Tech Prep Education

Should public schools provide training to fit students into specific businesses or careers, or does such career selection and sorting lead to a type of caste system with students tracked into industry or career training at an early age? By the beginning of the 20th century, business leaders began to challenge the purpose of the common schools in each of the states. Led by groups like Chambers of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, policymakers and public school leaders were urged to create schools and curriculum that would address the needs of industry and commerce. In many cases, the business bosses and managers demanded that schools focus more on teaching obedience to authority and loyalty to employers, and inculcating desirable work habits and workplace efficiency. As the scientific management theory began to dominate business and political economics, this tracking and training for business efficiency became even more prominent in the public schools. This vocational education movement has been known by many terms, including industrial or trade education, vocational training, tech prep, and more recently, career and technology education (CTE or CATE).

Critics of the tech prep approach emerged from a variety of interests. Classical scholars sought to establish common schools, especially secondary schools, focusing on studying the classics of Western civilization, even creating a curriculum called Great Books. Progressive educators challenged the scientific management approach and helped to form professional associations, like the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, to emphasize public schools as institutions promoting democracy and civic education. The American Federation of Teachers adopted the slogan “education for democracy, democracy for education.” Some business leaders attacked such associations as promoting a one-sided focus on workers. They saw such associations as unions and as enemies of the business interests of vocational education. Many school administrators followed the powerful interests of the business community and endorsed the vocational education movement as a central role for public schools. Some educational historians, like Professor Raymond Callahan, suggested that this emphasis led to a narrow focus, with public school missions mirroring the business world and molding students to fit neatly into business and industry.

An outcome of these competing interests was the growth of the comprehensive secondary schools that used a variety of assessments and initiatives to track students into vocational education or college preparatory programs. Generally, vocational education students did not pursue postsecondary education. Instead they were sorted and selected into a variety of more traditional trades, such as auto mechanics, wood shop or carpentry, metal shop or welding, and other building trades. Often students identified as slow or problem students were tracked into tech prep programs. Guidance counselors played a [Page 883]significant role in directing students into these competing pathways—tech prep or college prep.

Critics of such tracking challenged these programs as being narrowly focused; limiting students' well-rounded development in the arts and sciences, as well as failing to promote citizenship education. As technology advanced, information exploded via the Internet, globalization increased and the industrial base began to shrink, and educators and policymakers began to recognize the need to revise vocational education away from the traditional tracking of tech prep and toward college prep programs. Led by Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas and the National Governors Association, state leaders began in the latter stages of the 20th century to respond to this shift from an industrial economic base to high-tech information businesses and consumer services. By the early 1990s, President George H. W. Bush established the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS). SCANS was also supported in Goals 2000: Educate America Act. Subsequently, President Clinton moved this high-tech prep initiative into the School-to-Work Opportunities Act. Federal funding of such career tech prep initiatives has been provided by the Carl D. Perkins Vocational & Technical Education Act of 1998, and recently reauthorized and revised in 2006 to ensure that public schools provide all students with an education that will help them succeed in the workplace and throughout life. Tech prep programs were now seen as lifelong learning initiatives preparing citizens with the knowledge and skills necessary to meet emerging economies.

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