WORKING WITH HEAD AND HANDS A makeover for vocational education

An innovative program gives college-bound students technical skills.
McKEESPORT, Pa. (AP) -- For two class periods every day at McKeesport Area High School, junior Ashley Burtoft straps on a carpenter's belt to learn building skills she hopes will lead her to a career as an architectural engineer.
"By the time I graduate from college, I want to be able to design a house, build a house and decorate it. That's my plan," Ashley said over the shrill sound of electric saws students were using to construct a house behind the school that will eventually be sold to fund next year's projects.
Vocational or technical education -- long perceived as a dumping ground for students unwilling or unable to go to college -- has gotten a modern makeover at McKeesport, the only public school district in western Pennsylvania and one of three in the state to integrate vocational training on campus with other high school curriculum.
By working with local businesses to identify skills for the future and blending an academic and technical curriculum, McKeesport administrators have over a decade turned its program into a model for preparing students for jobs in the global economy.
"It used to be that kids had to chose one or the other. Either you were a technical student ... or you were college prep. Those days are gone," said Julia A. Stewart, director of vocational training at the high school's renamed McKeesport Area Technology Center. "You really have to be both to be prepared for the jobs of the future."
Large enrollment
More than half the 1,500 students at McKeesport high school are taking courses in 15 technical fields, up from 268 students 10 years ago. Some 60 percent of last year's graduates went on to post-secondary training compared with less than 10 percent a decade ago.
One key to revitalizing the project was developing partnerships with employers and post-secondary schools. A committee of more than 100 business people advise on equipment and programming and help with internships, job shadowing and in-school speakers.
"We recognized we had to cultivate partnerships because we didn't have the money, No. 1, to do some of the things we wanted to do and we didn't have the human resources ... to show us new strategies, new techniques, to know what equipment we would need, to make sure we are preparing kids for the work force," Stewart said.
Practical experience
Kennametal Inc., a Latrobe-based global maker of tooling systems, has worked for three years with an engineering technology class to give students real practical experience along with basic theory.
A team of students designed and constructed a storage facility for the plant's collection of expensive diamond grinding wheels, which had been kept on shelves in a storage closet.
The student-designed system, which replaced shelving with peg boards and uses bar codes to keep track of grinding wheel inventory, saved Kennametal money and was so-well received that the company exported the idea to a plant in Germany.
David Malone, chairman of the Pennsylvania Workforce Investment Board, argues the region's economic development depends on increasing educational attainment, making post-secondary education more affordable and building better links between education and employer needs. McKeesport High School is a model.
"What we have is a systemic problem," said Malone, also chief financial officer of Gateway Financial in Pittsburgh. "Parents just don't understand what their kids are going to be facing when they get out of school. Teachers aren't talking to employers. Employers aren't talking to teachers. Legislators don't understand it."
Anne McCafferty, director of the Human Capital Policy Initiative at the University of Pittsburgh, has compiled data suggesting that almost 40 percent of jobs in the future will require just two years of post-secondary school or training and only 23 percent will require a four-year bachelor's degree or greater. The rest will be low-skill, low-wage jobs.
McKeesport has a long blue-collar tradition, but steel and other heavy industry that once dominated the city has withered, so preparing students for careers that can financially sustain families was a key consideration in redesigning the program.
It took time and effort to convince the school board, teachers and parents that the old program was broken and that both the courses offered and the physical facilities needed to be updated.
The machine shop was closed because the equipment it used was too antiquated to be of value in today's computer-aided environment and was too expensive to replace. The district then combined some programs. Separate courses in electricity, carpentry and plumbing were clustered into one new area of training called building technology.