“Our hard work to make career-technical education a valuable pathway to skilled jobs is paying off,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Richard Ross said.
The Centerville-Kettering-Oakwood CTC ranked in the top five of the state’s 91 career tech centers in all four graded categories — post-program placement (third), technical skill assessment scores (fifth), and four- and five-year graduation rates (first in both).
For the second year in a row, Centerville-Kettering-Oakwood scored highest in the area on technical skill tests in fields such as automotives or allied health, with 95.5 percent of tested students passing those exams. The center also posted perfect graduation rates, and placed 97.6 percent of students after graduation.
Liz Jensen, career technology principal for Fairmont High School, credited that success to “dedicated staff who are passionate about preparing students, as well as the inherent motivation that most students have while going through career-technical education.”
The state’s career tech report card is very different from the report card for traditional schools, as only one of the four graded areas is based on student test scores — technical aptitude exams in this case, although reading and math passage rates also are reported.
The career tech report card also has a significant time lag, largely because it includes data on what students did after graduation. This month’s new report card data tracks the graduating class of 2013. The state plans to release the class of 2014 report card this winter, then the 2015 class next summer, cutting that lag time from two years to one.
“They’re going to try to catch us up, and that’s what we need,” said Nick Weldy, superintendent of the Miami Valley Career Tech Center in Clayton. “We need immediate feedback to know what we need to do better.”
Straight-A centers
Grades on the career tech report cards are higher than the traditional report cards, which are test-score driven. Thirty of the state’s 91 career centers got A’s in all four graded areas. Cleveland’s grades of F-B-C-C were the lowest in the state.
Locally, seven of 12 schools got straight-A’s — Miami Valley CTC, Centerville-Kettering-Oakwood, Upper Valley in Piqua, Ohio Hi-Point in Bellefontaine, and the Warren County, Butler County and Springfield-Clark County centers.
The tech centers run by Greene County and Hamilton City Schools each got three A’s and a B; Mad River Schools’ tech center had three A’s and a C; Greenville City Schools had three A’s, but an F in its technical skill assessments.
Dayton Schools’ Ponitz Center earned three B’s and one C — ranking it behind the big-city tech centers of Akron, Columbus and Toledo, but ahead of Cincinnati, Canton, Youngstown and Cleveland.
The state plans to review the grading scheme for career tech centers this year, according to Emily Passias, data manager for the state’s Office of Career Technical Education. Passias said the difficulty level of the state’s technical skill tests has been increased, and those scores will show up on future report cards.
“I like that the report card captures a little bit of everything,” Passias said. “We have information about student graduation, information on how students are performing on their technical assessments, about how they’re earning industry-recognized credentials, about what they’re doing in their transition after high school.
“It’s a really broad mix that captures the essence of what career technical education is trying to do.”
Job connections
Weldy was proud of Miami Valley CTC’s straight-A’s, but he said two measures — one graded, one not — were particularly important. The report card showed that almost 75 percent of MVCTC’s funding was spent on classroom instruction. That’s fourth-highest of the 50 programs in the state that are funded in the same way as MVCTC.
Weldy said of all the measures, post-program placement might be the most important. MVCTC placed 94 percent of its former students in jobs, apprenticeships, colleges or the military — a better showing than two-thirds of the CTCs in Ohio.
“That shows that we’re fulfilling our promise to them,” Weldy said. “That high percentage shows that we’re getting them where they need to be.”
Passias said the state has tightened standards on what counts as an industry credential, because some schools were counting a first-aid certificate that could be earned in an hour or two. Weldy said MVCTC now only counts things like a state board of cosmetology license or an FAA airframe mechanic’s certification — things that are direct job qualifications.
Jensen said the Centerville-Kettering-Oakwood CTC makes changes to its educational program based on input from its advisory committee of college instructors and industry representatives.
She gave the example that automotive students were struggling a bit with state WebXams on electrical systems as well as the electrical courses at Sinclair. So on advice from the committee, they bought circuit kit trainers that mimic the electrical system of a car so students could practice.
“The beauty of career-technical education is it constantly evolves to meet both the employment needs of business and industry as well as the educational needs of our students,” Jensen said.
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