Engaging Students To Emerge Successful

By Jeff Sorce

ESTES Leaders, A new college and career readiness program is being implemented at Estes Elementary School in Owensboro, KY. The purpose of ESTES (Engaging Students To Emerge Successful) Leaders is to expose students to different industries and lead them to college and career paths based on their experiences.

Students will be exposed to the following industry areas: public health, education, agriculture, media relations, public safety, tourism, entrepreneurship, advanced manufacturing and trades, and STEM. By traveling to and participating in hands-on activities in these industries, students will be enlightened on what each arena has to offer.

Funded through a special Innovation Grant through the Kentucky Board of Education, this is an innovative way to discuss career paths with the students. They will experience real life situations and present those situations to others. It is our belief that elementary students need to think about how they will become college and career ready by the time they graduate from high school. By introducing them to these various areas, students will start to develop their own career path and show others, including peers and community members, what steps they will take to achieve those goals.

Our students need to have these experiences and and learn these skills to level the playing field, thereby breaking the cycle of poverty. Our students need to see the possibilities and what they can start doing now, at the elementary level, to become successful in those areas. In a recent 2013 survey of parents at Estes Elementary, only 17% graduated high school, and only 6 out of 387 respondents (.01%) had some college experience. This program is designed to allow students to learn how to begin with the end in mind so they can be first generation college graduates.

All teachers in the fourth grade level will be collaborating to meet project needs. In the beginning there will be 24 students participating in this program. These students will be creating Problem-Based Learning projects for all students in fourth grade to eventually participate. Additionally, every teacher and student in the school will be impacted because these 24 student leaders will present their experiences and planned college/career paths to the entire student/teacher body.

The culmination of this project will be a community wide job fair that will be held, where the 24 students will present their findings and experiences. At this fair, adult members of the community will have an opportunity to interview and receive job placements with our community partners working with our program.

This is a guest blog written by one of the teachers in our Innovative Teacher Leader cohort to share about an innovative teacher or practice from their area of the state. To learn more about the work happening in the Commonwealth from these Innovative Teacher Leaders, who are working to redefine teacher leadership in Kentucky, check back throughout the month of March. We’ll be sharing guest blogs all month long.

#InnovateEd2015: Preparing Our Students for Jobs of the Future

By: Amanda Riley

This blog is part four in a four part mini-blog series designed to increase awareness around four issue areas that attendees will work on at the Innovate: Education Summit on February 25, 2015. Join us as we bring together key leaders in the business and education communities to work on:

• Exploring Alternative School Models
• Bridging the Communications Gap between Business and Education
• Incorporating Soft Skills into "College and Career Ready": What Do Our Students Need to Know?
• Preparing Our Students for Jobs of the Future: How Can We Prepare Them If We Don't Even Know What Those Jobs Will Be?

Today's mini-blog highlights Preparing Our Students for Jobs of the Future. 

As mentioned yesterday, it is difficult enough to know how to prepare high school graduates for College and Career Readiness, but if we do not know what the jobs of the future will look like it becomes even more of a challenge. The Innovate: Education Summit on February 25 is designed to bring the Business and Education communities together so that both constituents can discuss these hard questions we have been discussing in this mini-blog series. By engaging the Business Community, we can understand what College and Career Readiness looks like, maybe even by utilizing Alternative School Models - but how can we prepare high school graduates for jobs of the future when we do not even know what those jobs will be? This blog showcases two different models of engaging the business community to ensure students are prepared.

In Indiana, a recent strategy has been developed to understand what the jobs of the future may look like. Steve Braun thinks that Indiana could use its education system to cut the unemployment rate. His strategy includes using "data techniques from the business world to solve the impossible mystery" of knowing what the jobs of the future will look like for future high school and college graduates. By utilizing the expertise they found in Business Community veteran Steve Braun, the state of Indiana could revamp their entire workforce education pipeline to ensure that students graduate college and career ready.

American communities are beginning to look at foreign examples of how education systems are preparing students for the workforce. "According to the Financial Times, nearly half of Germany's high-schoolers are tracked away from higher education into vocational studies by the time they turn sixteen. Nearly 40% of Germans enter the business world early as apprentices." This article even goes on to say that "the apprenticeship system solves a dual problem for Germany" and could solve the same problem(s) in America - "our under- and over- qualified workforce." Germany has sought out its Business Community to fill out this apprenticeship program and it is working to provide experience and education upon high school graduation.

During this mini-blog series, we have highlighted multiple ways that the Business and Education communities can work together to ensure better student outcomes over time. These are just two great examples of the Business and Education communities have come together to increase College and Career Readiness for future graduates. What are some other examples or strategies you could bring to the table at #InnovateEd2015?

#InnovateEd2015: Incorporating Soft Skills into College and Career Readiness

By: Amanda Riley

This blog is part three in a four part mini-blog series designed to increase awareness around four issue areas that attendees will work on at the Innovate: Education Summit on February 25, 2015. Join us as we bring together key leaders in the business and education communities to work on:

• Exploring Alternative School Models
• Bridging the Communications Gap between Business and Education
• Incorporating Soft Skills into "College and Career Ready": What Do Our Students Need to Know?
• Preparing Our Students for Jobs of the Future: How Can We Prepare Them If We Don't Even Know What Those Jobs Will Be?

Today's mini-blog highlights Incorporating Soft Skills into College and Career Readiness. 

As mentioned yesterday, in our mini-blog focused on the Communications Gap between Business and Education, a lot of work has been done to increase the College and Career Readiness of High School graduates in Kentucky. We know though, that the Business Community still says the graduates are lacking certain skills. The Fund for Transforming Education in Kentucky would like to ensure that high school graduates are ready to enter the workforce but in order to make this the norm, a lot of work needs to be done. Many strategies could be employed to ensure that our students know what they need to be college and career ready. This blog highlights both a recent task force report from the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and an informative resource about College and Career Readiness.

Recently, a task force was created by CCSSO, comprised of state school chiefs, postsecondary and Career and Technical Education (CTE) leaders, business leaders and national education experts. The task force analyzed career preparation in the United States and internationally to arrive at three main recommendations:

1. Enlist employers as partners to define essential pathways and skills. 
2. Set higher expectations for career program quality so students are prepared for postsecondary education.
3. Create incentives for schools to provide career opportunities and link programs to accountability measures.

Our own commissioner Holliday was quoted in the article cited above as stating "in too many states K-12, community college, universities, and the business community are not working together to solve the skills gap." It is difficult to know exactly what students need to know to graduate high school college and career ready, but including the business community in the conversation is definitely one way to improve the possibilities. 

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) produced a useful resource to help their meeting attendees understand the differences between College and Career Readiness. While this group is "dedicated to improving results for infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities ages birth through 21" the resource linked here is valuable to understand the qualities employers might be looking for in graduates that meet the College and Career Readiness guidelines. 

Both of these resources might lead to valuable insight for our conversation at #InnovateEd2015. After all, it hard to discuss Soft Skills and how they affect College and Career Readiness (CCR) for all of our high school graduates, without fully understanding what CCR means. What are some other ideas and strategies around CCR you could bring to the table at #InnovateEd2015?