Reflection7

The Carl D. Perkins Act was designed to create and institute a career and technical program. Basically, this act help to create a program within the secondary school to help students that so choose to work on technical skills. This act help to set the foundation through outlining the resources needed to be successful and also partnering with higher education institutes (including post-secondary technical schools). In my opinion, this is an excellent program for those students not necessarily interested in pursuing traditional bachelors degrees in college. Instead of a student graduating college and entering the workforce with extremely limited skills, the student can now gain and facilitate skills before graduation, thus making him more marketable.
Currently, our school is going through somewhat of a transition. We have been a traditional highschool since it's inception, but have now decided to offer our students more career and educational planning for the future. What is happening is that our school is divinding up into "academies." These academies are designed to prepare students for life after highschool. Within these academies, the Career and Tech department has a huge role. Prior to the establishment of the academies, students could take certain tech classes such as auto shop as an elective, but the emphasis was primarily as a "hobby" class. Now, since the formation of the academies, counselors are now helping guide students through some of these career and tech programs so that they can come out of highschool with more training than ever before. With the academies, students will begin creating their degree plans sometime during their eighth grade year. This plan will help them choose the proper courses based on what they plan to do post-highschool. For example, if a student wants to be a nurse, she will be guide through health occupation classes throughout her four years of highschool, thus ultimately preparing her for college curriculum and nursing school. There are many different careers that students can choose from when creating their degree plans. I think that this is a great program and have noticed that this seems to be happening throughout the metroplex. I am pretty sure that this is a global idea as well. In many countries,students start at a very early age preparing for what they are going to do when they grow up. I think that this will help create more productive citizens and give them the best opportunity utitilizing their skills and interests.