cannot prepare students for the jobs that exist today. Occupations that exist today may not exist tomorrow, and the jobs that today’s elementary students may one day thrive in have not even been thought of yet.
To best prepare our students, this year’s graduating class of 2020 will be entering the workforce throughout the next five years armed with a set of employability skills covering academic knowledge, technical expertise and effective workplace relationships.
All industries want to put forth a quality product. In K-12 education, the end goal is producing students that are ready. But what does that even mean?
The industry has been talking about the technical skills gap for the last decade or so, and have more recently begun to discuss the soft skills that are equally as important.
Rick Stephens, Senior Vice President of the Boeing Corporation famously says, “We hire for hard skills. We fire for soft skills.”
Employers want workers who can show up on time, follow instructions, problem-solve, work effectively with a team, and independently. These are just some of the many employability skills that students in Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses are focusing on to become highly-sought after employees and career-minded individuals.
Students with employability skills are career ready. But is that all it takes?
Dr. David T. Conley is considered one of the leading authors on College and Career Readiness (CCR). He defines CCR as the ability to “qualify for and succeed in entry-level, credit bearing college courses leading to a baccalaureate or certificate, or career pathway-oriented training programs without the need for remedial or developmental coursework” (Conley, 2012).
Within this definition, we still have room for improvement to ensure all students are college ready. However, he highlights that not every student excels in every area, so a single cut score on a test is not the best measure of CCR. Student success should be measured in their chosen field of study.
Many key elements of both college and career readiness are the same: time management, perseverance, critical thinking.
Support at the collegiate level to help students with these skills is often overwhelmingly available, but the student does have to accept the help. The difference is that for young men and women entering the workforce, the support system in career systems is a much smaller net.
While the programs of study offered through the Career and Technical Education (CTE) department at Rockdale ISD train students to be prepared for all levels of postsecondary education, ultimately, employers will be looking for both the technical (hard) skills and employability (soft) skills to fill those empty positions of the future, and our Tiger graduates will be ready.
Britina Pesak, Director of CTE (Career and Technical Education) 512-430-6140, ext. 1021
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