I could not be more delighted to join the team here at Advance CTE! A self-proclaimed “Career Technical Education (CTE) evangelist,” I’ve spent much of my career designing, implementing and supporting policies and practices that create the conditions for high-quality CTE to flourish, and have had the pleasure to learn from and work alongside the Advance CTE team and members over those years. As a former State CTE Director and Advance CTE member, it is an honor to be able to give back to an organization that has given so much to me and to the field at large.
I am a Buckeye through and through, having spent nearly two decades either learning or teaching at The Ohio State University. As a sociologist by training, the driver at the heart of my work has always been reducing inequality. After many years of conducting research and teaching research methods, statistics, and substantive sociology courses at The Ohio State University, I became enthralled with the promise that CTE holds to prepare learners to achieve their aspirations.
That passion took me to the Ohio Department of Education where I spent seven years serving the learners of Ohio, designing state-level policy and practice solutions to strengthen and scale CTE in the state while simultaneously closing long-standing access and performance gaps across student groups. During my tenure at the Ohio Department of Education, I had the opportunity lead the development of the state’s CTE Report Card and CTE-focused pathways to high school graduation, as well as the state’s efforts to launch and scale middle-grade CTE and better align education and workforce by identifying and incentivizing credentials of value in CTE programs.
Immediately prior to joining the Advance CTE team, I served as the Vice President for Policy at the Linked Learning Alliance where I worked with states and communities to design and implement policies that support college and career pathways that intentionally integrate high-quality CTE, rigorous academics, early postsecondary opportunities, and work-based learning experiences. I also spent several years as the Director of Career Readiness at Education Strategy Group, where I led the firm’s work on credentials of value and worked with states and communities to plan, implement, and scale high-quality, industry-aligned pathways.
I am based in Columbus, Ohio where I live with my large blended family which includes four teenagers along with my 21-year old, five dogs, and my lovely husband Geoff. For the first time this school year, I get to play another role in the CTE system – that of a CTE parent. Outside of work, you can find me in the garden, cooking, or shuttling kids around to volleyball and basketball activities.
Students were hard at work on their laptops when we walked into the 12th grade environmental science class at Oakland High School. They were writing their senior research papers on different environmental issues in their Bay Area community, the culminating project to graduate from the Environmental Science Academy. One student was writing about the the economic impact of a diminishing bee population, another was looking into the effect of recent wildfires in northern California. And they were more than happy to show off their projects.
The Linked Learning approach has had a notable impact on O-High student outcomes. In 2018, 81 percent of students graduated and 70 percent enrolled in college within one year. Part of this success is attributable to the high school’s absolute focus on equity. School leaders take special care to ensure that enrollment in each pathway reflects the broader student population, with parity across ethnicity, gender and disability. And in 2010, Oakland Unified launched the Office of African American Male Achievement (AAMA) to support and develop young black males throughout the district. As a result, the African American graduation rate at O-High jumped from 58 percent in 2014 to 90 percent in 2018.