Page 16 - Stuff Made and Built in Delaware 2020

DELAWARE EXCELS AT CAREER TRAINING
Pathways program gets high school students ready for trades
BY LARRY NAGENGAST
Male plumbing students at Hodgson Vocational Technical High School.
Photo courtesy of New Castle County Vo-Tech School District
F rom Ground Zero in 2015 to serving more than 15,000 high
school students in the just- completed school year, Delaware’s Pathways program has become
the largest and most prominent initiative to strengthen the state’s economy through improved secondary education.
With 25 career-themed courses of study touching virtually every high- growth component of Delaware’s economic environment, Pathways demonstrates the power of collaboration between the public and private sectors in creating a workforce development program that meets the intertwined goals of making graduates both college- and career-ready.
Pathways has the potential to improve the performance of the state’s high schools, give students a jumpstart on their college educations and create
a pipeline that helps fill vacancies
in financial services, health care, manufacturing, construction and many other professions.
Due to the state program’s rapid expansion through partnerships
P14 STUFF | DelawareBusinessTimes.com
W E
“ T H I N K O F
“The labor market is evolving quickly and the education system has to
keep up” to provide students with
the knowledge and skills needed to
go on to higher education or move directly into the workforce, says Luke Rhine, whose role as director of career and technical education at the state Department of Education places him at the heart of the Pathways initiatives.
Pathways is transformational in several respects. First, it expands
the reach of career training from vocational-technical schools into traditional high schools. Second,
each three-year curriculum, based on industry-endorsed standards, enables students not only to earn professional certifications in career fields but
also at least six credits toward a college degree. Finally, it establishes partnerships involving K-12 education, the business community, Delaware Technical Community College, the state Department of Labor and nonprofits that are designed to strengthen the program in the years to come.
Here’s a look at some of the most popular Pathways programs.
D E L A W A R E A S T H E
P O S T E R C H I L D F O R
PATHWAYS NATIONALLY.
— ROBERT B. SCHWARTZ,
Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education
linking business, education and government, “we think of Delaware as the poster child for Pathways nationally,” says Robert B. Schwartz of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, who has worked with the Boston-based Jobs for the Future program to help launch similar programs in 15 states in the past decade.