The Daily Signal - How Vocational-Technical Schools Are Helping Students Achieve the American Dream

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

The Pioneer Institute is out with a new book, "Hands-On Achievement: Massachusetts' National Model Vocational-Technical Schools," which finds that vocational-technical high schools have lower dropout rates and on-par test scores with traditional high schools. The Boston-based think tank also makes the case that these high-performing schools in Massachusetts should serve as a national model, both to address the student loan crisis and a shortage of skilled labor in America. Joining us on "The Daily Signal Podcast" are Jamie Gass, Pioneer Institute's director of the Center for School Reform, and David Ferreira, a former vocational-technical school administrator and teacher who edited "Hands-On Achievement." On today's show, we also cover these stories: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen tells lawmakers she expects inflation to remain high. The Department of Homeland Security warns Americans that there is a heightened threat environment for political violence Three major TV networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—plan to air a congressional hearing hosted by the Jan. 6 committee in primetime. Listen to the podcast or read the lightly edited transcript at DailySignal.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, June 8th. I'm John Pop. And I'm Doug Blair. On today's show, Rob talks with Jamie Gass, the Pioneer Institute's director of the center of school reform, as well as David Ferreira, co-author of the new book, Hands-on Achievement, Massachusetts National Model Vocational Technical Schools. The trio discuss how effective vocational technical high schools can be for educated the next generation and some findings from that new book.

But before we get to Rob's conversation with Jamie and David, let's hit our top news stories of the day. Well, if you're hoping that inflation was going to stop climbing, think again. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers Tuesday, per the Wall Street Journal, that I do expect inflation to remain high, although I very much hope that it will be coming down now. Yelan indicated that inflation would likely be higher than the forecasted 4.7% number released earlier this year by the Biden administration. Yelan made remarks during a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, The U.S. inflation rate is around 8.3% now, nearly the highest it's been in 40 years. The Department of Homeland Security is warning Americans that there is a heightened threat environment for political violence over the likely overturning of Roe v. Wade and the upcoming midterm elections.

In a Tuesday announcement, the Department said targets of violence could include public gatherings, faith-based institutions, schools, racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, government facilities and personnel, U.S. critical infrastructure. the media and perceived ideological opponents. The announcement comes on the heels of attacks on pro-life organizations. Pro-life Center Compass Care in Buffalo, New York, reported its offices had been firebombed early Tuesday morning. A pro-abortion group called Jane's revenge claimed credit and seemingly spray-painted their signature, Jane was here, on the side of the building. The attack echoes an incident claimed by the same group last week in Washington, D.C.,

where a crisis pregnancy center blocks away from the U.S. Capitol, was vandalized by pro-abortion activists who threw red paint on their front door and pro-abortion graffiti spray-painted onto the building. You can check out that story as well as others on DailySignal.com. If you're hoping to watch your favorite TV show Thursday night, it's time to make new plans. Three major TV networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC are planning to air a congressional hearing hosted by the January 6th committee in primetime on Thursday. The January 6th committee is almost entirely composed of Democrats. with just two Republicans, Liz Cheney, Representative from Wyoming and Adam Kinsinger of Illinois, on the nine-person committee.

The hearing is likely to be highly produced. Actios reported that ABC News veteran James Goldston is acting as an advisor to the committee and is busily producing Thursday's 8 p.m. Easter time hearing as if it were a blockbuster investigative special. Now stay tuned for Rob's conversation with Jamie Gass and David Ferreira as they discuss vocational technical high schools. conservative women, conservative feminists. It's true. We do exist. I'm Virginia Allen, and every Thursday morning on problematic women, Lauren Evans and I sort through the news to bring you stories that are of particular interest to conservative leaning or problematic women. That is women whose views and opinions are often excluded or mocked by those on the so-called feminist left. We talk about everything from pop culture to politics and policy. Plus, we bring you an exclusive interview with a problematic lawmaker or conservative

activists every second and fourth Tuesday of the month. Search for problematic women wherever you get your podcasts. And we are also problematic on social media. So be sure to follow us on Instagram. The Pioneer Institute is out with a new book, Hands on Achievement, Massachusetts National Model Vocational Technical Schools, which finds that vocational technical high schools have lower dropout rates and on-par test scores with traditional high schools. It also makes the case that these high-performing schools should serve as a national model, both to address the student loan

crisis and a shortage of skilled labor in America. Joining us today are Jamie Gass, Pioneer Institute's Director of the Center of School Reform, and David Ferreira, one of the books authors. Thanks to both of you for joining us today. Thanks so much, Rob, for having us. Well, let's jump in. Jamie, I want to begin with just a basic question for our listeners who just to set the stage here. What is vocational technical education and why is it so important to America and particularly the working class? So it's a great question, Rob. The Votech schools in Massachusetts and in America are occupational education programs, primarily high schools, that train kids in the wide variety of backgrounds for the workforce, including plumber, electrician, carpenter, auto repair,

medical tech. And, you know, increasingly this is important as we're all competing in the global economy. But it's also just a great example here in Massachusetts of what Justice Lewis Brandeis called Laboratories of Democracy, where a state-driven school choice effort has seen tremendous gains in the last 25, 30 years. And what inspired the Pioneer Institute to embark on this research and produce hands-on achievement. So the reality of it, this is a great story. There's a lot of negative stories these days across K-12 education. But this is one of the things that Massachusetts has done really well.

We had a 1993 ed reform law, bipartisan compromise of additional state funding in exchange for sort of the coddler oil of higher academic standards, a high-stakes test for graduation, teacher tests, charter schools, and accountability for everyone in the system. And the truth of it is that the Vogue Tech schools use all of the tools, the accountability tools of education reform in Massachusetts coupled with school choice and school autonomy to drive tremendous not only gains in occupational education, but also huge gains in academic achievement.

And they were able to do this with twice the state average of special needs kids and also having great relationship with businesses and so. serving the industrial needs of the state. So it's just a great, it's a great story. It's something that we're really proud of. And the schools in point, you know, really deserve an enormous amount of credit for the great work they've done over the last 25, 30 years. Well, it certainly sounds that way. Jamie, before we get into the findings and bring in a conversation about the book specifically, one of the things that struck me was the history of vocational technical education in America. And I'm wondering if you could share more about how it

began and some of the early success that it had, particularly for lifting the poor out of those low-income conditions and really helping them succeed and strive for the American dream. Sure. I mean, of course, the thing that's always been great about this country going back to its founding is that it's been a place that is generally rewarded strivers of all sorts. And, of course, Americans are very practical, too. And so even going back to the early part of the 19th century, there were a lot of local civic organizations, things like, you know, these local associations that Alexis de Tocqueville

talked about in democracy in America, workmen's organizations, et cetera, that helped drive the economy going back to the early days of the republic. And the voc tech model here in Massachusetts, and we were fortunate. There's a lot of great work that's been done off in the last 30 years, but really going back about 100 years, Massachusetts developed its own specific vocation technical model where we have a wide variety of autonomous schools and really school districts that work with local businesses, local employers, in order to provide students and employers with the kind of need they have for the economy. And so Massachusetts is quite unique. A lot of other states do a good job with Vogue Tech education, but what is unique about what we have here

Massachusetts. It in a way it's its own system that then has benefited enormously from the big gains and policy achievements of the last 25, 30 years. Well, to quote from the book, today's Vogue Tech students have lower dropout rates than their counterparts at comprehensive high schools. They pass the same academic test required for graduation while adding practical life skills in a chosen career. And Vogue Tech students excel while having higher than average percentages of low-income and special-need students. So, David, I want to bring you into the conversation here. These are certainly impressive statistics that you document. What do you believe makes the biggest difference for students in these schools? I think one of the biggest

differences is the fact that we're no longer looked at as an alternative education, but instead we are schools of choice. And back in the day that Jamie was referring to, and Actually, back in the early 60s, the state made a commitment to regional schools in general as a fiscal move to try to lower the cost of particularly very expensive vocational technical education. Because of the equipment needs, the lower pupil teacher ratio in the vocational technical programs, we needed to enlarge the base of students that would be interested in. coming, particularly for those smaller communities who could never afford to have separate of a separate vocational technical school. Or if they offered programs, the selection was maybe two automotive and machine shop or electrical and plumbing, but never an array of the different trades, as well as the more technological types of programs that were offered today. So there was a

a great movement to build 26 regional vocational technical high schools that stretched from Cape Cod all the way out to the end of the Berkshires. And these schools focused initially, primarily on the vocational technical programs and gave less emphasis to the academic programs. So as Jamie alluded to in 1993, the state adopted, and this was a state initiative, to increase the standards for high school graduation for all students. So suddenly, the Vogue Tech community had to figure out how are we going to maintain high-quality, vocational, technical education, and at the same time meet the same standards as every other academic high school. And we did that through a change in the kinds of schedules we did, we also integrated the academics into a pedagogy

where you're teaching the academic skills, but in the context of a career path and an occupational proficiency. We never lowered the standards for the competencies that we expected students to learn, but we added instead the academic standards that were. necessary not only for post-secondary instruction, but for lifelong learning. Because with the higher and higher levels of technology that we're coming into, just about every program we offered, and there are 45 different occupational programs we offer in various schools, we did not want the students to not be able to be prepared to learn the rest of their life.

How have vocational technical students fared in comparison to students at traditional public schools? At first, certainly it was a slow process. When the initial competency determination, the MCAS test came into being, we were not very high up the list. And that was to be expected. But as we rolled out more and more of this integration, as we required vocational programs to integrate mathematics and integrate writing skills and reading skills into the technical program, we were in reinforcing what our academic classes offered, and we began to see those scores move up dramatically.

It was an intensive effort and a conscious decision to do two things. One was to work in the best interests of the individual student, no matter where they were, whether they were, a high-need student or a bilingual student, they were going to get the services necessary, and we received the support of our communities. And because of the autonomy of the regional school district, it is not run by a superintendent that has to worry about K-12 education. We're focused on about 20 percent of the high school population in the Commonwealth. And as that as those scores rose, parents looked and watched and saw that maybe the Vogue Tech School is not

alternative education, but it's truly a school choice opportunity. And once that happened, parents and students elected to come to the Vogue Tech School. We're excited about a pathway that would lead to post-secondary education and or a career pathway in the field that they selected to study over four years of high school. So we went from schools that basically, when they first opened, 25% of the post-secondary graduates went on to post-secondary matriculation to a point where today it's around two-thirds go on to some kind of post-secondary education. Now, that does not mean they all go to four-year universities. Many go to associates degree programs at the community college system, and others go directly

into apprenticeships with labor unions and carpentry and plumbing. And as they do their apprenticeship, they're also going to school in the evening, and many of them are earning their associate's degree and their master licensure in their field at the same time. So school choice has been huge to us. It's a very different change that evolved as the result of our success. Secondly, is the autonomy of these individual school districts that are focused primarily on each student, their needs, and preparing them for both college and career. And I think those are the two big factors.

How do vocational technical schools prepare students for future careers? As Jamie mentioned earlier, our connection to businesses' industry is not only beneficial for both sides. It is actually statutory under Chapter 74 of the Massachusetts General Laws, which require open meetings that would include parents, students, teachers, people from business and industry and post-secondary people who meet together by program. So if I'm a plumber, I'm meeting with these people who are working in the field. We're building opportunities for employment. We're finding out for our teachers the state of the art where the industry is going,

what competencies are needed for a student to be successful in that career. And we're doing that twice a year. Plus from that group, we then take one, the chair of each of those individual program advisory committees, who sit down at least one time a year with our district school committee to talk about what the needs are in the vocational programs and what the priorities should be. It also leads these kinds of partnerships to cooperative education. And this is an opportunity for students halfway through their junior year or even more so in their senior year when they would normally go into their vocational program for two weeks or one week, whatever the rotation is. They go out and work for salary out in the field, a real-time job, the oversight being provided by a supervisor,

are in that company. So for an advanced manufacturing student goes in to a company that makes parts for aerodynamics, that student is doing real work, is earning money. And we know teenagers do nothing but spend money, so they're stimulating the economy. And at the same time, I'm not just working in a lab. They're working in the field with others that they're learning from more senior people than the company that they're working far from and they're highly motivated because they're getting a paycheck many years and many high schools senior year is senioritis and if you get a half a year out of a senior in an academic class that's pretty good because after that all they're thinking about is graduation proms etc in the vote community that doesn't happen because they can get

fired just as easily as they got hired, plus they must maintain certain standards academically in those classes in order to retain their cooperative education position. So we're very fortunate that local control, the connection to businesses and industry, that's what drives the low dropout rates and the success stories we have. And as a result, particularly in low-income communities and urban centers where the demand for our kinds of school has just skyrocketed. A follow-up question. What is the level of interest among students for a vocational technical education today? We average 5,000 students a year on waiting list trying to get into many of our schools. And that demand, of course, drives more.

interest because as we all know, if there's a line to get into the restaurant, it's probably a good restaurant. Well, if there's a line to get into the school, it's probably a done good school. And we've been blessed to be supported by the Pioneer Institute and their philosophy of education on school choice. And they believe in us and we believe in them. And that partnership has meant a lot to, from a political viewpoint, we get a tremendous amount of additional money from our state government for our connections to business and industry. It's called the Workforce Skills Cabinet. It is a group of individuals from business and industry from the state's various departments for economic development and for labor and workforce development. and these advisory committee members working together to say, you know, the advanced manufacturing today is nothing like it was years ago.

And we know that one CNC lathe, for example, is $50,000, and only one student uses it at a time. So we needed that equipment boost. And our governor, Governor Baker, over the last eight years, and prior to that, our lieutenant Governor Tim Murray were very, very strong proponents of what we do and now have expanded that to include evening instruction, again with help from the state, in terms of 300, 600, 900, and 1,200-hour programs of study for youngsters who never went to a vocational school, some of the dropouts out of college who never finish with a degree and certainly retraining those people who lose their position by technology and want to or want to start a different career path. And they can do that at a very, very low rate through our evening school programs and those have been supported by the state as well.

So we like to think of our schools as all day long schools. We're going from early in the morning and we're going right into the evening, four days a week with the evening programs and five days a week with our high school population. And we're not depending on anything, but measure our success. Measure how we place our students. Measure where they are after graduation. be it post-secondary, how successful are they, be it still in the field, moving up that career ladder, advancing.

We're doing those things, and to that is just helping us in every way of maintaining this high interest that we have, and we're very proud of what we do. Do you think the Massachusetts model could work elsewhere? We're willing, as a community of vocational, technical, educators to share what we have. And that's why we were so excited to partner with the Pioneer Institute on this book, because we feel CTE, as they call it in most of the country, career and technical education, is everywhere. All 50 states have CTE. But the level of intensity and the success is different because many of them are not blessed with autonomy at the school committee level.

And superintendents are running districts where they're now pre-K all the way up to grade 12. And priorities at times have to be made where maybe the Votech don't receive the kind of funding they need or not they're not able to expand programs. So putting all these things together, we're willing to share. Every year we have visitors from CTE schools across the country who spend a couple of days with us and maybe look intently at two of our Votech schools to see if they can emulate or take some of this success story

back to wherever they come. from. And we're hoping that this book will stimulate that interest in certain states who would like to share with us some of the things that we're doing and maybe try it, try if it's something possible. And we're always willing to do that. Well, David, thank you for that answer. Jamie, I'm going to give you the final word here. Tell us a little bit more about the Pioneer Institute, the work you do, and maybe what hopes that you have come as a result of this book. So Pioneer's been around for about 30 years or so. It's, you know, free market think tank.

We really were founded to use, you know, high-quality research and data to drive decision-making. We're, of course, really proud of the lead effort that we played in the ed reform law here in Massachusetts. It's done a lot of work and other books on Catholic schooling, charter schools, a lot of work on school choice. But this voc tech book is really kind of a part of a portfolio of school. school choice options that we're trying to lay out not only to remind people in Massachusetts how we got to be a high-performing state, but as David mentioned, exporting some of the appropriate lessons so that where states want to adopt some of the things that we have done, particularly around school choice models, that they're able to do it, and then we're able to kind of share

some of the lessons. So that's really the goal of it. We've been really grateful for the excellent work that Chris Cineacole and David Ferrer have done, and are really, you know, again, proud of these schools. They've done a terrific job and it's a larger story that I think folks across the country can benefit from. Well, we certainly hope our listeners take to heart the research that you've done and perhaps those other states that can turn to Massachusetts and see this as a model where they can really help address, as we said in the intro, some of the challenges our country makes. It seems like vocational technical schools are certainly part of the solution. So we thank you and the Pioneer Institute for doing the research and congratulations on the launch of the new book. Great. Thanks. Thanks a

much, Rob. Thank you very much. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. And if you haven't done so already, be sure to subscribe to the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, N-I-HeartRadio. And please leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe.

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