Georgia is overhauling its high school curriculum and looking to Career Clusters â„¢ as a tool to prepare all students for college and career, according to a recent Associated Press article.
Implementing Career Clusters ™ is part of an effort by State Schools chief John Barge, who said the state was forcing some students to drop out of school because they couldn’t identify relevancy of what they learned in school with what they wanted to do when they began their careers, the article said.
The new plans will make Georgia among the first states in the nation to require students to enroll in a Career Clusters ™ program in order to graduate from high school, said Dean Folkers, deputy executive director at the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium. The consortium has helped states like Florida, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Colorado implement career training programs in the past few years, he said.
“Many states use career clusters, but Georgia is taking it another step,” Folkers said. “It’s not about redoing career technical education for those kids. It’s about embracing it for all and realizing we all are ultimately preparing for a career and college is a vehicle to get there.”
Tags: Career Clusters®, college and career readiness, Standards, State Directors