With a proven ability to engage many students who might otherwise drop out of school, Career and Technical Education has a definite part to play in eliminating the achievement gap. So says a national expert on CTE.

"The most often cited reason kids give for dropping out is that they're bored," said James Stone III, who directs the Louisville, Ky.-based National Research Center for Career and Technical Education. 

According to Stone, the students who are statistically best poised for success, either in college or the workplace, are those who take both academic and CTE courses in high school. 

Few take both

But only about 13 percent of high school graduates actually do, he told workshop participants at a NYSUT symposium on closing the gap. "It shouldn't be 'either or,'" he said. "It should be both." 

However, that's becoming more difficult for students to do, Stone noted, with a nationwide move to higher standards and the need for students to earn more academic credits for graduation. 

Citing study after study, Stone said that despite the increased emphasis on academic subjects, student scores nationwide have remained generally flat in reading, math and science over the past three decades. 

"There is a huge disconnect around the rhetoric of the need for math and the workplace reality," Stone said. 

While 94 percent of workers say they use math on the job, he said, it is generally "basic math" only - middle and early high school level. Fewer than 5 percent make any serious use of algebra, trigonometry, calculus or geometry.

CTE, on the other hand, provides a "math-rich context" that is ideal for weaving mathematics into any CTE curriculum, but Stone said it's an opportunity that is often missed by teachers. 

The Louisville research center recently completed what Stone described as a successful test of a model for enhancing mathematics instruction in high school CTE courses by emphasizing the math that is already embedded in the CTE curriculum. Details of the study are available at the group's Web site, http://www.nccte.org/. 

- John Strachan