Re: Friday - Workforce Preparation and Business Linkages

Ms. Maak:

    I am not exactly sure how to add my two-bits to the discussion (other than just responding to your email):

    So, in a nut-shell, those of us in Career Technical Education programs are concerned with the current tenor of the draft Master Plan recommendations pushing college-bound curriculum (and attempting to allow the UC A-G curriculum to become the default, High School curriculum for all 9-12 students throughout the state).

    The two, primary reasons for this concern is two-fold:

    First, by mandating the A-G standards on all high schools, the State would be squeezing-out CTE programs from the secondary setting (as many of our CTE programs call for four years of comprehensive course-work, and most of our CTE courses have not been A-G approved by the UC).

    Second, the UC approval process is clearly discriminatory against workforce preparation courses, as we have hundreds of examples of our most rigorous courses being arbitrarily rejected by the UC.  Therefore, if the State Legislature cedes more authority over High School curriculum to the UC Regents, CTE programs will be the big losers (even though many of our CTE programs encourage and require higher learning degrees).

    Therefore, Recommendations 12 (et seq) and 25 are most problematic to the Home Economics Careers and Technology Teachers of California.

Fred Jones
Home Economics Teachers Assocation of California
12120 Herdal Drive, Auburn, CA 95603
Tel (530) 887-9944 / Fax (530) 889-8000