Kaine promotes career and technical education in Manassas

Manassas schools superintendent Catherine Magouyrk said she’s talked to many students who aren’t aware of the value of career and technical education.

“I have a real problem with students thinking that if they’re not going to a four-year college, they’re not going anywhere,” Magouyrk said. ”I feel like career and technical education has to be a window for kids to look through to see what they want to do.”

At a forum at George Mason University’s Prince William campus  on July 2, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said that sentiment is widespread.

“We have to break that stigma,” Kaine said. “It’s kind of an attitude shift that you have to create.”

Kaine toured George Mason’s biomedical and sports medicine research labs and spoke about career and technical education with a group of area students, education officials and business leaders in an effort to promote the Educating Tomorrow’s Workforce Act, which he plans to introduce this week with Sen. Rob Portman, R -Ohio.

The proposed legislation would amend the existing Perkins Career and Technical Education Act to enable states and localities to create career and technical education programs similar to Virginia’s  Governor’s Career and Technical academies, Kaine said. The legislation would also allow for funding to enhance dual enrollment programs, which allow high school students to earn college credits at two- and four-year colleges and universities.

The end goal is to improve and enhance the career and technical education offered in schools and colleges, Kaine said.

“We need to make sure we value this skill acquisition as much as we value a two- or four-year degree,” he said.

Magouyrk said the Manassas school division is currently working on improvements to its career and technical course offerings, to ensure that students are aware of all of the options available to them in the workforce.

“Kids can do so many things with their lives,” she said.

At George Mason, programs such as the Governor’s School @ Innovation Park and the Aspiring Scientist Summer Internship program allow students with an aptitude for science to gain hands-on work experience in laboratories, while still in high school or college, students and university officials said.

Zach Chapman, a Battlefield High School graduate who is now a student at the University of Virginia, said his experience in those programs prepared him for working in university labs and, he hopes, to get a good job after college.

“The earlier you’re in it, the easier it is to do it later on,” Chapman said, of his lab experience.

Ian McDonald, a program specialist with BAE Systems, said improved career and technical education programs such as those Kaine is promoting would help companies like his to be able to hire more skilled workers.

He said BAE and companies like it have a need for people who have trained as technicians and manufacturers.

“There are lots of smart kids out there who are not suited for the classroom,” he said. “”They have an aptitude that’s different.”

###