Postsecondary priorities: Pull of career, technical education in northeast Indiana | Future Focused

Kyah Madden reasoned she had nothing to lose by participating in a new program that involved Homestead and Carroll high school students learning the trades at a local union’s Fort Wayne training facility.

That decision last year changed the trajectory of Madden’s life.

The facility and maintenance program at Plumbers, Steamfitters & HVAC Service Technicians Local 166 solidified her interest in the trades, so she scrapped plans to pursue agriculture at Huntington University.

Madden began working as a Local 166 first-year apprentice for Shambaugh & Son on June 3 – six days before she would walk across the Homestead graduation stage. Her training is focused on plumbing.

“I realized that I really liked it in my class,” Madden said. “So, I decided to try it out as a career.”

Demand for career and technical experiences, like Madden’s, is increasing as Indiana works toward becoming a nationwide leader in postsecondary training- and college-going rates while confronting the lowest college-going rate in at least a decade – 53%.

Indiana also faces a Dec. 31 deadline to adopt new high school diploma requirements. Under the latest proposal, students could graduate with diplomas bearing employment readiness seals – designed to immediately signal to any employer that a student is strongly prepared to enter the workforce. Students could earn such distinctions by satisfying requirements involving career and technical education, or CTE, courses and work-based learning, among other standards.

CTE has traditionally focused on the trades, such as welding and construction, but it’s become broader. Indiana’s high school course catalog shows such programs span 13 categories, including advanced manufacturing, education, health sciences and public safety.

Indiana views CTE as a bridge between K-12 education, higher education, industry and workforce development, according to the Indiana Commission for Higher Education. The agency, which has overseen secondary and postsecondary CTE since last year, further states on its website that cutting-edge, rigorous CTE programs prepare students for high-wage, high-skill, in-demand careers.

Locally, the Fort Wayne Community Schools Career Academy is the Area 14 regional career center, serving 17 area high schools with various career and technical programs. Sandra Adams, Area 14 CTE director, said its mission is simple.

“We like to say, ‘We are tomorrow’s talent pipeline,’ ” she said, noting the number new graduates who immediately join the local workforce increases each year. About 150 students formalized their commitment to area employers in May during the career academy’s sixth annual signing day.

Meanwhile, CTE options are increasing in Allen County. East Allen County Schools continues to expand programming at its career center, which launched in fall 2020, and Northwest Allen County Schools administrators are asking the board to consider building a $29.2 million CTE facility.

Such discussions aren’t only happening in public schools. The Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend last year sought input from area parishioners and families of Bishop Dwenger and Bishop Luers high school students about their support for a career center serving those Fort Wayne Catholic schools.

Adams, who also has a leadership role in the national Association for Career and Technical Education, doesn’t anticipate the demand for CTE programs will ebb anytime soon.

“Because no one projects the labor shortage to reverse, even given artificial intelligence,” she said.

Graduation requirements

Indiana’s implementation of graduation pathways, which took effect with the class of 2023, increased the demand for CTE options.

In northeast Indiana, 28% of 2023 graduates used CTE concentrators and 1.6% used an industry-recognized credential to satisfy a graduation requirement about postsecondary-ready competencies, according to a study released in August by the Don Wood and Questa Education foundations.

Now, as Indiana redesigns the high school diploma, CTE courses are part of the state’s proposal to provide students with the flexibility to customize their high school experience. Personalized electives – such as CTE – would represent 12 of the required 42 credits needed for the proposed base diploma, which the Indiana Department of Education presented in August.

Students would also be encouraged to earn new readiness seals aligned with their path. Honors and honors plus seals would be available in three categories – enrollment, employment, and enlistment and service. The employment honors designation would recognize students with 100 hours of work-based learning and either a market-driven credential aligned to an occupation or three courses in a CTE pathway, among other requirements.

Students not earning seals would still have to complete elements of the graduation pathways, including the requirement about postsecondary competencies.

CTE educators, including Corey Schoon of Garrett-Keyser-Butler Community Schools in DeKalb County, are passionate about the opportunities their programs provide. Schoon is the career development director.

Along with offering various CTE programs on campus, Garrett High School connects students with work-based learning opportunities. More than 85 students were participating as of late September, Schoon said.

Some are earning up to $22 or $24 an hour – more than three times the state’s minimum wage – but Assistant Principal Justin Weber said the students are getting more than a paycheck. They are developing their sense of meaningful employment.

“Most of the time, it’s not money. It’s work environment; it’s flexibility; it’s other benefits,” Weber said. “That’s so powerful for a 17-year-old.”

Priorities

The federal government has committed more than $1 billion to career and technical education programs nationwide for at least the last five years, with allocations totaling about $1.4 billion this year.

About $32 million of these Perkins V dollars were allocated last year for Indiana. The state distributes about 90% of the funding to secondary and postsecondary CTE providers, said Tony Harl, state director for CTE.

Indiana funds high school CTE course enrollments annually through its tuition support formula, Harl said. In its most recent annual allotment, the state last year committed $195 million – about six times more than the federal allocation.

“That is not common,” Harl said. “Not every state does that.”

The courses aren’t funded equally, however. Enrollment reimbursement rates for advanced CTE courses range from $200 per credit hour to $1,071. Amounts depend on whether programs are considered to have less-than-moderate, moderate or high value.

This financial support prompted FWCS board Vice President Noah Smith to publicly question Indiana’s priorities during an August discussion about the state funding FWCS received this academic year for high-ability students – $228,867 for 3,084 students. Smith said that’s about $74 per child and is below reimbursements for the lowest valued CTE programs, such as cosmetology classes.

Smith later told The Journal Gazette he supports career and technical education, but he questions the state’s priorities.

“What does our state value? What is our state pushing for?” he asked. “This current makeup at the Statehouse has made it clear they don’t want to foster thinkers. They want to foster doers. And I’m not against doers. We need doers.”

House Democratic leader Rep. Phil GiaQuinta of Fort Wayne said similar concerns arose during a Sept. 10 town hall he held in the city with state Rep. Kyle Miller, D-Fort Wayne. GiaQuinta said in a statement that his constituents want the diploma redesign to prioritize flexibility and balance.

“We cannot prioritize work-based experiences at the cost of advanced coursework in math and science that equip students with critical-thinking skills for life,” GiaQuinta said. “At the same time, students who have a clear vision for their career and education should be given the opportunity to pursue that.”

Smith said supporting both would be easier if Indiana didn’t funnel millions – about $439 million last academic year alone – in the school voucher program, diverting public dollars away from public schools and to students attending private K-12 institutions.

‘We need both’

Schoon, the Garrett career development director, encouraged critics of career and technical education to examine a postsecondary education metric.

“Anybody who is against CTE programs or against the training of kids in the trades needs to look at college graduation rates,” Schoon said. “Because if that’s their measurement of success, then they shouldn’t be in education.”

College completion rates for Indiana’s public institutions indicate many first-time degree-seeking students don’t finish their coursework within the standard two or four years, according to the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.

Its college completion dashboard shows such students at the state’s four-year main campuses – including Ball State University, Indiana University Bloomington and Purdue University West Lafayette – are most likely to graduate within four years. Of those who started in fall 2019, 60% finished their degree within that time.

Only 30% of their counterparts at non-main campuses, such as Purdue Fort Wayne, graduated on time, bringing the overall on-time completion rate for public four-year universities to 51%.

Rates are even lower for the state’s two-year institutions. Of those who initially enrolled five years ago, 19% graduated within two years, and about 28% finished within three.

The Don Wood and Questa Education foundations highlighted the need for an educated regional workforce with their joint Advancing Postsecondary Education and Training Study. Released in August, the 165-page report described northeast Indiana’s talent shortage as critical and called for a new way of defining postsecondary education.

It found the number of high-demand, high-wage jobs requiring a postsecondary credential are expected to increase by more than 5,600 over the next five years, but not enough students are acquiring postsecondary education – credentials, certifications and degrees – to meet employers’ needs.

“We’ve had a historic challenge of seeing a pendulum swing, whether it’s been the dialogue with students that everybody needs to go to college or whether there’s been conversations about the need for populating those really crucial roles in the trades,” said Laura Macknick, Don Wood president and CEO. “That’s what this study is really beginning to help us understand, is that we need both.”

‘Let them choose’

Nolan Scharlach, civil construction teacher at Garrett High School, said students should learn about college options alongside postsecondary career and technical education opportunities. He described all paths as important.

“Present them with the options that they have and let them choose,” Scharlach said. “You’re going to have your most success.”

Nicholas Gray, a Boys and Girls Clubs of Fort Wayne executive, shares that attitude.

His organization lets children explore industries through its Jim Kelley Career Pathway Center. The 13,000-square-foot facility has learning labs focused on automotive, manufacturing, construction trades, health sciences and information technology/robotics/computer aided design.

“We’ve got to also as a community change our language,” Gray said, explaining students should be asked about their plans after high school instead of about their college plans. “I don’t want a kid to feel embarrassed that they’re going to be a welder. Because you shouldn’t be. That’s a great job.”

Jenna Madden said she wasn’t concerned when her daughter, Kyah Madden, decided to pursue plumbing instead of enrolling in college. The recent high school grad is immediately earning an income and benefiting from belonging to a union.

“(She) really set herself up for financial freedom sooner than she would had she done the traditional college route,” Jenna Madden said. “I’m happy she chose this path.”

So is her daughter.

As an apprentice, Kyah Madden works on job sites and attends classes twice a month at the Local 166 facility on Ludwig Road. She said she is enjoying the experience.

“I really like working with my hands,” she said. “I’m learning something new every single day.”