How to Prepare Students for Careers

Career and technical education has often been considered "less academic" than other classes. But learning how to apply core skills in English and math is important, as is learning employability and technical skills, according to the Association for Career and Technical Education's (ACTE) definition of career ready students.

Educators and industry partners can help students learn these skills through the following three practices:

1. Involve the community

With Education Secretary Arne Duncan's push to help kids become college- and career-ready, he is focusing just on colleges, said Jan Bray, executive director for the ACTE. The same goes for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act blueprint and other legislation.

But high school education needs to include both, not one or the other, she said. And it shouldn't just fall to programs such as career pathways to prepare kids for their future jobs.

"Being career ready is the responsibility of the entire school and the entire education community," Bray said, "not just the career and technical education.”

2. Combine academic and technical knowledge

That means educators must play on the same team.

In a construction program, the teacher might just say "3-4-5" when showing students how to build a set of stairs, said David Wakelyn, program director with the Center for Best Practices at the National Governors Association. That's actually shorthand for the Pythagorean theorem.

If he collaborated with an academic teacher, the teacher could tell students how that math theory applies to construction.

"We need more examples of academic and technical teachers working together on where the academic content sits in the technical classes," Wakelyn said, "to help reinforce the learning of that content.”

3. Make learning relevant

Students need to see the tie between concepts they're learning and their application in life, said Allyson Knox, an academic program manager for Microsoft Corp.'s U.S. Partners in Learning program. The definition that ACTE created is starting a conversation about career readiness and reminding educators that they need to show students why they're in school and what options they have for their future.

"Until we help students start connecting the dots, I think we’re not fulfilling our full responsibility of what education should be.”