APRIL 20, 2009
VCU WEBCAST

Services Provided By:  Caption First, Inc.


   >>  Hello.  Welcome to the Parent Educational Advocacy 
Training Center Webcast for Virginia's transitioning youth 
with disabilities, families, and transition professionals.
   
   Our program, building effective partnerships and accessing 
resources, is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of 
Education Rehabilitation Services Administration.  We are 
thankful and grateful to our partners, Virginia Commonwealth 
University, RRTC.
   
   Today's Webcast involves the career technology education 
system, and we are very excited and happy to have a speaker 
from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for a Competitive 
Work Force.  Mr. Domenic Giandomenico is a director of 
education and work force programs at the institute.  We are 
very happy to have him here today to present information about 
career tech education.
   
   We would like to encourage our viewers to please participate 
in a web board discussion just following the Webcast, and we 
would also ask that you please fill in your evaluation forms.  
Your insights and input is extremely helpful to us, and any 
feedback that you might have really does help us to develop 
the flow and the content of this very important program.
   
   Parent Educational Advocacy Training Center is Virginia's 
parent training information center and also parent involvement 
resource center.  We are happy and anxious to talk with 
families and educators across the Commonwealth, and we invite 
you to call us at any time with questions about special 
education, general education, children's learning, parent 
involvement, or any other.  And our 800 number is 800-693-
3514, or 703-923-0010.
    
   Thank you again for sharing in this important Webcast today.  
I'd like to introduce Mr. Domenic Giandomenico.  Thank you.
   
   >> DOMENIC GIANDOMENICO:  Thank you, Kathy, thank you very 
much for the opportunity to come and speak to you at Richmond, 
Virginia, at Virginia Commonwealth University to talk about my 
favorite topics, Career Technical Education and some of the 
opportunities your viewers will find interesting indeed.  
First I'd like to start by setting the stage a little bit for 
why these opportunities exist, and what is actually going on.  
We hear a lot about how we are in a global economy these days, 
and ever since Thomas Friedman spoke, the world is flat, that 
is a phrase that is thrown out there without any real context 
involved.
   
   So to put that into perspective a little bit, if India and 
China successfully trained just 1 percent of their population, 
their skilled work force would be, equate to our entire work 
force, which is about 155 million people.
    
   To put that into perspective, that means that every single 
person that they have available to them would have the high 
skills needed to succeed in the global marketplace.  And with 
the proliferation of the Internet, that especially creates a 
set of circumstances where the jobs that are really needed 
today by Americans, they have to be local, they have to serve 
needs that are here in the United States.  They can't be 
outsourced.  And they also have to be high skilled jobs.  We 
can have people halfway around the world do data entry, or 
things like manufacturing, these jobs that we don't need to do 
here, and there are jobs that are likely not to return to the 
United States.
    
   That is why it's really important for Americans of all ages 
and all abilities to receive the skills necessary through 
programs like Career Technical Education.
    
   Another really influencing factor that we have going on 
right now is, we are experiencing a very aging work force.  
Right now we have about 150 million Americans currently in the 
work force, and almost half of them, part of that baby-boomer 
generation, are getting ready to retire in the coming years.
    
   To replace the 77 million workers, there are only about 40 
million Generation X and Y'ers, that will be able to fulfill 
those roles.  That is a gap of 37 million people that are 
going to be lost.  And many of those workers of course have 
accumulated skills over the breadth of their careers.  Put 
that into further perspective, more than a third of our work 
force will be over 50 years old before President Obama's first 
term is over.  That means that they are getting ready to 
retire, and we desperately need people with skills to replace 
those workers as they leave the work force.
    
   So, just to talk about some of the things that have been 
really mentioned on the horizon, there has been a lot of focus 
on what a new green economy would look like, and there has 
been a lot of gear-up for those green jobs.  Since they put a 
lot of those jobs that go into retrofitting existing 
buildings, so that they can make better use of current 
technology for energy efficiency, it will involve rebuilding 
our energy infrastructure, rebuilding our pipeline, creating 
new sources of sustainable energy such as solar, wind and 
nuclear energy.  And these are going to require many 
technicians and many people that don't currently exist in our 
work force.
    
   Also some of the infrastructure improvements that are being 
proposed under the economic stimulus that is being kicked 
around in congress these days, many includes roads, bridges, 
tunnels, new schools, new communications infrastructure, and 
all these things, these are not low skilled jobs that are 
going to be created.
    
   Again, that is the common thread among all of these things 
that are being proposed by, in our current economic stimulus 
packages.  Among the top needs, we are going to need many many 
engineers.  We are going to need energy technicians, and just 
by the way, the average age of an energy technician right now 
is 49 years old.  That is the average age.  That means that 
there are many more workers that are near retirement age than 
there are younger workers.  We need welders, we need 
mechanics, computer system technicians.
    
   There are already severe shortages in many of these fields.  
That is where really the opportunities lie.  And I don't want 
to downplay the notion that we are in an economic downturn.  
Things are very difficult for many people finding work these 
days.
    
   But the simple maxim really is if you don't have skills that 
you can bring to a job, you probably won't be able to find 
work, especially in today's climate.  But also, looking 
towards the future, looking to where our economy needs people, 
it is vitally important right now to get the skills necessary 
so you can get in the work force, get that experience, so that 
you will be set not just today, but also further on down the 
road as well.
    
   Also, these jobs present a lot of great opportunities for 
persons that are disabled.  First and foremost, I know that 
there is a lot of people that fear discrimination against 
workers that are disabled.  And for the most part, that has 
been quelled by the simple needs for skilled workers.
    
   It's also been quelled a bit by the fact that two-thirds of 
our accommodations that are necessary for disabled workers, 
they cost less than $500, and a quarter of them cost nothing 
at all.  Simply put, with many of the current workers 
approaching that retirement age, and they are getting up there 
in years, more and more of the existing work force is reaching 
the point where they need these accommodations already.  So 
companies are making that investment, in order to prevent the 
drain, what they call brain drain, or that talent turnover 
from taking place, so they can keep those workers in their 
jobs for longer.
   
   So because of that, we see a situation today where jobs are 
already very accommodating for people of all varieties.  And 
as I allude to before, even before we account for the 
retirees, there is a gap of about 35 million Americans needed 
that have jobs that currently don't. 
   
   With that, the looming retirement, a pool of 50 million 
Americans that have disabilities is going to be a vastly used 
resource for many companies, as they seek to find talent 
wherever they can.  What are some of the high growth 
occupations that we keep talking about?  Healthcare, 
obviously, is always a high need area.  As I have said already 
many times, we are an aging country.
   
   And with that, there are many health needs for nurses, 
mental health counselors, dental hygienists; you name it in 
the healthcare field, there are shortages in there. 
   For education, we have a huge gap, need for elementary and 
post-secondary teachers in particular.  And of course, in 
technology and engineering, things like computer software 
engineers, computer systems analysts, this is a field where 
over the last decade, we have seen a complete stagnation of 
the number of people that have obtained post-secondary degrees 
in some fields, science, technology, engineering and 
mathematics, and because of that, a stagnation really means a 
decline in real terms, because of course our population keeps 
growing.  And then of course, you factor in, as I alluded to 
earlier, the competition abroad, where India and China are 
producing many more scientists, researchers and engineers than 
we are now. 
   
   And for that matter, right now, we are all currently 
importing many people through what is called H1 diseases to 
fill these jobs, but frankly, American companies and the 
American government would much rather prefer those jobs be 
filled by Americans.
   
   Where does CTE fit into all this?  Simply put, CTE trains 
for every one of the high skilled, high need, high skilled 
jobs that are currently in demand.
   
   To highlight a little bit further what I'm talking about, 
where these needs are, because there are many careers in 
automation, in manufacturing industries, that are available to 
Americans, but because of the economic downturn and because of 
basically public relations on the issue, many people are 
veering away from manufacturing in large numbers.
    
   The big question is, is manufacturing down in the U.S.?  
Yeah, but it's not quite as bad as many people would have you 
believe.  We are still the second largest exporter of goods in 
the world.  And over 61 percent of all of our exports are 
manufactured goods.  That is more than double what it was ten 
years ago.
    
   The big question is, if there are still jobs in automation, 
where are they?  As is the case for almost every industry 
these days, there are many fewer unskilled jobs than there 
were before.  You can't -- in the past you could expect to 
either graduate from high school or not graduate from high 
school, go down to your local plant and get a job that pays 
10, 15 dollars an hour and sustain your family.  Those jobs 
are gone.
    
   They are gone due in part to outsources, but due in part to 
technology advanced to the point where computers are doing 
many of the low skilled processes that we used to do.  As old 
assembly lines gave way to automation, the U.S. manufacturing 
sector requires many more skilled workers than we currently 
have.
    
   Specifically what are those job opportunities?  Engineering 
and design are very in high demand.  That is not just, as I 
said before, not just in automation, but throughout the U.S. 
economy.  And just as an important point, nearly 10 percent of 
our current engineering core have disabilities of some 
varieties.
    
   Computer systems analysts are very high demand in the 
automation sector, and these are jobs that are very accessible 
to all Americans, because computers are very, have a lot of 
accessibility options that don't require additional 
accommodation, and because these jobs typically can be done 
remotely.  If you have a hard time leaving the house, if you 
have a hard time getting to plants, you can be in an office 
anywhere and do a lot of this work.
   
   Then sales engineers in particular in the automation field 
are very important.  And when you think of a salesperson, you 
think of someone that is in traditional sales.  But what sales 
engineers do is analyze the specific systems in place in a 
manufacturing plant, and they retrofit, determine what the 
needs are to make that plant run more efficiently.
   
   To take it a step further, get back to CTE, the role of CTE 
in economic work force development is there is a constant back 
and forth between Career Technical Education systems and both 
state or U.S. departments of labor and the industry 
representatives.
    
   They also provide work-based learning opportunities, that 
create a real sense of investment in the student in a career.  
And to be a little more specific about that, I'll give you an 
example.  In New Hampshire, they are currently hosting a great 
competition.  They actually are bringing in Career Technical 
Education students, high school students, to do a competition 
for lunar robotics, basically, how to create robots that will 
be effective for moon landings.
    
   This is something that, we talk about Career Technical 
Education, the images that are conjured about yesterday's 
vocational education, they didn't make robots in yesterday's 
Career Technical Education, and certainly didn't do it for 
zero gravity environments on the moon.
    
   To take it a step further, Career Technical Education has a 
great opportunity to improve performances in core curriculum 
subjects.  There is a great focus on things like reading, math 
and science, and Career Technical Education provides an avenue 
for many students that just, the core curriculum doesn't 
resonate with them as well.  Having that hands-on opportunity 
to work on something in that relevancy, that it answers the 
question, why is this important to me?  Why should I know 
this?
    
   As an example of that, in Kansas City, Missouri, they are 
actually using wind turbines for renewable energy, but also to 
supplement their math and science education curriculum.
   
   Another, as I mentioned earlier, CTE does constantly adapt 
to economic and work force demands.  This is in part because 
it's mandated by law.  It specifically, it says in the federal 
law, the Carl D Perkins Act, that the states and schools have 
to keep amending their programs so that they meet what is 
called high school, high wage and high demand occupations.  
Because of this and because of the high interest in the 
business community in these programs, they are constantly 
being developed and constantly being evolved to meet that 
need.
    
   If you go into a CTE program, chances are very high that you 
will be able to find a career that will be in demand.  You 
won't just be learning something that will be thrown away 
later on, five, ten years down the road.
    
   It also, CTE has also been proven to improve high school 
graduation rates.  And there are many theories about this.  
But simply put, if you look at any survey of students that 
have dropped out of high school, the leading factor on every 
single one of these is that their education is simply not 
relevant to what they want to do in life.
    
   Career Technical Education does a phenomenal job of 
providing that relevancy through those work-based learning 
opportunities and that hands-on learning environment. 
   
   As I mentioned before, the high skilled, high demand, CTE 
provides training for every one of the careers listed under 
the high growth job training initiative, that was set in place 
a couple years ago by President Bush; and of course, enhances 
student engagement in those science, technology and 
engineering and math fields that are going to be the key to 
our future economy.
    
   Let me talk to you a little about the system of Career 
Technical Education, and what is referred to as the career 
cluster.  Nationally, there are 16 different career clusters.  
These clusters lead out to 81 different careers.  The 
offerings will differ a little from state to state and school 
to school.  But, you will generally find some configuration of 
the same clusters and the same career pathways.
    
   These clusters include programs of study that seamlessly 
transition secondary education into post-secondary education.  
And oftentimes these will include concurrent enrollment 
courses which are very important for people, particularly 
where they have a hard time; they look at the rising college 
tuition rates, they look at perhaps their family situations, 
they can't afford to spend four full years in college, or they 
can't afford to pay for four full years in college.  It gives 
these students an opportunity to obtain college credit while 
they are still in high school, and of course, it keeps 
challenging students in a way that they just can't get from a 
normal high school curriculum.
    
   As a concept of these career clusters is, many people are 
familiar with the old vocational education, and how you would 
go and you become a carpenter, you become a plumber.  That is 
all changed today.  Today you would go and instead of becoming 
carpenter or plumber, you probably would go into architecture 
and home-building, where you would obtain the knowledge and 
skills that are necessary not just to become an electrician or 
plumber, but at the secondary education level, you would learn 
everything that you would need to know to go into any of the 
careers within that sector. 
   To put this into practical terms, if you say, okay, today I 
want to be a carpenter, but you decide that as you go through 
the program, and you find you are doing well, you find 
yourself to have an aptitude for science and mathematics and 
maybe physics, maybe you want to become an architect or civil 
engineer instead.  You don't have to go into any remediation 
to do that.  You will be able to transition seamlessly into 
this program to provide you with the options that you need to 
fulfill whatever goals you may have.  One place where this 
really works out well in a community partnership setting, 
Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, has done an outstanding job of 
incorporating the private sector and with their Career 
Technical Education program.
    
   What they have done is more or less turned their school into 
a business enterprise all on its own.  And a lot of their 
programs are self-funded through the programs that are, the 
students run and operate; such as they have their own fully 
functioning bakery, they have their own fully functioning 
restaurant, they have a fully functioning distribution system.  
They have their own agriculture.  They sell all of these 
products through the school, the students work on them.  They 
do from nuts to bolts, of course, through with teacher 
guidance and through job shadowing, mentorship, or externship 
through local companies.  They provide everything needed to 
fully fund for a fully functioning business.
    
   These coalitions between the school and the private sector 
have really put a full decision-making state in the schools, 
in their hands.  And this includes everything from determining 
the curriculum, to personnel decisions even.  Whenever a new 
teacher is hired, they run the candidates through the relevant 
committee that deals with an industry sector.  So if you are 
hiring a new nursing instructor, they will bring in 
representatives from the field to go over the qualifications 
of that candidate.
    
   In exchange for a lot of that control and a lot of that 
correspondence, many of these local businesses have been very 
forthcoming, and providing support, even through those job-
based learning opportunities or through direct financial 
support.  And in fact, this has created a great environment in 
particular for disabled students, because they have been able 
to implement and donate the equipment that they use on the job 
site to the schools, so that they always have the most up to 
date equipment possible.
   
   And what that means particularly for students with 
disabilities is that they are always able to have these 
acceptable accommodations as well.
   
   As a result, the Lehigh County Career Technical Education 
Institute has become really the cornerstone of their economic 
development program.  They found that businesses have 
relocated to Lehigh Valley specifically because of these 
partnerships put in place.  And that small county in eastern 
Pennsylvania is now called Wall Street West, because many of 
the banking and financial sector organizations have put their 
information technology infrastructure in Lehigh Valley instead 
of in New York City.
    
   Now, I want to give a few important notes about Career 
Technical Education, because there are a lot of misconceptions 
out there. First and foremost, CTE is not a separate track for 
your students.  That is very important to know, because in the 
past, where vocational education was, it was looked at as a 
place for those other students, the kids that weren't going to 
go to college, the kids that have maybe disciplinary problems 
or what have you.
    
   Today that is clearly not the case.  We have seen students 
go to Career Technical Education go on to Harvard, go to MIT, 
to Stanford, to Cal Tech, go to some of the most prestigious 
colleges in the world, and don't just stop at a Bachelors 
degree or two-year degree.  They get their doctorate from CTE 
programs.  This is a pathway to post-secondary education, and 
as I alluded to later, CTE students are expected to go to 
post-secondary education of some variety.
    
   That can include the whole spectrum of just getting post-
secondary credentials, and it can also mean going on to get a 
masters or PhD as well.
    
   Also, the great thing about Career Technical Education, it 
has these career that meticulously divide so that adults can 
reenter the system where they need it.  So if they are ready 
to jump in right in to post-secondary education, they can do 
that.  If you need remediation of some variety, you can jump 
in at the secondary education level as well, and just about 
every step along the way.
    
   Particularly as it pertains to students with disabilities, 
there are many advocates that worried since the passage of the 
Carl D. Perkins Act in 2006, that the increased accountability 
and regular demands by the law would result in limited access 
for students with disability.  To that, I would say that I 
would disagree on many accounts.
    
   First of all, I don't believe the students with disabilities 
are any less capable of meeting the rigor and the standards 
that are set by these CTE programs.  I'd also say that it 
would be self-defeating if the program were not meeting the 
standards that are set by both current industry practice and 
the needs of the community.  So there would be no point in 
going into CTE, if it didn't lead to a career that is in high 
demand and is high skilled.
   
   There are many great examples of CTE programs where students 
with disabilities have been thriving even in today's 
environments under Perkins, and Lehigh Valley is one of the 
greatest examples there are.  In particular, their 
distribution facility, they have I think approximately a half 
of their program is skilled with students with disabilities of 
all varieties.  And they are able to accommodate the students 
very well, and they thrive under that environment, 
academically and technically as well. 
   But most of all, I want to say if you have concerns about 
the way the school is treating you, please talk with the 
superintendent, talk with the state CTE officials.  They will 
work with you.  I've worked with these people for many years 
on these issues, and they are very welcoming.  They are very 
trying to accommodate students with disabilities.  If they 
understand, they are vitally important.  It's the nation -- 
even in today's economy, if you have skills, you will have the 
higher, much higher chance of finding employment than someone 
that does not have skills.  Simply put, the low skilled jobs 
are just being phased out.  You will not be able to find a job 
that will sustain you and sustain your family, if you do not 
have some kind of post-secondary education.
   
   And Career Technical Education is a fabulous way to obtain 
those skills necessary.  Even if you don't go on to post-
secondary education, you can get a CTE credential that will 
put you in a career where your earnings will be high and you 
will be in demand.
    
   There are some resources I have attached here, just for more 
information on Career Technical Education.  National Career 
Pathways Network, Association for Career Technical Education 
and National Association of State Directors for Career 
Technical Education all provide some great background 
information for you, if you want to look deeper into what the 
CTE programs have to offer.  In particular, if you need to get 
in contact with someone at a higher up, they have contact 
information at the state director's Website, that's at 
careertech.org.
    
   And if you need particular information on a school or state 
CTE system, I would go to the ACTE Website for that 
information as well.
    
   Our own Website provides a lot of resources for you on 
disabled workers.  That's at uschamber.com/icw.  To find out 
more information about that CTE robotics I referred to earlier 
in my presentation, there is a link to the Popular Mechanics 
article below.
   
   Finally, there is a great article, why disabled techies 
rock, at money.cnn.com, did a great article last year about 
the proliferation and how disabled people in technical, in 
information technology careers, have really thrived. 
   Then also there is some information available for scientists 
and engineers with disabilities.
    
   If you need my contact information, you can find me at 
Domenic@uschamber.com.  And again all of it is on 
www.uschamber.com/icw.
   
   Thank you very much.  I appreciate the opportunity to come 
here and speak with you today.  I'm open to your questions, if 
you have any.  And I will be happy to respond.
 
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