Remembering the ‘Invisible Ones’

Abstract

IN THE prologue to Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison's narrator wrote that he was invisible simply because people refuse to see me. That was another time and a more personal story. But idea of people who are under your nose yet unseen seemed relevant as I read two documents that draw on same research. They use different language and come to different conclusions. The differences are subtle to be sure, one document tends not to see much, while other sees a lot. The first document is National Assessment of Vocational Education: Final Report to Congress, which was submitted this past summer. The other document is Report of NAVE Independent Advisory Panel. This panel was appointed to guide research for NAVE and to comment on final report. While eminent research groups prepared data for NAVE report, it was actually written by a group in policy office of U.S. secretary of education. The Advisory Panel, which met many times over four years, included employers, secondary and postsecondary educators, union representatives, work force development experts, and researchers. The NAVE report is understandably more wrapped up in data and more focused on past and present conditions for career and technical education (CTE), new moniker for vocational education. The report of Advisory Panel uses same data, often sees more positive trends in those data, and concludes with a strong vision for future of CTE. The NAVE report, on other hand, suggests that a choice needs to be made between mostly fostering academic skills or mostly fostering work force development. Consider data used in both reports. Both agree, for example, that clearest benefits of CTE can be seen in earnings. NAVE calls them and medium-term benefits. The Advisory Panel declares that the most significant effect of secondary school CTE is boost in earnings and wages that get from even a handful of courses. Taking four high school CTE courses for credit increases a student's average annual earnings by $1,200 immediately and by $1,800 seven years later. Sure, these are short- and medium-term benefits, Advisory Panel points out, as NAVE does not, that 37% of country's high school graduates each year go directly to work. Moreover, economic benefit for earning a postsecondary credential is also significant: for females with associate degrees, earnings are 47% higher than for those holding only a high school diploma; for males with associate degrees, earnings are 30% higher than for males who lack degree. The NAVE report almost grudgingly acknowledges that in CTE programs been taking more academic courses, it quickly adds that achievement gaps between CTE and academic remain. The Advisory Panel report says that in CTE been closing gap with academic students and that CTE programs have led way toward increasing number and rigor of academic courses required. The Advisory Panel report also points out that CTE concentrators' scores on National Assessment of Educational Progress increased by nearly a grade-equivalent between 1994 and 1998. The NAVE report says that NAEP assessments show substantial progress, but more work is necessary to raise achievement levels of all students, particularly those in vocational programs. NAVE says little about different approaches to pursued in traditional academic work and in CTE, except in a discussion of teaching approaches. The Advisory Panel report, however, contends that CTE relies on a powerful mode of teaching and learning -- i. …