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SkillsUSA Week

February 7th, 2013

SkillsUSA MonthIt’s February, so it’s CTE Month once again, a time for all ten of the career and technical student organizations (CTSOs) and related professional associations to talk about the value of career and technical education.

SkillsUSA Week is Feb. 10-16. SkillsUSA Week is a fantastic way to highlight all the great things your state association and chapters are doing. We have a lot of great resources on our website to help you plan activities for the week. Be sure and visit www.skillsusa.org/educators/skillsusaweek.shtml for tools to celebrate and publicize career and technical education. ACTE also has many resources to help you celebrate CTE Month at: www.acteonline.org.

When President Obama visited the campus of Northern Virginia Community College in June of 2011, he highlighted the importance of CTE for our country, and described it as the backbone of our nation.

He said, “I see a United States where this nation is able to out-compete every country on Earth, where we continue to be the world’s engine for innovation and discovery. I see a future where we train workers who make things here in the United States, and continue a important and honorable tradition of folks working with their hands, creating value, not just shuffling paper. That’s part of what has built the American Dream.”

That’s what we represent  and what we stand for. What are you going to do for SkillsUSA Week?

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2013 ACTE National Policy Seminar: March 4-6, 2013

January 15th, 2013

Registration is open for the 2013 ACTE National Policy Seminar. This year, the CTE community will “climb the Hill” in March during the 2013 ACTE National Policy Seminar. The focus of the conference will center on how to overcome key obstacles, such as funding battles, and working with both sides of the aisle in today’s partisan environment to create successful CTE policy. For more information, go to www.acteonline.org.

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“Vision 2012″ ACTE National Conference Makes and Appearance in Atlanta

December 28th, 2012
ACTE Photo

SkillsUSA National Officers Craig Swanson, Brian Bradley and Kaila O’Farrell in SkillsUSA’s booth at ACTE along with SkillsUSA Executive Director Timothy W. Lawrence

From November 27 through December 1, I participated in the annual Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) conference in Atlanta. I was joined by staff members Heidi Walsh and Niki Clausen and national officers Brian Bradley (Ga.), Craig Swandon (Ga.) and Kaila O’Farrell (Mass.). The students did an outstanding job speaking to various stakeholder meetings and networking with attendees in our exhibit booth. SkillsUSA conducted six workshops and had good attendance at all of them. Workshops on chapter management, assessments and leadership were conducted by Niki, Heidi and me. A big thank you goes to Karen Ward, SkillsUSA Massachusetts state association director, for conducting workshops on Skill Connect Assessments and leadership development, and to Lana Ford for conducting an additional assessment workshop.

Board member Jeff Johnson, ACTE vice president, did a great job leading the trade and industrial division meetings and policy and planning sessions. It was also a great time to network with existing partners from education and industry. Greg Rintala, YDF member, attended and helped sponsor the conference, and I had good meetings with more than 12 partner companies and at least six more with prospective partners. It’s always important for SkillsUSA to have a strong presence at this annual event of CTE teachers, administrators and business partners.

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Student Contest for CTE Month

September 14th, 2012

The Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) has launched a new student contest for CTE Month- the CTE Month Promotional Poster Contest. It is seeking student’s best and most creative poster designs promoting CTE Month. The contest is open to all CTE students, secondary and postsecondary, and ACTE will accept submissions until October 19. After that six finalists will be selected and their entries will be posted on ACTE’s Facebook page. Anyone can then vote for his/her favorite for one week. At week’s end, whoever receives the most votes in each category will be the winning poster design.

ACTE is hoping to generate more attention for CTE Month. The winning posters can be used by CTE teachers, CTSO advisors and other CTE Month celebrants to promote CTE Month and social media advocacy week—being held February 11-15. Winners from each category will receive a prize pack including a copy of the Adobe CS6 Suite.

Here is the link to the contest rules on ACTE’s web page: www.acteonline.org/ctemonth.aspx#Challenge

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Highlights

March 31st, 2012
  • We can hit the membership gong! We have surpassed last year’s membership total. As of yesterday, membership is 302,720. That’s 1,337 ahead of last year and some memberships are still coming into the office. Twenty-six state associations have now exceeded last year’s totals. The most recent is Wisconsin Postsecondary Division, Dale Drees, state association director.
  • The Louisiana Community and Technical College System (CTCS) has appointed a state association director, Jawan Ross, and is moving forward to reinstitute the SkillsUSA Louisiana College/Postsecondary Association. The association has been dormant for a year. Jawan was here in the national office on March 16 for some condensed and intense state director training. SkillsUSA welcomes Louisiana postsecondary back, and we’re pleased to hear the LCTCS director is talking about growing the association next year.
  • State conferences are underway. The SkillsUSA Georgia conference was a webcast over two days. Representative Jim Langevin, co-chair of the CTE Caucus spoke during the Rhode Island conference. Among his remarks to the students: “SkillsUSA students are the future innovators and job creators for our country.” That’s a nice message to carry. Staff will be visiting 20 state spring conferences.
  • On March 5, Bob Daly, senior vice president of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. stopped by the national office for a visit and to discuss opportunities to grow our partnership. Bob is also looking into ways Toyota and Toyota dealers can help support the CTSOs in California.
  • On March 6, I was part of a panel discussion during the ACTE Policy and Planning Seminar in Washington. The topic was Measuring Career Readiness Skills: Existing Practice, New Developments and the Challenges That Remain. The concern is finding or developing assessments that are more “career ready” inclusive. Of course, I was able to say during my remarks that SkillsUSA has been teaching and assessing employability skills since 1965 and I spoke about the Skill Connect Assessments and the Professional Development Program. My presentation was well received. Johan Uvin, deputy assistant secretary of OVAE gave a presentation entitled “Perkins Act Preview: Obama Administration.” Uvin said the administration wants to “further improve CTE.” The focus seems to still be on improving postsecondary degree attainment with “at least one year of postsecondary education.” He went on to say OVAE has developed a blueprint for reform, but hasn’t released it yet and that the administration has chosen 2013 for Perkins reauthorization. There will be three major statutory reforms: strengthen alignment of high schools, postsecondary and employers; better accountability systems; and, competitive funding to promote innovation and state reform. Questions from the audience were direct and tough on all three areas, particularly on the competitive funding and Uvin’s assertion that CTE didn’t have data to back up its claims of success.
  • I was the keynote speaker at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College/Caper Educator Institute’s “Education Challenge: Career and College Readiness” forum in Henrico, Virginia on March 14. My topic was “Schools Excel Through Student Leadership: Encourage, Promote and Prepare Student Leaders.” There were 210 administrators in attendance, and there was discussion about what it means to be career and college ready. I guess the speech went over well. I gave away all of my business cards.
  • We secured a Google Grant for advertising on the Google website. When certain keywords are searched, our ads will appear at the top and in the column on the right of the page. The ads started running on a March 13, and by March 14, SkillsUSA had already received 40,000 impressions.
  • And, I attended two outstanding state conferences in the past two weeks – Texas high school and Arizona.  More details on these and others next time.

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Highlights

February 1st, 2012
  • Membership continues to run ahead of last year at 241,522. That’s 1,130 more than this date last year. Congratulations to the following state associations for exceeding last year’s overall membership. They are California, Clay Mitchell; Connecticut, Heidi Balch; Massachusetts, Karen Ward; New Jersey, Pete Carey; Pennsylvania, Jeri Widdowson; Rhode Island, Josh Klemp; and, Virginia – David Rathbone. Professional membership and alumni membership counts. Individuals such as industry partners and other friends not affiliated with a local chapter can join too online at the following link:  www.skills-register.org/rpts/JoinAsProfessional.aspx.
  • On January 18th, I met with the National Coordinating Council of Career and Technical Student Organizations (NCC-CTSO) in Reston, Va. The highlight was to welcome a new representative from the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE), Robin Utz. Robin is the chief of the College and Career Transitions Branch at OVAE and formerly served as assistant director of the Career, Standards and Assessment Services team at the Kansas State Department of Education. She’s very supportive of student organizations, having been both an FFA and FCLA advisor herself, and she gets the “big thumbs up” from Ann Wick, our Kansas state association director. In other news, a majority of the organizations reported that they’re having good membership numbers and conference attendance. The Association for Career and Technical Education and the National Association of State Directors of Career and Technical Education consortium talked about the common core education standards developed by the National Governors Association and a roll out of curriculum addressing the standards during the Career Cluster Institute in June.
  • We held a staff WorldSkills meeting on January 13 to plan SkillsUSA WorldTeam participation in Leipzig, Germany in 2013. A new management team has been identified and we have a lot of work to do for team selection, trials, training and fundraising. WorldSkills International has been notified of our new structure.
  • I recently returned from Nevada where I assisted with strategic planning with the SkillsUSA Nevada board of directors and attended the State Directors’ Association Executive Committee meeting. More on that next time.

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ACTE National Policy Seminar: March 5-7

January 13th, 2012

Stand with ACTE and your CTE colleagues from around the nation to help Washington understand that CTE works! Register to attend the ACTE National Policy Seminar (NPS), March 5-7, at the Crystal Gateway Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Va. A special student rate is available and students are welcome to join. CTE faces many challenges during the coming year, and during the 2012 NPS, you will have the opportunity to connect with legislators who need to see us, understand us—and remember us! At this year’s National Policy Seminar, there is something for everyone:

  • Strengthen your knowledge of federal policies affecting CTE.
  • Learn more about how national assessments and the career-readiness conversation will affect your students.
  • Explore overarching issues affecting federal spending for education and workforce development.
  • Preview the next reauthorization of the Perkins Act and begin planning ahead.
  • Gain new advocacy skills to help you effectively promote your programs.

Check out the tentative agenda for more details and visit: www.acteonline.org/nps.aspx for the latest updates.

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SkillsUSA at the ACTE Conference

December 15th, 2011

SkillsUSA had a productive ACTE (Association for Career and Technical Education) Conference in St. Louis, November 17-19. We had three national officers with us in the trade show booth – C.J. DeHart, Veronica Senkowski and Jeremy Ballentine – and each did a sensational job of visiting with people who stopped by. Actually, they were pulling people in to visit. The booth was always busy, and according to staff, the handout materials “disappeared.”

SkillsUSA conducted three presentations during the conference. SkillsUSA staff spoke on how to energize a chapter. Chip Harris from Tennessee State University did a workshop that was an introduction to the SkillsUSA Program of Work, and I did a well-attended presentation on the Skill Connect Assessments. We were pleased that the assessments were featured in an article on credentialing in the November/December issue of ACTE’s Techniques magazine. That probably helped build attendance. I also received some great reactions from teachers who are already using the assessments, and those were nice to hear.

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Efforts for Perkins Paying Off; Still Work To Do

November 15th, 2011

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees have released their allocations for Fiscal Year (FY) 2012. Due to the advocacy efforts of the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE), NASDCTEc and the entire CTE field, Perkins funding has been maintained in both bills. This is a great victory for the CTE community. However, level-funding for Perkins is not “in the bag,” according to ACTE. Negotiations on how to complete work on the appropriations bills are still taking place and we have to remind Congress how crucial Perkins funds are to our students, communities and businesses.

Read the full message by going to the SkillsUSA advocacy site, and we encourage you to send a letter to your senators and representative. Log on to the SkillsUSA advocacy and legislative website. Fill in your zip code and then click on compose your own message, and please construct a letter to send to your senators and representative to encourage their support of Perkins and other education and workforce programs.

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ACTE Video PSA Contest

September 30th, 2011

Foster Future Filmmakers: Encourage your CTE students to submit to ACTE’s video PSA contest. The winning student or team will receive $750, and the second-place student or team will receive $250. Videos should be 29 seconds in length, promote CTE and include the 2012 CTE Month logo.

PSAs must be uploaded by October 17, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. P.S.T. A broadcast-quality hard copy on DVD and required forms must be mailed to ACTE with a postmark date of October 17, 2011. Get all the rules and details at www.acteonline.org/psacontest.aspx. We look forward to viewing and sharing these examples of your students’ creativity!

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