The Obama Administration launched an “Educate to Innovate” campaign this week that is focused on boosting the participation and achievement of students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
This campaign includes a partnership with the administration, leading companies, foundations, non-profits, and science and engineering societies. The administration plans to deploy a mix of strategies to highlight students’ success in STEM as a national priority. The attention to education stakeholder partnerships and STEM programs could lead to more opportunities for CTE, which already focuses on those areas.
The administration noted three broad goals:
• Increase STEM literacy so that all students can learn deeply and think critically in science, math, engineering, and technology.
• Move American students from the middle of the pack to top in the next decade.
• Expand STEM education and career opportunities for underrepresented groups, including women and girls.
Last week I travelled to Nashville to make several presentations on Career Clusters and programs of study at the ACTE Annual Convention. Being at this meeting just reinforced to me the strong interest that exists in Career Clusters throughout the CTE community. In addition to presenting at a more informal roundtable discussion about Career Cluster products and services I made formal presentations at three other sessions. 
In the last post on the Fall Summit I shared that states ended day two by voting on the 24 principles that were crafted during the small group work. I can’t emphasize how grateful I am to all the Summit attendees. Everyone took the charge of defining the Future Directions for CTE very seriously. Attendees brainstormed, crafted, drafted, worked and reworked words until they became statements and statements until they became principles. This is really hard work. And attendees gave it their all!
Choosing Our Words Carefully: With the principles now drafted, we chose to tackle a question that was raised by an attendee on day one – “when we say a term like ‘program of study’ do we all agree on the same definition of what this is and what it looks like to implement this well?” Attendees nodded their heads “yes, but of course we agree and understand these terms. We are all CTE leaders.” However, it became evident during the small group work that even among the selected group at the Summit, terms like programs of study, rigor, seamless and articulation have very different meanings, interpretations and implementation. Attendees spent some time on day three crafting common definitions for 14 terms but this work is far from complete. A charge for us in the future!
So Where Do We Go From Here?: Our Board of Directors met on November 9 to review the Summit work/outcomes and to approve a ‘go forward’ plan that includes a webinar for Summit attendees and a series of regional calls with the state directors in December, as well as a Board of Directors’ retreat in January where the Board will finalize the vision and principles. On February 17, 2010 at 2 pm eastern we will host a webinar to unveil the new vision and corresponding principles. And at the NASDCTEc spring meeting in Washington, D.C. we will once again roll up our sleeves and work together to craft the action steps to achieve our new vision.
Looking Ahead: Our organization’s efforts to define a new vision for CTE is not about dismantling what we have in place or discrediting the success we have achieved so far. Instead, it is about looking back on what we have achieved and learning from both our successes and failures. It is about ensuring that the opportunities before CTE are maximized. It is about staying relevant in an ever-changing educational and economic environment. We can’t be what we always have been. In 2009, we don’t look like what we did in 1999; and we shouldn’t look today like we will look like in 2019. We can build on what we have accomplished. With a new vision guiding our work and the right leadership in place, we can get to where we ought to be!