RE: Career Integration

Judith Moon states that career and technical education is the application and practice of academic disciplines as they apply to the real world.  I agree and strongly support the experiential mode of learning, the application in a career-oriented area as being essential for all students, college-bound, going into the work world, or into other post-secondary education and training.  The A-G approach does not often include this area and I am concerned that if all students are channeled into the traditional A-G track, career and technical education will be reduced even more than it currently is.  So many students start as freshmen in our high schools that do not appear on enrollment lists as seniors.  Will increased emphasis on the A-G mode keep these students from leaving school?  I doubt it.  Will increased emphasis on experiential career and technical education keep these students from leaving school?  I think it is more likely that it will.  Accessing career and technical education does not preclude students from going on to college; it may even help them pay the college bills.  Career and technical education and A-G do not need to be mutually exclusive; they can be integrated.
Flexibility and choice is needed for students.  There is not just one pathway to success.  Students do not come in one "standard."